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Microclimates
Build around the specific climatic conditions of a site.
By Paul Makovsky
August/September 2002
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Pierre Koenig used climate studies to design his own house (Koenig House
#2, 1985).
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Warm air rises and exits through the atrium, and doors on the lower
floor admit cool air--though it usually isn't necessary to open them.
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His work at the Natural Forces Laboratory is informed by the same kinds
of studies, such as this rendering of natural ventilation in a high-rise
building, where cool air is brought into a pocket between floors and
distributed evenly throughout the space.
Photos: Top & center, Julius Shulman; Bottom, Pierre Koenig
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Pierre Koenig, a master of midcentury Modernism, has proven that a work
of architecture can both look great and be sustainable. Throughout his long
career, climate has been an integral part of Koenig's process, whether it
be intuitive, as with his early steel-and-glass houses for the Case Study
House Program, or more systematic, as in his later work. In 1964, together
with Ralph Knowles he began to teach and continues to study how to design
buildings in accordance with the effects of water, wind, sun, and seismic
forces. In 1980, he founded the Natural Forces Laboratory at the University
of Southern California. Metropolis talked to the 76-year-old Koenig
from his house in Los Angeles on the importance of microclimates:
Metropolis: You're celebrated for your high-tech steel-and-glass residential
design, but there's also been an underlying thread of sustainability in
your work. How did this come about?
Koenig: Accidentally, actually. I noticed that my first house was very
cool in the summer. Other houses were hot even when they had air-conditioning.
I discovered that it was the ventilation, so I continued working with this
idea. When I went to USC in 1964, I met Ralph and learned that natural ventilation
is a very efficient way to cool. So I started experimenting. I got a wind
tunnel and tested things. Nobody seemed interested at the time. They still
aren't.
Metropolis: What are microclimates?
Koenig: They're the specific climatic conditions of a site. It's related
to the whole idea of natural ventilation. You have to study the area and
know where the winds come from in order to design for them. Almost every
area has a prevailing breeze, particularly if it's near a coast. This changes
of course, depending on the configuration of mountains and valleys. We measure
wind speed and direction. We talk to the neighbors. We also study the position
of the sun at various times of the year, which is very predictable but not
easy to measure. The idea is to keep the direct sun rays out of a building
when you don't want them, and bring them in when you do.
Metropolis: Did any of your California clients ask for air-conditioning?
Koenig: It's a funny thing. Air-conditioning has only become popular
in the last twenty or thirty years. In 1985 a client told me that he wanted
it, and I tried to explain that he didn't need it. I offered to design the
house to accommodate it--with the platforms, ducts, and all the spaces ready--but
we wouldn't install it. If it didn't work out after a year, I'd put it in.
Well, guess what? Before the year was over, he called: "Pierre, I don't
want artificial air-conditioning. We don't need it." That was a major
victory.
Metropolis: What role did climate play in the design of your own second
residence, the Koenig House #2, built in 1985?
Koenig: It was all designed around climate. Fortunately, except for an
hour in the summer, I could keep the sun out of the interior. I simply used
the way the house was oriented to keep the direct rays out. Then I used
the chimney effect of gravity. I have an atrium that opens near the top,
so hot air flows out. On the ground floor, sliding doors bring cool air
in, which rises up and out. So I can make the house cold. In the summertime
I can reduce the temperature as much as ten degrees by opening the lower
door. Most of the time we don't, because it gets too cold. We leave them
closed, and it stays within a nice range all year round.
Metropolis: You believe that high-rises can utilize the same principles?
Koenig: Yes. Think about it. The temperature inside a high-rise building--without
artificial cooling--is 80-100 degrees, because of the people, machinery,
computers. But a quarter-inch away--on the other side of the glass--you
have 30-40-degree temperatures. They're pumping this cold air in, but
right outside there's tons of the free stuff. It doesn't make sense. Generating
that cold air also creates heat that you have to get rid of. It's very costly.
At a bank building under construction in Los Angeles, it was once 100 degrees
on the ground floor and hailing on the sixty-fourth floor. This is something
I'd really like to take advantage of. |
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