This portable classroom is designed to provide an optimized educational environment for students and teachers while advancing sustainable design principles. The classroom maximally conserves as well as collects and generates natural resources, including electrical energy, daylight, wind energy, and rainwater. As well as being strong, efficient and conserving, natural forces and resources are highlighted and exposed throughout the structure, and all systems and performance criteria are monitored and broadcast to the web. The building acts as a learning tool for occupants, other schools and the general public.

Design Overview:
The design optimizes photovoltaic roof surface orientation, naturally shaded north-facing daylight glazing, and modulated natural ventilation. All of these forces are balanced with the additional criteria of manufacturing and transport efficiency, functionality for classroom use, low operating costs and ease of maintenance. The manufacturing and delivery process, and the materials and products employed are all selected for minimum environmental impact and for maximum contribution to a healthy indoor environment. Wherever possible, materials are chosen to conserve resources, minimize initial and lifecycle maintenance costs, and to promote educational awareness of the natural environment and its relationship to comfortable and healthy living.

The design focuses on performance issues directly impacting the learning experience of its occupants and the environmental quality of its community—thermal comfort, natural daylighting, indoor air quality, energy and resource conservation and generation.

Materials and Peformance:
The building is prefabricated in either two or three easily transportable modules, reducing initial cost and energy, and facilitating ease of transport and reuse in the future, minimizing waste. A steel frame and steel and rigid foam sandwich panel floor and roof system minimize material use; maximize insulation and heat reflection; and deter pests and mold in the cavity-free structure. A simple, double wall metal cladding, along with metal roofing shaded by solar panels above a 3” ventilated airspace, creates a ventilated double skin greatly reducing heat gain. All glazing is operable and north facing and/or shaded to prevent direct sunlight, and to optimize natural ventilation and comfortable airflow. Interior surfaces are low VOC products. Exposed beams are FSC certified parallams, with exposed structural steel tracing primary structural forces. Interior walls are naturally finished recycled rice straw panels.

Daylighting analysis indicates that excellent work light levels are achieved throughout the typical school day in most locations without electric lighting. Thermal comfort analysis indicates the classroom will be comfortable in most high heat climates without air conditioning, although an efficient mechanical air conditioning system is planned as an option for school sites where air quality, or noise conditions preclude natural ventilation.

Wuhan Blue Sky Prototype seeks to provide a highly rationalized steel construction system that is cost effective; appropriate to the current site, program, and project partner production facilities; and readily adaptable to future diverse sites, programs and environmental conditions. With Living Steel’s coordination, the Blue Sky Prototype architects have met with representatives of Bao Steel and SBS Engineering Construction Company, and have visited the project site, neighboring SBS construction sites, and the SBS fabrication facilities in Wuhan where portions of the project will be prefabricated. As the primary engineering and construction collaborators with whom the next stages of the project will be developed, the Blue Sky Protoptype has been designed for practical application of the current research interests and production capabilities of SBS. The architects have pursued further housing and building code research with local architects and engineers and have developed the construction system, site and building design in coordination with both current codes and with some expansions of current code objectives based on local industry explanations of new national initiatives for housing innovation, land conservation, and affordability. Based on these national objectives, the Blue Sky Prototype challenges a number of current residential building norms and pushes certain code prescriptions based on the proposal of alternative approaches that will meet or exceed current safety, health and life quality code objectives; further meet new national objectives for affordability, increased density and land conservation; and further create a much higher level of life quality and long term sustainability. The design makes only minor deviations from fundamental building codes with clear offsetting rationale. For example, as a demonstration project innovation, the proposed 12 story building configuration achieves greater life-safety and circulation convenience than is provided in code-category maximum 11 story buildings; and achieves increased dwelling density, improved sunlight orientation, increased public and private open space and ventilation; and still reduces total land coverage and distance between buildings without shading adjacent dwellings. However, the design will function equally well with the removal of the twelfth story for this prototype if that is required. The primary quality of the Blue Sky proposal is not so much in the precise form and space of its configuration for this site, but instead in the broad adaptability that this system provides for efficient design modification for this and future projects without altering the fundamental building components or detail engineering which can be continuously developed and refined in parallel with larger scale planning and program changes.

