A circular home; investigating tools for resilient architecture
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Architecture and urban design (MPARC), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Richardson, Sandra
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Our society has urgent challenges with
water supply, food production and electricity
availability, due to environmental issues
and wars. Architects can contribute more
conscious to all these fields by letting our
architectural tools be based on nature’s
resources and its conditions. By considering
one of the main tasks of architecture, keeping
us warm, already in the sketch phase the
buildings get less dependent on mechanical
systems, and by seeing water and food more
as circular systems our architecture becomes
more resilient.
To get background knowledge, literature and
built references was studied. The knowledge
was then translated to design strategies,
to act as a toolbox in the design phase. As
a complement to the design strategies,
references have been studied and a building
program was created, that also inspires and
imposes demands on the building. The result
is a prototype house for one family, which
in this case was tested on a plot outside
Gothenburg. A detailed sun study was carried
out for the site as it impacts several design
principles.
In the proposal, rooms are placed according
to the time of day they are used and
temperature requirements for each room in
relation to the sun movement. The common
spaces are allowed to expand and shrink
while need and season changes, further the
user can experience different zones within
the home, ranging from colder rooms to
different greenhouse zones, thus blurring the
boundaries between outside and inside. The
house is designed with solid materials such
as wood and brick, and through its thoughtful
placement, they contribute to the heating
of the house as well as the architectural
expression. The tricky part is to do precalculation
of how it impacts the indoor
climate when trusting nature.
If there were more time, an investigation
of putting several units together would
have been interesting. The tools can be
implemented on a larger scale than a singlefamily
house, thus contribute to a more
sustainable construction sector with resilient
architecture
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Climatic architecture, design tools, crisis preparedness