GREEN BLOCKS


 
Abstract:
the Green Blocks were originally developed as a new housing prototype for a design competition, and later submitted to the 2011 Edmonton Urban Design Awards, for which it won a civic design award. 

Design Intent
The Green Block is a modest building with a big purpose -  to fill in the blanks of urban decay and help grow cities toward cleaner, greener pastures. With an easy design that squares with the common grid and fits many sites, it can be considered as a better sort of 'green-peg' to the many 'square holes' of the generic city and delivers the individual and collective ingredients of a healthier future.
Effectively a new type of multi-level town-house, the Block provides a mix of dwelling options that include generous doses of green space and combines these with communal areas for play, gathering, urban agriculture, and spaces for local business' to take hold with residents and neighbours. Thus merging a diversity of life-style options with a diversity of shared functions and services, it supports the creation of a wider, more sustainable community that connects to the city through a robust design that can slot into small infill sites, populate larger city blocks, and always maintain a connection to the street (the vital root of any urban society). Intended to 'fit-in' in this way, the Block is not cast as the star of another green revolution, but rather, favours a supporting role toward urban revitalization, setting current ideas and technologies into a regular practice that achieves sustainability collectively, one block at a time...
As a general prototype, the Green Block is suitable for adaptation to many regions of the world, but the design as presented here is intended for a North American culture and climate (specifically the polar and temperate regions of the continent). Ideally, more Blocks could equate to more individuals and families favoring downtowns to suburbs and sprawl. With lots of living space, outdoor space, personal privacy, and space for cars, they offer many 'suburban' advantages but with the urban advantage of a compact city address that trades less distance and energy traveling about for more time toward a life and community that`s closer to home. 

Block Basics:
The basic Block as shown includes 8 town homes above, a place 8 cars below, and commercial spaces in-between at street level where residents and neighbours can meet by just going about their business. This arrangement (that reduces the presence of cars) provides more room and opportunity to walk, bike, or take public transit, while still maintaining a strong North American preference for car ownership.
The primary shell of the Block consists of an inner concrete frame covered with an exterior building envelope. For its part, the concrete (columns, slabs, beams etc.) is chosen for its durability, recyclability, fire resistance and thermal mass. And the envelope (which includes curtain walls and insulated membrane systems) is used to cover and protect the concrete; limiting the effects of thermal bridging and the damaging effects of expansion and contraction caused by the large temperature fluctuations between summer and winter. Within the various suites, wood frame partitioning and construction is used to ensure the adaptable components and materials of the building are renewable.
With this general design and construction the Block maintains the sort of 'life-style independence' North Americans are used to while also emphasizing  a more public street life, and greater levels of efficiency, durability and flexibility in building performance.












Block in Context:                               
                                                                                  
Edmonton Alberta, Canada.
Edmonton, Alberta, a large northern city characterized by steep climatic variations (that range from +30 0C to -30 0C) and the sort of decay familiar to many American cities, provides a useful example to demonstrate the restorative potential of the Blocks. Like many cities, Edmonton has suffered the effects of a de-centralized automobile society, suburban sprawl and mono-functional zoning; all of which have diluted its core to the point where most people use it only as a place to park their cars between the cyclical home-work commute. Dozens of empty lots beckon what should be a vital downtown, but so far the City has lacked the proper amount of design and planning needed to attract the diverse public that could really bring it to life.
To address this, what the Green Block provides is a way to incrementally build back community through a mixed-use building type that promotes a diversity of lifestyles and business' wherever it's placed. By setting homes over commercial spaces that align with the existing street layouts, and then combining these with urban farms, markets, and views to the city beyond - the Blocks effectively merge with their environment while bringing more to it. While seamlessly adding new commercial space to existing, they also provide more residents who contribute as either consumers, sellers, or creative producers within the various urban farms, markets and new shops. 


 Block Technology:

Double Envelope & Green Room
view into a green room
An important feature of the Block is the 'green room,' which is essentially an intermediate climate zone created by a secondary glazed envelope placed over the exterior balconies. Using a curtain wall with operable vents this envelope slows the rate of summer heat gains and winter heat losses to and from the building, while also providing a semi-outdoor space to grow plants and vegetables beyond the regular seasons. Additionally, it operates as an effective sound barrier to the outside, providing added quite and privacy from the city streets beyond.
Water System
To conserve our most precious resource, the water system makes use of rain and grey water. One central grey water system captures water from both the roofs and from the various sinks, bath and laundry sources, and then stores, recycles, and re-circulates this for use toward the many green room and garden spaces. At a smaller scale within the unit bathrooms, sink grey-water is directly harvested for use toward toilet flush-water (separating this system from the larger one is intended to simplify plumbing requirements and maintenance).



Block Plans:
interior view
The overall purpose of the plans is to blend simplicity with variety - stacking cars, commerce and homes into a pattern that of self-sufficiency that's easy to replicate. The size and order of the plans initiate from the underground parking structure, from which all levels build up...
With this example, the lower floors are reserved for speculative commercial spaces that share access with a central corridor and scissor stairway that provide the required exiting for the levels above. While opportunities vary, it is intended these spaces could be used by local business owners who'd cultivate their own brands of creative service to the community.
The housing units above are essentially a type of multi-level town-house, accessed by a central core. This organization allows the advantages of a private home (personal entry to suites, natural cross-ventilation, east-west [or north-south] day-lighting, garden space, etc.) and also allows for higher densities and improved efficiencies over conventional town-homes; as the units can stack over each other reducing surface areas and related heat loss. In all, this example showcases seven different house types that range from small one-bedroom units and up to large four-bedroom 2 storey units complete with terraced gardens big enough for family barbecues.












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