All of us at Design4D wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year!

In lieu of sending Christmas cards we have made a donation to the Oxfam East Africa Famine Fund.

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At Design4D we design with consideration of the fourth dimension. Why? and what does this mean?

Three dimensions describes an object by its x, y and z co-ordinates. In physics the fourth dimension combines three dimensions with a dimension of time to create spacetime. This concept of spacetime was important in the realisation of Einstein's special theory of relativity. Shifts in scientific thinking have always affected art as artists look to explore new ideas. Some of these explorations depict visual representations of the fourth dimension such as the tesseract or the mobius strip which in turn architect's have realised into literal built form.

As a student I was less interested in the physical articulation of spacetime but more in the potential of this fourth dimension of time within the design process. I began to explore time based media such as kinetic artwork and film. I found film captured movement of light, human narratives and spatial experiences better than the frozen two dimensional image or the rotated three dimensional sculpture. The concept of human narrative began to play a stronger role in my work as I looked to explore intangible time based ideas about creativity, community, sense of place and memory. These are ideas critical to a stable and harmonious civilisation the more our population expands and lives in closer proximity. There are no fixed rules as to how you explore and guarantee these important aspects of architecture are fulfilled but at Design4D we have formulated a framework called the Chronetik process. This process enables us to test how our schemes have considered more than just the social, environmental and economic aspects that the triple bottom line of business dictates.

Big Society, community, civilisation, call it what you will, but we believe that as our population expands the role of the architect will be key in achieving these social goals through consideration of the fourth dimension in architecture.

Visual representation of the fourth dimension

Last week I watched 'The Human Planet' an amazing TV series documenting how the human species is the only animal to have carved out a life in every habitat on earth. The series reminded me of a book that had a big effect on my own design process titled 'The Naked Ape'. Published in 1967 the book was radical in its day for its zoological analysis of humans. It was the first time I had thought of humans as just another animal on the planet with the book describing how much of our 'civilised' life is constructed to relieve our most primeval instincts.

One of the main roles of architects in society is to enable the rapidly growing human population to live in closer proximity, something that is not necessarily 'natural' to our species. So while functionally an architect must come up with clever solutions to draw light and air deeper into denser living environments there is also an element of joy, spirit or soul which much be uplifted to enhance the monotony of life in the concrete jungle.

The current serious flooding in Australia and Brazil has highlighted the
dangers of building on flood risk land in order to house our ever increasing
population. With increases in temperature it is likely we are going to see
further extremes in weather and more flooding in the future. How are we to
prevent further disasters from occurring?

Design4D's Waterscape City scheme was a response to this issue, proposing a
network of canals be used to 'perforate' the land. Reedbed systems adjacent
to the canals would assist the wastewater treatment process and accommodate
changes in water levels. Roofs were planted to help buffer and absorb heavy
rainfall and all road and pavement surfaces were permeable to allow natural
even drainage. The canal systems provided low energy transportation networks
and, as is proven in places like 'Little Venice', would result in a
significant uplift in property prices as people pay a premium to live by the
water. 
 

Design4D's waterscape City Proposal

UHI or Urban Heat Island effect will have growing significance in the design of our cities as populations rise and temperatures increase.

To reduce UHI we need planted roofs and balconies to help provide a thermal buffer during hot weather but to also act as natural air conditioning units for the external environment. Plants help filter the air and absorb heat energy through the process of evapo-transpiration which itself creates a cooling effect. Orientation of uses need to also be considered. Offices generate excess heat and generally need air conditioning which is very energy intensive and costly. Our mixed use Creekside Arcade project situated the office accommodation to the North storing excess heat in a flood control labyrinth for use at night in the South facing residential units.

Good design is generally just common sense which raises the question why are we still building sealed, air-conditioned vertical glass skyscrapers which are going to cost huge amounts of money and carbon to run in the future?

Thermal heat pump strategy using thermal mass of flood tank labyrinth

Thank you for all your support this year! 2011 looks set to be even more exciting!

Here's a link to our Design4D festive quiz if you're one of the 550million people on Facebook!

Design4D Festive Quiz: http://apps.facebook.com/desigdfcbaffc/3/default.aspx?retake=1

Happy holidays and a have a great new year!

The link below is to an interesting article which looks at the impact of social networks by 2015. Is technology an enabler or an alienator or both? How can modern supermarkets trigger community connections and relationships that the local butcher, baker, post office, chemist and pub once organically enabled? The human race has an amazing ability to adapt and survive in almost any surroundings but what are the financial costs to the State of a society that has no community?

I sat on a design review panel last week where we were presented with a council masterplan that despite its scale had no sense of place, public facilities or adequate open space for play. While density targets need to be acheived and a site's value maximised aspects of community mustn't be forgotten if a masterplan is to be truly sustainable

http://pulsene.ws/y3YH

As we strive to seal up our buildings to meet carbon reduction targets the health implications of materials specified are going to have far greater significance. It is amazing how materials such as PVC and MDF were only invented relatively recently in 1926 and 1960 and yet already there are moves to reduce or eliminate high-VOC materials (Volatile Organic Compounds) in buildings. Asbestos removal is a huge cost to the construction industry and yet this material was also at one point used in numerous building products.

Scientists are looking to nature for low-VOC solutions. One example is a soya protein which has been modified to mimic the sticky proteins produced by blue mussels as an alternative to the formaldehyde glue in plywood and MDF. As you can see in the link below, the product is commercially available, but like an alternative to PVC we recently discovered, has to be imported from the States! It would be good to see the UK, with its declining manufacturing industry, providing local material solutions to the issues that BREEAM, SKA, Code for sustainable Homes, Passivhouse, LEED, etc are all beginning to raise.

http://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/PureBond.aspx

Blue Mussel Glue!

We were asked to consult on one of these projection adverts which unfortunately never went ahead in the end. Throughout history the functional facades of buildings have been decorated with stories to be passed down through generations. Film projection is a digital integration of narrative and architecture but it raises an interesting question as to what role ornament/decoration plays in architecture today?

I was invited today to assist in the UK government's efforts to define 'Zero-carbon' which will set the parameters for future housing design tools. Zero Carbon Housing looks as though it will be defined as a 70% carbon reduction on-site (carbon compliance) and 30% carbon reduction off-site (allowable solutions) in order to reduce the financial impact on the developer. I'm not necessarily against this approach assuming the 30% off-site generation comes from renewable sources. What does concern me is that we are still defining zero-carbon when the deadline of 2016 is rapidly approaching. If solar technology improves in the way computer technology has done then I think the 70-30% debate will be a bit arbitrary. Also the data used assumed that future housing would not all be orientated North-South as our Shell House scheme proposes which raises the question why not?

Zero-carbon housing is a huge challenge but also a great opportunity for architects to show that new construction methods and building typologies will provide cheaper solutions then just bolting on another layer of complexity to keep our existing housing models alive.

Design4D's Shell House scheme