The fundamental building block of this system is a modular moment frame box assembly that can be easily stacked at full building height without temporary bracing or scaffolding, before in-fill beams are placed and floor slabs are cast. This construction sequence allows for extremely rapid, precise erection, with immediate working floor space providing safety and efficiency at each step in the building process. Each of these modules is designed to be prefabricated offsite for optimum efficiency and quality assurance, and is sized to match the international standard high cube shipping container dimensions. This regularity is central to the concept of factory quality; seamless transportation options within standardized truck, rail and overseas shipping systems; and the inventory and job site advantages of just-in time manufacture, uniform production scheduling and the ability to serve distant as well as local markets in order to maintain production line efficiency and sustainable job stability for the factory workers. This basic module is designed to incorporate all of the more complex building systems that will be most effectively produced in a controlled factory environment. For example, the moment frame module contains all critical structural welds. In-fill beams spanning between the modular moment frame towers require only bolted connections with no field welding. There is substantially improved cost and schedule efficiency as well as increased quality assurance just within this innovative modular framing system, using only the existing SBS production facilities. This efficiency can be greatly expanded for this or for future buildings if the factory production is expanded to include additional prefabrication bundled into this core module. All plumbing, mechanical systems, electrical sub-panels and dwelling unit stairs are designed to occur within the basic moment frame modules. This affords the opportunity for factory fabricating most of the complex building tasks and minimizing on site work, resulting in very rapid construction at greatly reduced costs, and introducing a highly competitive, easily transportable construction product capitalizing on local excess capacity for steel production and fabrication.

The basic moment frame module is adaptable for a range of conditions within efficient production limits, but unlike most modular systems, this core component does not require standardization or system limitation on the larger bulk of the building infill, which can be developed with great design flexibility, since the most complex construction issues are efficiently contained in the base module. In addition to the base module that defines the bulk of the building volume for both residential and ground level commercial and public space, the Blue Sky Prototype system provides an additional kit of parts that delivers specialized green technology capabilities along with a distinctive and inspiring thread of spatial experiences within the public and community circulation and social spaces. This secondary kit of parts is based on spherical geometric volumes framed with rolled hollow tube steel structure in-filled with a calligraphic steel rod screen of varying densities created by overlapped windings of steel rod efficiently produced using standard cad-cam rebar bending and spot-welding machinery. This distinctive thread of lacy spatial definition serves multiple purposes as it weaves through the public spaces of the buildings. Its primary function is as a fine-grain modulator of light, wind velocity and privacy as a seemingly light and fluttering screen wall embedded across the deep ventilation corridors of the south façade. While the overall form of the building does most of the solar screening and wind channeling, the screen wall is an essential tool for optimizing the varied shading and wind screening needs that analytical software identifies at each point and elevation in the building. This varied porosity of the steel rod

All aspects of the project design are intended to facilitate a healthy, sustainable and joyful open-air life of “streets” and public gardens in the sky. The “streets” occur at every other floor in the building, providing great efficiency and facilitating social interaction. The building is highly porous and is designed to provide abundant air and light at all sides of each dwelling unit, and to make for pleasant travel and accommodation throughout the building. The residential tower is integrated with the surrounding site with strong spatial, environmental, and social connections that work to weave the building into the life of the surrounding community.

This high-density urban housing landscape is designed as an environmental sponge absorbing climatic impacts and slowly filtering the captured water and energy back into their natural and human eco-systems as useful nutrients. The site itself reaches out through the park to create an alluvial delta comb recapturing passing river sediment to slowly replenish and build the high ground and its natural waterfront life, much as the natural delta, bayous and barrier islands originally functioned. These sponge-like delta fingers then reach back and up to form the housing blocks themselves, which in turn also function as absorptive, living tissue in the larger landscape. For example, rainwater captured on the building roofs is trickled down through the organic siding system, watering the plants and filtering the excess, which is then stored in larger rain barrel tanks distributed throughout the block. Excess water storage capacity will then be available for a large area of the city in future emergencies, and storm sewers are not overloaded during more typical rain conditions.

