UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
	ARCH 553  Comprehensive Design Studio Haglund Fall 2006

Toward a Carbon Neutral Future: McCall Field Campus

This project is undertaken in response to Ed Mazria's challenge to the architecture profession to produce carbon neutral buildings by 2030. His case is well-articulated on his web site www.architecture2030.com. Both the AIA and the Association of US Mayors have endorsed Mazria's challenge. Mazria reckons that each year in the U.S. we tear down about 1.75 billion square feet; renovate 5 billion, and build 5 billion. Therefore, in 30 years 300 billion square feet will be renovated or built new; about 75% of the built environment. If this is accomplished with carbon in mind, global warming can be controlled. 

Our studio will be one of the first in the country to take up Mazria's challenge. In the recently released AIA COTE report Ecology and Design, when asked by students to recommend a place to study green architecture, Randy Croxton FAIA noted, "I can only give partial recommendations since the progress that has been made is usually in partial content of the main design studio, or more likely, a separate course or activity. Until there are faculty who have fully integrated sustainability as a central design value, an inherent dimension of design excellence in the design studio, there will be no good answer to this request." 

August 31, 2006. "Yesterday in California, Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders reached historic agreement on a bill that will place tough controls on that state's global warming pollution, with the ambitious goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent.

"It's a spark that could ignite a nationwide chain reaction. With the Bush Administration still stuck in do-nothing mode on global warming, dozens of states have been looking to California to lead the way in combating the greatest environmental threat of our time.

"And California has delivered big time. The California Global Warming Solutions Act will impose new controls on utilities, oil refineries, and other major global warming polluters, with the ambitious goal of rolling back the state's emissions to 1990 levels." 

—Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council

Our project site is the proposed expansion of the UI field campus near McCall, which has a sustainability agenda. Our goal is to meet or exceed this goal and to work toward carbon neutrality.

Project Program Materials

A wealth of graphic information on the project is available on the download drive for Arch 553. You also have access to the following printed matter:

• Proposed Future Direction for the McCall Field Campus 
• Facilities - needs, strategy, and designs
• Ponderosa Institute Case Statement and Business Plan
• McCall Field Campus Powerpoint (4-up PDF)

Students will accomplish a comprehensive design project in two phases: 

• Collective Research and Planning Phase (8 weeks) 
  Midterm Presentations
• Individual Comprehensive Design Phase (7 weeks). 
  Final Presentations

Collective Research and Planning Requirements

Synoptic View

"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."  (Henry David Thoreau). 

 Increasingly, designers are engaged in projects that transcend the specificity of the projects themselves in their impact.  We are becoming progressively more aware of the mutual global, cultural, economic, environmental, and technological impacts of and on our design and planning decisions. We are also gaining perspective and momentum as we respond to the complexity inherent in real design scenarios.  This complexity demands that we become intentional in our interdisciplinary pursuits as we approach a design problem, define and articulate it, explore its depths and expanses, and envision alternative solutions.  Through this engagement with a problem, care must be taken not to become hindered by boundaries of disciplinary knowledge and expertise, but rather allow the freedom of exploration to emerge from an integrated open systems approach; conceptualizing the work of the team as a whole as an eco-system, where boundaries become blurred, interdependencies abound, and a dynamic and flexible reconfiguration of roles occur. 

Of particular interest at this point of time are issues dealing with our sense of place, place identity, security, access, sustainability, and participation. This semester we will explore ways to create places that enrich the soul and imagination while simultaneously solving real design problems, be cognizant of regenerative design schemes, and employ an interdisciplinary perspective to address contemporary societal concerns.  At this point of your academic journey, you have acquired skills and perspective that will assist you in lending expertise to and learning from an interdisciplinary conversation.  

This phase simulates the work of an integrated practice where architects, interior designers, and landscape architects and their clients and consultants initiate a project and develop its master plan. We'll work with Steve Drown's LArch459 students and Rula Awwad-Rafferty's ID451 students as well as with our client group and carbon-neutral collaborators. 

Each student will have the opportunity to present her/his research to the group and will be required to provide three hard copies, one for each studio. The research reports should include photo credits, references, and sources of further information. Two to five pages are expected. The Druk White Lotus School case study draft is a pertinent example.

Comprehensive Design Requirements

Comprehensive design seeks to integrate all major building systems. A successful project will have well-developed and well-integrated schemes for:

Carbon Neutral Design Requirements

What is your carbon emissions intent for this project? How do you define success relative to this intent? What evidence that this intent has been successfully met can be found in this project? 

Show how your project meets Mazria's requirements in all phases of the construction process.

Final Presentation Guidelines

The final critique will allow for 20-minute presentations of each individual project. Each designer may choose any combination of media appropriate to her/his project, anything from water colors to physical models, to digital media.

Presentations must address the systems listed above and demonstrate their integration and achievement of carbon emission reduction. A CD containing the final presentation (if digital—ppt or html) and images of all drawings, models, and other materials in jpg or pdf format must be turned in by Dec 14.

Last Updated on 11/28/06 by Bruce