"I've had a long-time fascination with shelter systems. Specifically, I like to try and figure out ways to help people live happier, safer, warmer, more comfortable lives, and at higher standards than they are used to. Towards this end, I'm designing what is called an autonomous house."

"An autonomous house is a shelter system that provides for all of its occupants' needs, while remaining independent of many of the umbilical cords that are commonly connected to homes. By these, I mean electrical lines, phone lines, water lines, sewer lines, and roads. These things root a house down to one place, and when one of the systems fails (such as a tree falling on a power line someplace), the occupants suffer, because their shelter is dependent on those umbilicals."

"I'm designing and integrating systems that will allow a house to be free of these outside dependencies. Even, ultimately, to be moved around at the whim of the owners, very much like the freedom that boat and mobile home owners currently enjoy."

» Click here to see Patrick's website

World Peace Dome - starting from Zero by Mitchell Joachim & Michael Sorking Studio (left) and Fab Tree Hab - Local Biota Living Graft by Mitchell Joachim, Javier Arbona & Lara Greden


Mitchell W. Joachim is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Architecture: Computation Group). His dissertation is entitled Tall Building Clusters for Ecological Cities - An Integrated Code of Structures, Streets, and Skies. Prior to MIT, he completed two master's degree programs; at Harvard University (MAUD) and Columbia University (M.Arch). Currently he is a researcher at the Media Lab Smart Cities Group, collaborating with his advisor William J. Mitchell on the General Motors/Frank O. Gehry Concept Car.



Prior to MIT, he completed two master's degree programs; at Harvard University (MAUD) and Columbia University (M.Arch). Currently he is a researcher at the Media Lab Smart Cities Group, collaborating with his advisor William J. Mitchell on the General Motors/ Frank O. Gehry Concept Car. In parallel with Gehry Partners in Los Angles, he has been actively working as an architect on the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Project. During his time in Cambridge, he has been the Moshe Safdie and Associates Research Fellow award winner and a Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability. Previously he has been an architect at Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners, and the Michael Sorkin Studio in New York City. Mitchell has served as visiting faculty in sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work is published in "How Harvard would remake Atlanta", (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2001), Michael Sorkin Studio: Wiggle (Monacelli Press, 1998), and "The Guru of Impossible Engineering Creates a Car", (Popular Science, 2004). His winning design of living structures - Fab Tree Hab - with Habitat for Humanity and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art has been honored with a nomination for the INDEX Award and exhibited internationally.


» Click here to see Mitchell Joachim's outstanding Portfolio

from worldchanging.com by Regine Debatty



Foster and Partners' Philology Library in Berlin utilizes decades of research into the use of active and passive technologies for more energy-efficient buildings.

Wrapped in a structure reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, the building combines a concrete structural mass with a curved translucent skin that diffuses daylight and naturally ventilates the space. Stefan Behling (F&P eco-expert) compares the membrane to sitting with a white umbrella under a tree and watching leaves cast shadows to create a play of light and pattern: "In the library, if you are reading and look up from your book, you actually notice how clouds move over the building because the light changes on that surface. It's like a natural light projection screen."


The double skin and double floor serve as air duct and heat buffer. The space between the skins creates a "solar motor" that breathes when exterior flaps are opened or closed. The concrete structure acts as a passive thermal funnel. In lower temperatures the external flaps close. Using the chimney effect, fresh air is then drawn through an underground tunnel and up the thermal core of the building. In moderate temperatures the flaps open, allowing fresh and recirculated air to be cooled by the core.



For 60% of the year the library is ventilated by simply opening panels or using controlled fresh air drawn from below. The library consumes 35 percent less energy than a comparably sized building. Outside air is transmitted through underground tunnels. Depending on the weather, the building is either heated or cooled by water pipes embedded in the concrete slab floor. On extremely hot days cooling is provided by air-conditioning in the existing buildings. But "most of the year the building operates completely with its own natural ventilation," says Behling.



A structural yellow space frame, by MERO-TSK supports the membrane and helps create column-free space.



» Click here to read the entire article on 'Metropolis 1' and 2
» Click here to view more images