Isover competition in Prague!

22 May 2011: The UK Team of 9 students, DNc and Phil went to Prague for the Isover world final, accompanied by Tom Foster of Isover UK.

We were royally treated in the Crowne Plaza hotel, north of Prague city centre (near the University campus) and saw 56 presentations from 19 countries (3 from each, except Germany who had 2).
All of our teams did excellent verbal presentations, and Green Canyons came second in the world final.

Isover UK organised the process very well, and the exhibition of 8 of the projects at Ecobuild required a much earlier timeline starting in October with a completion by end of January - after which we had stages that took us to the final in Prague. Some of the other countries hadn't started until April 2011.

  We gave the entire Tall Buildings unit an extra week (until 1st June) for their main project to compensate for these days in Prague. It was a great experience for all, although we would prefer to have come first!

May Crit with Ken

12 May 2011: We had our mid May and were honoured to have a visit from Prof Ken Shuttleworth, designer of the Gherkin, and now chief exec of MAKE. I will write more about this visit, with photos, when I get back from Prague.

Summer Tutorials

5 May '11: We had the first tutorials of the summer term, after the long break. Most people have something now, although some people are still shaking the long Easter - Royal-Wedding sleep out of their eyes. A week to go and we have a crit!

High time in New York

7th April 2011: DNC writes: Some of us have been taking part in a field trip in New York. This is a great experience for anybody, but for someone interested in Tall Buildings, it is a seminal moment of connection with the culture of tall - in its most urbanistic manifestation.
Since I last came in 2005, there have been some new towers, notably, the Hearst, the Bank of America, the NY Times, and the almost complete Gehry tower in Spruce St. There are some startlingly innovative new towers in the Chelsea district near the High Line.

Our group includes all grades from First Year to Masters, and all but one come from international locations. Two of our students on this trip are tall building designers - Masoud who was one of the finalists in the Isover competition, and Yang Yang who is designing a Library and residential tower for Abu Dhabi.

Prominent projects by KPF (Shanghai built,
London is under construction)

I shall try to amend this blog item to add more about the visit, but first I will extend special thanks to KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox) of Bryant Park, NY, one of the world's leading practices who kindly gave us a tour of the office and a very interesting talk on their Sustainability policies and how they are implemented. Many thanks to Denise, Krista, Gara, Sam (and Bill Pedersen himself) for their generous time.

DNC in the Strawberry Field garden, commemorating John Lennon	The whole group visited the AppleCentre in Fifth Avenue - the Apple Cube behind was replaced entirely shortly after by an even better one!
Times Square, so lively!	View of Columbus Circle through the stretched glass screen of the Time Warner Center

Enjoy this set of 360º panoramic tours of Manhattan!
http://www.airpano.ru/files/Manhattan-New-York-Virtual-Tour/2-2

Some Nottingham questions answered

Manhattan Sky Podium, winners of the Public's Choice for
the Isover 2011 award at Ecobuild

29 Mar '11: We recently had a set of questions from the University of Nottingham Press office, who want to write up the story of the success of our students in achieving high places in the Isover 2011 contest. They asked us a number of questions, so that they can extract some quotations.

Here are our answers in full, jointly written by DNC and Phil:


Q. Nottingham had 7 out of 8 finalists and all 3 of the eventual winning teams - what does this say about the quality of the teaching we offer and the standard of students we have?
A. We run the world’s first dedicated Masters course and qualification focused on Sustainable Tall Building Architecture. With the teaching skills and time commitment we feed into this, we would have been surprised if we had not performed well – for our University to win all three prizes is fantastic. We are extra-happy that all of our students were recognised at some level in the competition – either as finalists or highly commended. We always remember that it is our students who do the work when ink has to be applied to paper, and we get a thrill seeing such excellent designs being produced. We are confident that this will be a great lift for them in their future working careers. It is a great honour for a student from overseas to find themselves representing the United Kingdom in an international competition of such high profile.

Q. Are you confident that the students' designs will stand up to the international competition they will face in May?
A. We apply the Olympian ideal that it is a wonderful experience just to be taking part in such distinguished company - if we win a medal or two that will be a great achievement. The Central European teams, with their longstanding knowledge of Passive House concepts have dominated the Isover competition for years. We have done additional work between March and May to strengthen our entries and give the students the best possible chance. The skyscrapers in the Isover competition are an attempt to define a new standard for Passivhaus at high altitude. They have systems enabling them to operate without boiler rooms, or any burning of fossil fuel - entirely heated by passive gain and by stored solar heat, captured in summer and delivered in winter. We hope that our student’s pedigree of knowledge in tall building design, and the expertise we can offer them, will help give us a winning edge in Prague.

