Passive Skyscraper at EcoBuild

27 Feb '11: Above, The layout of EcoBuild 2011. We have our own stand, at the North west corner of the main hall, conveniently next to the Coffee space. This is the MultiComfort House stand, provided by Isover, and we will have seven of our Passive Skyscraper designs on show.
    These will undoubtedly be the highest building designs of the whole show, in all likelihood the highest ever displayed an any EcoBuild.
   All the Nottingham schemes show the Solar Earth Charging technology  adapted for high rise, as has been researched on the Peveril Solar House.

David Leonard visit

David Leonard

10 Feb '11: We had a visit today from David Leonard, a prominent consultant master planner, who gave a lecture on some of his recent work. He has done some remarkable work, including Stratford City in London, and was part of the team for the recent West Ham proposals for the legacy of the London Olympic Stadium.

Matthew, David and Arham at work
in Broadway Malyan, Singapore

After that, the three main city groups gave a series of presentations, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and London. All groups had done more than enough for the week and we were impressed. We tried to think of some things to improve for next week, they have more to add, but have to fit within their hour of presentation.
We are looking forward to how this work completes in one week's time when Jason Pomeroy visits us.
During the Lunch hour, we had a talk from Matthew, David and Arham from last year's tall building group who spent three months in Singapore as interns in the Broadway Malyan office. Their description of Singapore was vivid and interesting.

Isover reveal the finalists!

8 Feb '11: Isover have now published thumbnails and larger images of the finalists in the Isover 2011 competition. (this still has 2 stages to run).
http://www.multicomforthouse.co.uk/student-competition-2011/shortlist/

All of these are using, to varying extents, interseasonal solar storage to supply heat to heat pumps, using a composition of solar thermal panels and PV panels on the south facade, with thermal stores on the north face or in mechanical floors.

Field trip to London 3 Feb'11 for tall building students

Model of London in the Building Centre

5 Feb '11: We took our new unit of students down to London for a day's visit - seeing the:
- Building Centre exhibitions and model of London, then
- got the Tube to Southwark station and walked north, then saw
- the Blackfriars site, where one group of five are studying for their tower design, then the
- Tate Modern (with the Neo Housing behind it and the proposed Herzog and de Meuron extension) then
- Borough Market, where we had lunch, then
- the Shard under construction at London Bridge, which we were able to get close up to, thanks to a high pedestrian footbridge, then
- walked over London Bridge
- the London Square mile, with the Gherkin, Lloyds, Leadenhall (Cheesegrater) and the Pinnacle, then
- the nearly completed Heron tower, and finally,
- The Broadgate tower with the adjacent SOM designed Exchange place, the building which spans 75m.

Model of the extension to Tate Modern, under construction

Piano's Shard, under construction

Members of the unit gathering together for a group photo with the
Gherkin in the background 

The magical quality of the light and reflections
in the mall of the Broadgate tower.

Tall Building students doing well!

2 Feb '11: The skyscraper designs produced by our Tall Building students have all done very well in the Isover competition. We submitted 9 schemes, and 7 were chosen as finalists, and the remaining 2 were highly commended. Only one other scheme from the UK was included in the total of eight finalists.
   We cannot put the schemes up as illustrations yet, because we have a second and third stage to go to, and therefore more details have to be added. We are not ready to release the full details of the designs.
  Needless to say, we set the students the task of designing the upper residential sections with ZERO heating from any form of burning - no gas, oil or direct electricity! We have devised systems for doing this. At the second stage, we will get engineer colleagues to validate the quantities required.
   We shall be showing these schemes on our model of New York - all nine of our designs - at Ecobuild 1-3 March 2011, Excel Centre in east London, on one of the largest stands of the show near the entrance. Please call in!
  The best three from the UK will be invited to Prague for the final  in May, so at least 2 of our groups will have an invite and a prizes.