The project will be fabricated almost entirely off-site using a hybrid, steel-frame/structural insulated panel system using no internal cavities and no water absorptive construction materials. The individual building units will be efficiently manufactured in three road-legal halves per typical two or three-bedroom flat and then stacked by crane as complete housing units on top of prefabricated, ground level retail and service cores built of water and termite resistant composite concrete panels. Earth excavated for building foundations is redistributed as water absorptive landscape berms creating a unified outdoor common space flowing upward from the river bank, through the public park and integrating into the geometry and eco-system of the individual house blocks. Earth cut and fill is balanced in order to minimize cost, energy expenditure and existing community disruption, while simultaneously enhancing the rich symbolism of a community rooted in the riverine ebb and flow of the local earth, water and weather cycles. Dwelling units share a common geometric order defined by the local urban street grid and housing typologies merging with the delta webbing of earth and water at the riverbank. Within the regular grid, the slightly sliding, rising and falling house positions create a readably syncopated rhythm, allowing the gardens and open space to shrink and swell across the roofs, creating variously sized and shaded outdoor gardening, dining and play areas. Market rate dwelling units will be largely pre-assembled with finished interiors, while below-market units will offer self-build options that incorporate homeowner and volunteer labor at both the factory and on-site construction stages. Self-build and volunteer labor construction process variations will accommodate differential cost structures, rather than overt distinctions in unit size, placement or quality. Within a highly democratic common building language, a wide range of residential, retail, community gathering and child-care spaces are included in the site planning and distribution of system modules, resulting in architectural, economic and social diversity intertwining across the well-integrated site. Community vegetable gardens, picnic and play areas weave as continuously linked walkways and platforms winding among the buildings above the parking level below, both defining internal community areas and flowing outward to the street edge as densely vegetated corridors of air and skylight, welcoming integration with the life and spatial massing of the larger neighborhood.

Primary design emphasis is placed on high-quality urban community life, applying a highly economical, energy-efficient, fair-wage manufacturing and construction process accompanied by sustainable land use patterns, siting optimized for solar and natural wind flow ventilation access and control; healthy, green-technology materials; and low energy-consumption mechanical and filtration systems. The building grain follows the typical street front building rhythm in the neighborhood and is organized to optimize day lighting, ventilation and outdoor access to all living units, offering air on all four sides of every unit as well as shade-protected outdoor living and play spaces. Primary building faces are composed of generous balconies or sunrooms intended to enliven all street and community garden facades with active, populated and densely planted outdoor living areas that also shade the public sidewalks and protects them from rain, as is a traditional New Orleans street pattern. The configuration of the housing blocks step down and adjust to the neighboring buildings, and step back at street level to activate street frontage with outdoor cafes, retail, bus stops, and pedestrian traffic. The site is conceived as a dense urban landscape block, porous to light and air at the residential levels, and carved out at the ground level to provide a dense parking area largely invisible to the surrounding streets and residents above, yet highly cost-effective as on-grade construction without expensive ramps and structure. The building itself is detailed as a simple, rational frame armature bringing the peopled life of shops, homes, trees, and hanging gardens into the forefront as a primary image of the site, with all building skins composed of louvered shutters made of growing tubes that absorb and slowly filter rainwater from the roofs back down to rain barrel storage containers while nurturing dense wall plantings along the way.

Underground and grade-level environmental systems will be placed as entirely pre-fabricated utility vaults with primary plumbing and mechanical systems already integrated at the factory. Ground level retail/restaurant, mechanical/utility and parking areas will be swung into place as water and rot resistant pre-fabricated steel/concrete composite panels similar to tilt-up construction. Parking is effectively offered, while car share, bicycle parking, and commercial storefront areas adjacent to city bus stops all encourage positive, car-free urban life. At the same time, primary street frontage accommodates urban parallel parking and storefront commercial space to accommodate existing community traffic logic and maximize friendly retail, residential and community center use at the street level.