Q. With the High Rise Architecture Studio at Nottingham do you think the future of skyscraper design will come out of Nottingham?
A. We have been teaching high-rise architecture at Nottingham for some nine years now, and over this time the Department of Architecture and Built Environment has gained the reputation as a centre of excellence in the subject internationally. Not only is the subject taught at a Masters level within the department, but increasing is being researched by students at a PhD level. Our students are developing new design strategies, architectural philosophies, facades, components, systems and more for the sustainable skyscrapers of the future.
   In the current era of climate change, energy famine and population growth, sustainability has become a primary design driver, and this applies to all aspects of urban habitat. Glassy air-conditioned developer-led blocks are not our game. ‘Sustainable’ is the first word in the title of our Masters course, and this concept predominates in our studio projects. We view the role of our unit as a ‘design research team’, exploring the difficult challenges architects will face in years to come. This should lead to enlightenment of these future professionals and give them the courage to apply these ideas in their country. We teach students to respond to climatic issues, even in very hot, humid or very cold climates; we expect them to understand urban context, seeing their work as part of the ‘bigger picture’ of the urban habitat, transportation, population and economy. In locations like Singapore and Hong Kong, mixed-use tall buildings are a necessity due to land shortage - and high rise is a normal pattern of living. We expect them to understand local culture, the notions of extended family, privacy, community and religious groupings. We trust that our graduates will take this wide ranging idea of sustainability into their future careers as architects all over the globe. Although we still produce designs the like of which have never been built, the visionary approach in our work has to be the future of tall buildings, and we are seeing many of these concepts appearing in modern examples in Asia, Europe and even in the United States.
   All of our work is archived and publicised on the CTBUH website, and plays its part in opinion-forming in the future design of urban centres. For more information, please see the CTBUH website:

See the Nottingham University final Press release about the Isover competition (not forgetting that there is still another stage to go!)

Ipods shared around

28 Mar '11 : We were pleased to hear from Isover that the SSW team with their Manhattan Sky Podium were the winners of the public vote at Ecobuild 201l.
    We felt that back in early March, the judges were strongly focused on the Passivhaus research so they placed this scheme fourth, but the tutors are delighted that the public recognised the excellent urbanistic response of the Manhattan Sky Podium. This was a valiant effort to retain sun and view lines for the distinguished 80 year old skyscraper immediately to the north of the site. The scheme was a skilful exhibition of structural acrobatics, organising the offices and hotel elements to form a giant outdoor room that would be another wonder of Manhattan. Above that, the building provides for a high residential population enjoying carbon neutral living and the classiest address in the city.
  The team members will win an iPod Touch each.
 (Sam Holt, Shreela Sharan, Willie Yogotama)

First Interim Crit 2011

Design idea for the corniche in Abu Dhabi

17 Mar '11: We are moving into the design phase of the 'Culture Context and Climate' project for 2011 and had our first presentations of the design ideas. We had 100% attendance with every group or individual having a design idea and agenda, and we were glad to see that some were surprisingly far advanced.

Idea for Multi use tower at Blackfriars, London

  We have sites in London, Abu Dhabi and Singapore, with widely varying climatic circumstances - as one of our governing principles is Sustainability, the emphasis is on a socially responsible agenda, not on sculptural shapes.
  The above scheme for Abu Dhabi attempts to discover a form that reflects the bioclimatic necessity of a hot dry climate, respecting traditional living patterns in Middle Eastern high density urban precedents - in this case, Shibam in Hadramaut, Yemen.
  The scheme, right, is a multi use tower for London, far more multi use than ones that have been called that, such as the Shard (mostly offices and a tiny proportion of residential). It looks ahead to the times when sea levels may rise intermittently or even permanently, and a new form of architecture needs to rise above the waters. The tragic events in Japan recently have shown how ever a rich and sophisticated society can have a major refugee problem in the face of massive natural disasters. 

EcoBuild - we've done it!

4 Mar '11: We had seven New York skyscraper designs on show, and three of our teams won the UK prize, and now we look forward to the World final shoot-out in Prague in May. The prize giving was on Weds afternoon 2nd March. More photos later...

You can read a long blog report from one of the judges, Hattie Hartman of the Architects Journal, and she has included the webcam stream of the prize giving.
http://blog.emap.com/footprint/2011/03/03/isover-student-competition-finale/
The final winners were Green Canyons, second were Social Tower Experiment, and third were the Green Ramp. Three of the students in these groups are M. Arch STB registered. Well done!
You can see a list of the shortlisted entries, with hi res images at the 2011 Isover Multi Comfort house site.

Gabriel Golumbeau (Isover), Prof Wolfgang Feist (Passivhaus), Guillermo Guzman
and DNC (University of Nottingham), at Ecobuiild 2011

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.

All submitted to the Isover!

26 Jan '11: The students improved their work after the crit, and the final submission date was 24th Jan.

Open publication - Free publishing - More new york

It is great that the Nottingham students managed 100% completion and submission, with some great improvements to the panels since the crit. We had been pretty free with our pens all over the drawings during the crit with ideas for improvement and addition, all of which seem to have been listened to and done. 

Crit for the Passive Skyscraper

19 Jan'11: It has been a superhuman effort, but between 32 of us, we have, mostly succeeded. I say mostly, because this is only the completion of stage one, the Isover competition is global, and we have more stages to go. This stage has to be uploaded to Isover next week and then will be considered during that week. I cannot post images on this blog until after the judges have decided.

DNC and Phil, standing, with international students
of the design team providing a wonderful dinner.

  We remain hopeful that a few of our schemes will be good enough to be considered for display at Ecobuild in March 2011, at Earls Court.

Ivan Jovanovic and Chris Gaylord joined us for the day from London, as examiners. The students had the unnerving experience of having us study the drawings in silence for the first 5 minutes, imagining that we were Isover judges without the luxury of students present to explain things. Then we allowed them to talk, explain, and of course answer questions. The whole conversation concluded with as much advice as we could give them for improving the panels before the competition submission. Ivan and DNC focused strongly on the Passivhaus strategy and explanation, and wider environmental aspects. Chris and Philip focused on urbanistic presence, tall building planning and configuration. Together, we hope that the students know what to do for the remainder of the week.

  Many of us met up later in the evening, in Nosh, in Beeston market, for very good chinese dinner!

Mobile access to the website

28 Dec '10: DNC writes: I just discovered that it's possible to view this blog (and the others that I do) using a Mobile device. Normally, you need a phone with a large screen and very good reception to pick up a full web page. Most of the heavily used sites like the BBC, Eurosport, Guardian have Mobile versions.
   Well thanks to Google blogger, we have too! If you have a mobile phone, try this site with your iPhone or Android phone. (I hope it works for you).
  I already use my iPhone as the hand held device for my PV roof, now it is even more useful, for checking my various blogs!

Tall Building Students for lunch!

14 Dec '10: We invited the Tall Building students for lunch at DNC's house in West Bridgford. We couldn't do it earlier because the term has been so busy, and we have some weeks of snow and icy roads making the house somewhat inaccessible.
It was a 'bring your own', so there was an interesting variety of food, and some students brought flowers - Thankyou!

  One of the purposes of the visit was to discuss interseasonal storage, heat pumps, photovoltaic and underfloor heating all of which have some relevance to the high rise we are designing for New York. There wasn't time to show the PPT file, but there was every chance to discuss the ideas.
  Some of the students (who were not with us) are in Scotland on a road trip - good luck to them, and we hope they escape before the next lot of snow falls!

Graduation of the first MArch STB cohort

9 Dec '10: Phil and DNC attended the graduation, and we had the pleasure of seeing our first cohort of MArch STB students graduating, Savita Poojari, Ashwin Chaudari (and Pranali Shah in absentia).

In this photo, Sim yee Lee, Phil, Savita and DNC. Being December, we all emerged into darkness, so we do not have the usual rituals of throwing hats in the air. There was snow on the ground and below freezing temperatures, so we all rush off to the Conference centre for refreshments.

In this photo there are six Tall Building graduates, with Savita and Ashwin 2nd and 3rd from right.

Congratulations, and good luck for all your future careers!

Dirk and Ivan

12 Nov '10: We were honoured to have a half day Structures symposium as part of our HRI course, provided by Dirk Krolikowski of Rogers Stirk Harbour, supported by two of his very good friends, Ozan Yanlis and Falco Schmidt, both of Arups: with whom he has worked on many real projects, competition entries and educational initiatives. Dirk has worked on the Leadenhall St tower ('Cheesegrater') and we are glad to hear that the covers have been lifted off this project, and it is rising again after a layoff of a couple of years. Dirk has done some structural visioneering that is so seductive that all the clients now expect this sort of imagery! With such an expensive building it helps to have every component thoroughly modelled to fine detail before cutting metal. Ozan is a senior engineer at Arups and has a very good presentation of the integration of architectural ideas with structural realisation. Falco has worked at RMJM, and presented a very detailed explanation of the St Petersburg Tower. Dirk and Falco have run an advanced buildings design unit at Aachen University.
  Ozan had to return to London at lunchtime, but Dirk and Falco stayed for a whole afternoon of tutorials on structure, giving the students some of the toughest structural questioning they have yet experienced, resulting in many vastly improved schemes by the following Thursday - a legacy of the symposium that we are all grateful for.

 I will write about Ivan's visit next time I get time to spend on the blog.

TBI'10 Interim Design Crit

11 Nov '10: We had the first interim design crit, and all nine groups produced a design, in the form of models and some early drawings, and some even included a short video. We had Architects David Leonard and Chris Gaylord as guest critters.