Affordable Passive House Design

Design 9 & 10 Architecture Studio with Prof. Kihong Ku

​Eileen Martinson ’86 Capstone Experience Grant Recipient

In a joint collaboration with Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and Zhejiang University-University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Institute (ZJU-UIUC) since August 2020, students from Prof. Kihong Ku’s 5th-Year Design Studio have been designing an environmentally friendly passive home targeted for lower to middle-class Chinese families for the 2021 Solar Decathlon China Competition. Working specifically on the envelope/skin system of the structure, Thomas Jefferson University students, have been rapidly developing the Y-House’s innovative multi-layer live wall and acrylic panel assembly for the building’s envelope. Over the course of the competition, the team has been focusing on design development, detailing, and constructability, as well as addressing external feedback from the different phases of the competition. This is a Design + Build project, meaning that the project will be constructed at full scale for the competition. The team has built several prototypes with guidance from collaborating US, European, and Chinese manufacturers respectively. For the Solar Decathlon competition, the winner will have their structure showcased at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in China. Our team, the TJU/XJTLU/ZJU-UIUC team known as the “Y-Team” is one of the 15 finalists teams.

Flythrough of Proposal on Build Site in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, China.

 “It’s important to know who you are designing for and why you are designing to inform how you are going to design.”

-Olivia Birritteri

Olivia Birritteri
Design Lead
B. Architecture ’21
Listening to Medici Soundtrack​

What Inspires You?
Curiosity, learning, and collaboration inspire me. I love being able to work with a group of passionate people who are just as dedicated about an idea as I am. While the struggle of a project can be frustrating, there is nothing more satisfying and inspiring than seeing it all come together.
I’ve learned to start my projects with a LOT of research. It’s important to know who you are designing for and why you are designing to inform how you are going to design. These are crucial to know so that as a designer, I can create a framework and argument for why I am doing what I am doing. Throughout any project I am constantly sketching and making models to quickly iterate and evaluate my ideas to find the best solution.

Rapid Prototyping was done throughout the semester to help in reinforcing our design intent and show the functionality of the system as a whole. The images on the left focus on the last stages of development for the April 20th construction documentation deadline for the Solar Decathlon. The prototypes feature distinct areas of the façade, which were chosen based on different design issues/curiosity such as; further investigation of system, propose/find failure points, or lack of understanding of connection. The areas we chose to further look into were the ridge vent, roof to east wall connection, solarium operable doors.
Ridge Vent– The purpose of this mechanical piece is to reduce the amount of heat inside of the double skin system. This system would create a chain reaction with the vents located at the bottom of the façade to actuate a negative pressure system to efficiently release hot air and pull in cool air from below. The prototype shows how the system would function from a single rotating point.
Roof to Wall– The roof to wall connection was another area that we needed to clarify the assembly for. The corner connection was a complicated detail because of all the interlocking pieces. The roof panel is using the friction created by the gaskets and weight of the panel to hold it into the T framed substructure. This will allow the users to freely remove the panel to gain access to the green roof below. The feasibility of the door was another area looked into, which uses pivot hinges to operate the 1.2m x 3.5m panel.
​Solarium Operable Doors– The doors are one of the main features of the façade, creating a connection from the interior to exterior spaces. The original idea for the system was to be pulley based which was to be tested through prototyping of the system. Through testing we found that the weight of the panel would be to heavy  for a pulley to function easily. Which informed our decision to change to a motorized system. The modeling at 1:1 scale helped with understanding the shear mass of the structure and the assembly of the system.

Student Contributors 

Norm Engel

Matt Ledner

Nick Lockard

Anthony Sclafani

Jack Whalen

Eric Rushinski

Cynthia Baublitz

Saif Hussein

Ryan McMahon

Design Proposal

After conducting rapid prototyping and exploring countless options for the envelope proposal, the team moved forward with an acrylic envelope for our final proposal of the project. Learning from designing full scale modules of our external glazing systems connections and framing, acrylic not only made sense from a framing and manufacturing standpoint, but was an extreme effective cost saving solution when compared to the previous proposals utilizing ETFE membrane or polycarbonate. The acrylic system takes advantage of several strategies investigated during the rapid prototyping process, including the aforementioned ridge vent, and negative pressure flaps that allow the structure to breathe. The full proposal utilizes a multi-layer wall assembly, which required the team a significant amount of coordinating between different building systems in order to keep the proposal as minimal, cost effective, and as efficient as possible. Starting from the interior, the primary structure of the Y-House accommodates a structural bamboo known as ‘Glubam’. Composed of sheets of bamboo layered perpendicularly on top of one another, the crossing/layering of the grain allows for considerable tensile and compression capabilities. In addition to structural rigidity, the bamboo is sourced directly from within China, reducing production cost, C02 emissions of transportation of the material, and provides the building with passive carbon sequestering capabilities.

Moving outwards from the Glubam primary structure, the building’s secondary structure resembles a lightframe wood system. This was chosen to coordinate with the modularity of our building envelope, allowing for lateral loads of the façade to evenly distribute when reporting back to the primary structure of the house. This leads us to the building’s unique Bio-tile system. Hung from the framing of the stud wall layer of the assembly, the Bio-tile system is a multifunctional apparatus that provides the structure with passive cooling, thermal insulation, air filtration, and greywater filtration for onsite use.  The thermal capabilities of the Bio-tile system are parametric to the time of year, as the acrylic framing system surrounding them provides operability via its air pressure venting system.
The glazing system, in combination with the Bio-tile panels within it, create a greenhouse affect, capturing heat with the space’s airtight gap between the internal and external assembly during the cold winter, and expelling heat during the hot summer via the structure’s passive venting system, opening when the internal air cavity’s pressure changes between positive and negative. For maintenance, the acrylic glazing system can be swung open, providing full access to the Bio-tiles and internal assembly.

Cevan Noell
B. Architecture ’21
Listening to Run The Jewels RTJ4 Album
 

​What Inspires You?
Inspiration for me comes from collaboration and reflection. One passionate individual can finish a job, a passionate team finishes a project.  

 
What is your Design Process?
Different levels of research, parsing, and reflection are all important aspects to my process as a designer. But by far the most important aspect is the ability to fail, without which we could never innovate. The exploration of ideas that don’t work can be just as important as finding what does. 

Prototyping Gallery