Residential units will arrive as pre-assembled and pre-finished living units delivered as components similar to the arrival of two-piece, doublewide trailer units, and lifted into place by crane. The entire manufacturing and pre-fabrication process can be completed off-site within a 5-month, just-in-time delivery framework, overlapping with a total 3-month on-site construction period, minimizing costs, speeding housing delivery, and minimizing neighborhood disruption. The rationalized, componentized manufacturing, delivery and erection process provides tremendous cost-savings and reductions in urban disruption and site pollution. The building materials are high-recycled-content concrete, steel, and recycled wood—inert, healthy and free of off-gassing chemical products. Surfaces are hard and robust concrete, plantation hardwoods, and cement plaster on composite cement board—there are no absorptive, closed cavity insulation or drywall products. The building is organized and detailed to provide maximum daylight and airflow to each unit, and all primary community spaces, stairways and balconies are open air. All rooftops are designed for maximum photovoltaic energy production or for community and private garden spaces, and all roofs collect and filter rainwater for use as non-potable household water. Household gray-water will be filtered and recycled as garden irrigation. Black water and grade-level storm water will both be pre-filtered and partially treated prior to release into the respective city systems, in order to minimize the impact of increased density on existing city services. The intention of the site planning and building systems construction is to minimize adverse impacts on the delicate local urban and natural ecosystems, while offering latent absorptive capacity, internal self-sustainability, and reserve public emergency capacity for the surrounding community during extraordinary storm conditions. The exposed steel frames with prominent cross-bracing and active shutters functions both physically and symbolically as reassuring resistance against wind and weather. The construction of the building and its site reaches out through the park as an integrated delta barrier eco-system to absorb and accommodate the cyclical interactions of earth and water in extreme conditions, and is also intended as a prototypical approach to the functional and symbolic possibility of sustainable life at this water’s edge.

The Alluvial Sponge Comb is the waterfront landscape element of our design proposal for New Orleans, mediating between the natural ebb and flow forces of water and the inhabitation of the site. The central design criteria for our building and landscape design focuses on adapting the human construction to harmonize with the cyclical flows and extremes of the natural site, absorbing and beneficially harnessing nature’s impact rather than resisting it. We feel that it is very important for the American Pavilion in Venice to not dwell on the disaster as an unfortunate freak occurrence of nature, but instead to focus on the opportunity to engage in design for alleviating a worldwide infrastructure concern, by proposing new modes of waterfront development that accommodate and celebrate natural extremes, avoiding human and ecological destruction with multi-functional systems that contribute to the quality of life each day rather than investing in single-purpose bulwarks that serve once in a lifetime yet stand as ungainly, inflexible and expensive barriers always in place. New Orleans and Venice are both remarkable works of unnatural environmental construction that have developed intriguingly similar cultures of black humor artifice and cyclical festival that experientially mediates the difficult, dangerous, and uncertain environments that both sustain and threaten them. For the courtyard of the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale, we will install a sample portion of the alluvial sponge comb as outlined in the following pages, proposing a constructed waterfront landscape that can be rich, accommodating and absorptive, and affirming of the hopeful logic of life in the nature and culture of unique waterfront cities like New Orleans and Venice.

In its proposed implementation at the edge of the Mississippi river, the Alluvial Sponge Comb performs several functions, including flood and erosion control, the slowing of water flow along the river bank in order to capture silt to aid in the build-up of the shoreline, and the sustenance of land and water life—human, plant and animal—by affording both habitat and unencumbered passage through the latent barrier system. In times of unusually high water levels, portions of the comb are designed to swell as they absorb the rising water, becoming a temporary levee to protect the land and buildings beyond it. When the flood waters subside, the swelling in the comb also diminishes and returns the structure to its original fingered form, allowing a high degree of porosity in the landscape. The ideas for this structure are based on considerable research and past prototyping of related systems. There are large industrial firms engaged in related product manufacture. Chemical companies such as BASF, DuPont, and Dow all produce superabsorbent products that swell to absorb water and then slowly respirate vapor back into the environment as they dry and return to their original composition. 95% of the superabsorbent market is for new throw-away diaper products. However, all of these firms are also engaged in construction products and environmental control products, and all are positioning themselves as leaders in innovative technology that can be in harmony with the environment. It is likely that there will be one or more companies that would be interested in sponsoring this project with expertise, materials and financial support, and we have prepared background research and strategies for approaching them. The stand-alone siting of the comb in the courtyard will allow a significantly market-related image for these companies that may help generate their enthusiasm for supporting the pavilion overall.