William W. Braham

Energy balance framework for net zero energy buildings

Approaching a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building goal based on current definitions is flawed for two principal reasons - they only deal with energy quantities required for operations, and they do not establish a threshold, which ensures that buildings are optimized for reduced consumption before renewable systems are integrated to obtain an energy balance. This paper develops a method to maximize renewable resource use through emergy (spelled with an “m”) analysis. A “Renewable Emergy Balance” (REB) in environ-mental building design is proposed as a tool to maximize renewable resource use through disinvestment of all non-renewable resources that may be substituted with renewable resources. REB buildings attain a high standing by optimizing building construction over their entire life-span from formation-extraction-manufacturing to maintenance and operation, and material reuse at the end of building life-time.

A Wall of Books: The Gender of Natural Colors in Modern Architecture

Abstract This essay examines a decorative convention-the display of books in modern interiors-that appears in both The International Style (1932) by Henry Russel Hitchcock and Philip Johnson and The Personality of a House (1930) by Emily Post. Looking at books in this way constitutes a partial history of the architectural palette that arises from the privileging of natural over applied finishes. The internal logic of that practice and its class and gender characterizations are discussed in the context of the separation of architecture from interior design. The “natural” palette and its host of attendant conventions is everywhere visible in contemporary architecture and interior design and even helps to define the boundary between the two practices, to explain what is and is not architectural.

Correalism and Equipoise: Observations on the Sustainable

Modern environmentalism originates with the recognition of ecological connectivity and the negative effects of technological intervention. This paper examines critical concepts developed by the architect Frederick Kiesler and the critic-historian Siegfried Giedion for their relevance to that discourse. Kiesler’s principle of Correalism and Gieidon’s appeal for Equipoise offer both a prehistory to the current mandates about sustainability and cautions about its limitations. The sustainable is ultimately a social condition that cannot be applied therapeutically nor ever wholly institutionalized.

The New Chautauqua Game: Designing the Renewable City and Region Using E[m]ergy Accounting

This paper presents the results of a simplified method for reconfiguring a small city and rural county to support its current population on the environmental energies available within the boundaries of the county. It is configured as a game, based on the simplifying assumption that the collection and concentration of renewable energies is almost entirely a matter of surface or land area, so that a renewable economy becomes a matter of competing land uses, of tradeoffs between land used for the production of food, fuel, electricity, and so on. E[m]ergy accounting was used to translate different forms of consumption into equivalent land areas, while the many forms of production and consumption were reduced to 25 parameters that can be varied to test alternate scenarios for the county. The results have been coded into a web site for playing the game.