Building Justice:
Teaching Sustainability with High Performance Vaults
Abstract:
To build with our hands is challenging, yet joyful. To build with sustainable materials is ethical and essential. This was the premise organizing the 2-day construction charrette that had PennDesign grad students working alongside high-school students from the Philadelphia Charter High School of Architecture & Design. The workshop sought to communicate how materials play an important role in defining the sustainability profile of architectural projects by introducing participants to sustainable principles such as low embodied energy materials and high-performance metrics, which are key issues for the building industry. Using traditionally produced clay tiles alongside synthetic fabric interlays, students devised structurally innovative spatial enclosures that defy physical logic, combine both vernacular building methods with the latest high-tech products, all the while learning about sustainability.
To build with our hands is challenging, yet joyful. To build with sustainable materials is ethical and essential. This was the premise organizing the 2-day construction charrette that had PennDesign grad students working alongside high-school students from the Philadelphia Charter High School of Architecture & Design. The workshop sought to communicate how materials play an important role in defining the sustainability profile of architectural projects by introducing participants to sustainable principles such as low embodied energy materials and high-performance metrics, which are key issues for the building industry. Using traditionally produced clay tiles alongside synthetic fabric interlays, students devised structurally innovative spatial enclosures that defy physical logic, combine both vernacular building methods with the latest high-tech products, all the while learning about sustainability.
IDEA DAY at The University of Pennsylvania School of Desig Philadelphia, PA
2013
Project Collaborators: Jonathan Dessi-Olive, Kelly Berger, Kordae Henry, Erik Leach
Faculty Advisor: Professor Franca Trubiano
Photography by Lindsay Rule, Franca Trubiano, and JDO
Other Projects: