More eco friendly buildings…

Thanks to Treehugger for pointing me towards this recent article in Wired about a new eco friendly design for an apartment block in Chicago’s Hyde Park, designed by Studio Gang’s Joanna Gang.

Anyone who’s been to Chicago in mid-summer or mid-winter must wonder what people were thinking, building a city there. It roasts in summer and the wind coming off Lake Michigan in the winter is insane. At these extreme temperatures, it can take a lot of energy to keep a building habitable.

That’s why the idea of this building is so simple; to use the angle of the windows to maximise shade in summer when the sun is high in the sky, as well as making the most of heat from the sun during Chicago’s cold winters when the sun is much lower.

Modelling it on a computer, they found the perfect angle for sunlight in Chicago… 71 degrees, which creates that zig-zag effect at the building’s south face.

What a great, simple idea.

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This entry was written by Nigel and posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 10:00 pm and filed under Saving energy, Eco build. Bookmark the permalink. You can follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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