Open Source Design Competition Entry: White House Redux


Open Source White House Redux (HD) from arch1k on Vimeo.

A simple developmental model makes the open-source possible. It bestows involved results, and creates unorthodox cultural bonds and cultural ethics, which seem preferable to many. Herein, a question arises: can one study this phenomenon and employ its prominent concepts in other fields, such the architecture?
…
The project is an exploration carried out to challenge my (arch1karch1k) architectural masters thesis, which deals with the open source phenomenon and ways in which it could inform today’s architectural practice. You are invited to partake in this investigation and explore new ways of exchanging ideas, designing, discussing, building, and transforming the architectural zeitgeist altogether.

Edward Solodukhin’s thesis project, Open Source | White House Redux Competition, explores the role of open source by creating and submitting an entry to the White House Redux competition, a competition to redesign the White House (winners to be announced shortly). It is hard to tell how many different people worked on the entry, shown above and at the top of the process page.
The process and procedural notions of an open source are intriguing, and worth study even if visions of Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language bleed into the margins. Unfortunately it appears that Solodukhin faced a situation many open source projects face: a lack of critical mass which sustains and metamorphosis into a self-regulating and perpetuating process.

A Thousand Little Air Conditioners

Records Tumble and Sweaty New Yorkers Grumble as Heat Persists:

Con Edison, which provides power to 3.2 million residential and business customers in the five boroughs and parts of Westchester, said peak demand hit 12,987 megawatts on Tuesday, a new record for a June day and the fourth-highest day in the company’s history. The surge gave Con Edison a chance to prepare for the potentially warmer weather to follow.

Check out what happens when you take the NY Times ConEd June 2008 Electrical Demand Surge and compare that to a density map:
NYC ConEd June 2008 Electrical Demand Surge
New York City 2000 Total Population
Can we tie the surge in electrical demand, which is certainly for air conditioning, to the lower density of Queens and outer Brooklyn? Detached housing – even multi-family dwellings – generally have a greater energy transmission due to the increased surface area which acts as a large heat sink. Row houses generally only have three sides (front, back & roof) exposed to the elements, where detached buildings have all five sides exposed to the elements.
Yet the data shows that the cooling (heating is generally by boiler) of a thousand little detached buildings by a thousand little through-the-window/wall air conditioners logically creates a surge of demand. You might think that Manhattan would be the site of an electrical surge, which the data doesn’t confirm. In Manhattan the overall demand has created a density of high rise dwellings which generally have central cooling available. Dwellings which don’t have central cooling but where each unit might only have one face facing the elements, row houses which have at the most three faces, and individual apartments which normally would have one face to the elements all transmit heat less than detached buildings.
Yet another case for density as a sustainable strategy.

On Urban v Suburban Pricing and Demand

Manhattan SkylineManhattan Skyline, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Big Media Matt has something to say about Urban Pricing due to Demand:

But in general, central cities are substantially more expensive per square foot than are suburbs and especially far-flung exurbs. Which reveals, of course, that there’s lots of demand for urban space.
And on top of that demand, there are lots of practices that (a) artificially reduce the supply of urban space, and (b) subsidize suburbs at the expense of cities.
…
But you can’t point to the lower prices of sprawl and count that as evidence that people don’t want to live in cities. Urban areas are expensive because people like to live in them and given that high demand we ought to shift policies in such a way as to allow more of them to be built.

The success of the suburbs, and of suburban developers, starts and ends with their acute ability to shift costs off their balance sheets and onto the public at large. From infrastructure (streets, utilities, etc) to municipal tax credits, the subsidization of suburbanization requires additional research and study especially if you want to become a suburban developer.

Defining Cost of High Speed Rail

Kings Cross Station LondonKings Cross Station London, originally uploaded by fotoisto2005

From High Speed Rail Projects in the United States: Identifying the Elements For Success:

When cost-benefit analyses are developed for high-speed rail, the focus tends to be on the bottom line–how much money will be put in and how much will be generated. As long as one looks at cost as bottom-line driven, we are unlikely to see high-speed rail in the United States, given the capital investment needed to build such systems. Different results are often obtained when there is a broader tabulation, such as that being developed in California, that includes other costs of the transportation system (for example, additional cost of highway maintenance and repair) as well as the public as a whole (for example, increased levels of pollution as highway use increases) under the no-build option.
Related to this is the need to be clear on not just the goals of the particular HSR project, but also on who is really reaping the benefits. If there are truly public benefits, then arguing for only private funding makes no sense and such projects are unlikely to succeed. If the public benefits are questionable, then private funding is a better choice.