Greg Spiess owns Greg Spiess Architecture and Urban Design in Barrington. An architect with more than 35 years of experience, he is preparing to teach a class about passive solar design for the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living.
Passive solar design aims to maintain interior building temperatures by orienting structures to maximize or minimize sun exposure. The goal is to reduce the need for powered heating and cooling systems. Spiess recently took some time to speak with Providence Business News about the design technique and what’s recently changed.
PBN: The concept of passive solar design is nothing new. Why teach a class now?
SPIESS: Our understanding of the whole interior environment is now more comprehensive, and so today’s solar orientation includes more interest in, for example, day lighting to save lighting electricity. In addition, some earlier passive solar designs often used thermal mass storage devices that stored heat but concurrently trapped moisture, developing mold and other less desirable side effects.
There is also a sort of “Nano” revolution in what has been described as the “intelligent skins” of buildings. These are new exterior surface elements that envelope a building with characteristics that are orientation-based and often respond to changes in external conditions as well as the dynamics of internal demands. It is a fascinating new area of design being developed internationally and locally that we will explore.
On the other end of the spectrum, we may be seeing more future Solar Envelope Zoning, something that was developed by some of my professors and that may become more important as people seek a dependable access to the sun (and wind) as part of their property rights.
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PBN: What other concepts have changed?
SPIESS: Many passive design concepts like the use of southern exposures and overhangs will be reviewed and are still valid. However, these concepts can also bring together a number of other principles that can interact together over the course of a day or year and which include vegetation, exterior and interior devices and materials.
While some early examples of passive design tried to go it alone or “off the grid,” it is now accepted that an understanding of backup or conventional systems could or should be present as well. There are no hard and fast rules. It is the cyclical process of design that we will introduce and how we determine when we can solve problems ourselves, and when it might be necessary to call in the professionals.
PBN: Has the idea of passive solar picked up more steam as America takes a heightened interest in building green?
SPIESS: I think the global warming conundrum has brought about a questioning by everyone. Passive solar strategies are an intuitive approach that sometimes gets lost in the engineering that frequently accompanies greening strategies. As a result of the prevalence of these complex systems, many people become intimidated at the prospect of trying to control their environmental impacts.
Also, as the cost of fuel and energy rise in proportion to other lifecycle costs, these measures become more palpable and so differences in a buildings thermal performance is becoming a part of its value. Even real estate appraisals are starting to take this into account.
PBN: I understand this is the first course you’ll be teaching for the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living. How are the nerves?
SPIESS: Teaching new material is always an adventure, so I have some pause when I try to get my arms around this subject, even as it was a large part of my undergraduate studies.
However, I have taught for many years at Roger Williams University and the University of Southern California Schools of Architecture, and my students have included architects, planners and real estate masters’ students. I have also been an instructor and writer for the City Building Education program, which taught some of these principles to sixth-grade students at magnet schools in Los Angeles, so I am at home presenting such subjects.
I do plan to bring in outside experts and local practitioners, like Stephen Greenleaf and the American Institute of Architects Rhode Island Committee on the Environment, and the Green Building Council Rhode Island Chapter, where I sit on its education committee, as I am still learning as a LEED accredited professional.
This field is now expanding to Neighborhood Development Guidelines for communities and large-scale developers to pursue and I have been documenting examples recently and presented case studies with our Sustainable Cities Committee at the GrowSmart Rhode Island Power of Place Summit last May.
So I hope to be a student as well and, as we take on design assignments, I plan to concurrently study the greenhouse at the Apeiron Concept House in Coventry to seek new ways to enhance its performance.
PBN: Do you need to be an architect to sign up for the course? How much does it cost? Where do I sign up?
SPIESS: Although we hope to have architects in the class, it is really an interdisciplinary approach to design that we often find today, and it will look at the problems from the standpoint of the designer, the building owner and the builder and even the Realtor or planning/zoning officials.
We are going to work in teams and share skill sets, drawing on my experience of teaching this way in the past. Structuring the course this way is intended to reflect what frequently tends to happen in communities interested in these issues – everybody knows a bit about it, but we need to complete our understanding by coming to know other points of view.
I will teach some basic drawing techniques to understand scale and be able to measure and draw one’s home and site plan and will introduce some easy three-dimensional projection techniques that my non-architecture students in the past have found to be very easy and empowering.
The course is $595 if one registers by Sept. 10, (it starts on Sept. 28 and runs until Dec. 14) and $650 after that. It will meet Tuesday evenings, with two or three Saturday meetings as well. Go to the Apeiron Institute website at www.apeiron.org for further information.
It will be candid, exploratory and fun, and will result in a greater understanding of efficient and harmonious ways to live.
