Appendix

Literacy and education are highly valued by us. We’d like to share that enthusiasm with you by helping you understand what we mean when we use archi-speak. There are a lot of words being thrown around in the world today. In an ever increasing challenge to meet simple clarity here is an appendix to demystify, educate, and correct commonly misunderstood architectural jargon.

Sustainable

The meaning behind this word is looking at a holistic construction process, from how individual components are created, what they are made from, how they can be optimized, reused, or recycled, life-cycle-costing, and the cost of a building for it’s lifetime rather than singularly focusing on upfront costs alone. And largely mitigating construction waste management.

Use of local Materials, adaptive re-use, day lighting, renewable resources, eliminating toxins, and simply having a plan to focus on delivering a quality, long lasting building.

Green

Building Green or going Green is synonymous to sustainability and has metrics that understand a buildings energy use, water use, indoor environmental quality, material section and the building's ecological effects on its site. These factors are considered from the very beginning in programming and design phases to the end result of operations or use of the building.

Passive House

A building energy efficiency standard which aims to lower the entire ecological footprint of a building. Principles include super insulation, air-tightness, passive solar, passive heating, collection of renewable energies (such as photo voltaic, wind, and geothermal, to name a few) and other bio-climatic responses resulting in architecture unique to the local environment and collection of renewable energies. This strategy drastically lowers the energy usages that requires little to none mechanical intervention for human comfort.

Through practice, research, and data collection; we’ve found that practicing passive house standards and going for certification only raises the initial cost of construction marginally. only up to 3% of the building costs. While the return on investment pays for itself quicker through renewables and energy savings.

Vernacular

The history of built language associated with a region or place. Often depicting concerns and responses to the environment prior to industrialization and mechanization. Examples are the Cape Cod houses along the north east shore, the southwestern adobes, the Midwest prairie ranch homes, and the cozy cabins of the western mountains. Not all building forms are appropriate for the various climates due to certain climatic issues and passive strategies.

Netzero Buildings

The entire usage of building energy is equally gained or more by the buildings on site renewable energies. Many sustainable, green, and passive house techniques are used to achieve this quality of building.

Commissioning

Getting your equipment commissioned after installation by a 3rd party is essential to optimizing performance. These certified tradesmen will test out your new HVAC/Electrical Systems, to ensure that they are up and running 100% before you move in. A minimal expense to ensure your expensive equipment is as finely tune as you hoped for.

Passive Design Strategies or Bio-regional Design Strategies

The goal of passive design strategies are to heat, cool, and create comfort without energy using equipment to temper the atmosphere. Are tactics for dealing with the variety of environments using building forms, landscapes, and vegetation, or other architectural features to provide quality comfort to people. Each climate requires a different tactic for dealing with Sun, Wind, Light, and Temperature. Cold climates want to gain more heat from the sun while arid climates ought to shield as much as possible, with a way of introducing additional humidity such as a courtyard fountain.

There are strategies for every use and scale of building; these aren’t just residential practices, towers too can be shaped in response to climate and comfort.