(wool, ice, straw, fiberglass, rags, vacuums, brick, solid glass, plastic, stones/marble, etc.)
Here's an Irish architectural firm that have published a book about their method, using the same method seen in the section on building materials, on a larger scale. They mention that the insulation properties of hempcrete is very good: they say "zero" additional energy required to heating such a house made of the hempcrete because of its high thermal mass (keeping heat in itself) and other insulating properties as well as the tiny air pockets in the material itself.
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3 comments:
Translucent insulating material mentioned
Disappearing Act
Optical Camouflage, Tachi Laboratory, University of Tokyo
While there has been a recent surge in interest about new materials for architecture and design - a new materialism, if you will - it is easy to overlook a fundamental counter-trend, which is that materials are slowly... disappearing. I'm not referring to some science fiction fantasy (e.g., "Invasion of the Material Snatchers"), but rather the fundamental and consistent technological trends leading to increased strength-to-weight ratios and light-transmittance. This tendency towards dematerialization is rooted in the natural trajectory of technology itself, which wants to maximize efficiency, miniaturize, and do more with less, coupled with an intriguing socio-environmental phenomenon concerning increased transparency in the physical environment. This 'de-solidification' has perhaps as much to do with a public desire for increased access and accountability as perceived from the outside of commercial and institutional structures, as much as the desire for increased access to light and views from the inside of structures. As a result, the frontiers of material development are defined significantly by high-performance, exotic materials and composites that shatter previous paradigms about solidity and opacity. Moreover, because these materials typically stretch resources farther than conventional substitutes, this development is encouraged in light of increased environmental concerns.
Windows into Walls
Nanogel, Cabot Corporation
There has been a fair amount of buzz in recent years surrounding aerogel, the NASA-developed, translucent insulating material which is the lightest human-made substance known. However, there is less knowledge about the extent to which this material will alter our preconceptions about solidity in architecture via its application in the product Nanogel. Developed by Cabot Corporation, Nanogel is a pelletized, nanoporous material that delivers unsurpassed thermal insulation and light transmission. Comprised by quartz particles mixed with 99% air, feather-light Nanogel weighs only 90 grams per liter. Compared with other insulation materials, Nanogel provides a superior combination of thermal and sound insulation as well as light transmission and diffusion characteristics – just half an inch of the material provides 73% light transmission with a solar heat gain coefficient of U = 0.25. What this means is that the relationship between the historically solid, insulating wall and the light-transmitting, thermally-conductive window has forever changed. Now walls can be windows and vice-versa, and the age-old battle between light vs. thermal protection is rendered moot.
http://transstudio.com/index.htm
It's an insulator, retardant, purifier, catalyst, remediator, war material (perhaps to make wars impossible actually, if you think about it--indestructible things so humans applying violence to each other might be rendered useless--if equally supplied of course) and building material all rolled into one:
"Aerogel".
[Several other building materials are mentioned in this post as well, most of them not retardants though insulators instead]
from The Sunday Times
August 19, 2007
Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world
Image :3 of 3
Videos: Aerogel in the wild | 'The stuff of dreams': Aerogel in architecture | Peter Stothard on Aerogel, frozen smoke and Rupert Brooke |
A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.
Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.
Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.
It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s.
Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”
Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide.
The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.
It was invented by an American chemist for a bet in 1931, but early versions were so brittle and costly that it was largely consigned to laboratories.
It was not until a decade ago that Nasa started taking an interest in the substance and putting it to a more practical use.
In 1999 the space agency fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.
In 2002 Aspen Aerogel, a company created by Nasa, produced a stronger and more flexible version of the gel. It is now being used to develop an insulated lining in space suits...
Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, believes that an 18mm layer of aerogel will be sufficient to protect astronauts from temperatures as low as -130C. “It is the greatest insulator we’ve ever seen,” he said.
Aerogel is also being tested for future bombproof housing and armour for military vehicles. In the laboratory, a metal plate coated in 6mm of aerogel was left almost unscathed by a direct dynamite blast.
It also has green credentials. Aerogel is described by scientists as the “ultimate sponge”, with millions of tiny pores on its surface making it ideal for absorbing pollutants in water.
Kanatzidis has created a new version of aerogel designed to mop up lead and mercury from water.
Other versions are designed to absorb oil spills.
He is optimistic that it could be used to deal with environmental catastrophes such as the Sea Empress spillage in 1996,
[the best way to 'deal with' that is to get rid of oil, period! See "Energy" category.]
when 72,000 tons of crude oil were released off the coast of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire.
Aerogel is also being used for everyday applications. Dunlop, the sports equipment company, has developed a range of squash and tennis rackets strengthened with aerogel, which are said to deliver more power.
Earlier this year Bob Stoker, 66, from Nottingham, became the first Briton to have his property insulated with aerogel. “The heating has improved significantly. I turned the thermostat down five degrees. It’s been a remarkable transformation,” he said.
Mountain climbers are also converts. Last year Anne Parmenter, a British mountaineer, climbed Everest using boots that had aerogel insoles, as well as sleeping bags padded with the material. She said at the time: “The only problem I had was that my feet were too hot, which is a great problem to have as a mountaineer.”
However, it has failed to convince the fashion world. Hugo Boss created a line of winter jackets out of the material but had to withdraw them after complaints that they were too hot.
Although aerogel is classed as a solid, 99% of the substance is made up of gas, which gives it a cloudy appearance.
Scientists say that because it has so many millions of pores and ridges, if one cubic centimetre of aerogel were unravelled it would fill an area the size of a football field.
Its nano-sized pores can not only collect pollutants like a sponge but they also act as air pockets.
Researchers believe that some versions of aerogel which are made from platinum can be used to speed up the production of hydrogen. As a result, aerogel can be used to make hydrogen-based fuels.
* Read all 228 comments
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2284349.ece
2.
From The Times
November 16, 2005
It's the stuff of dreams
Could buildings one day be made of carbon?
Tom Dyckhoff
Mark Miodownik got a box from Nasa the other day. It contained aerogel, the lightest solid on earth. You can barely feel it, save for a slight warmth on your palm.
It’s an insulator, but was mainly used by Nasa for collecting space dust — it’s so light that even the tiniest coating is detectable.
Dr Miodownik likes it, though, for its aesthetics. It’s like bath foam, he explains, “but imagine the bubbles are a nanometre wide”, and, like bath foam, it has a blue iridescence and rainbow refraction.
“I could gaze at it all day. Imagine a building coated in it.”
Dr Miodownik, a materials scientist at King’s College London, has a vast store cupboard of these goodies — “like a giant sweet shop, and I’m in charge”.
The Engineering Art Materials Co-operative is a library not of books but of materials, both sci-fi, such as aerogel, and more commonplace, though equally amazing. Here’s tungsten, “what they make light-bulb filaments from”, only a big fist of it — “people are astonished how heavy it is”.
The point of Dr Miodownik’s sweet shop is to inspire architects, artists and designers. “These materials shouldn’t be gathering dust in science departments. They should be out there,” he says.
Engineering Art is in part a dating agency between creatives and science, through events that Dr Miodownik organises at Tate Modern to get architects, artists and designers just to feel materials, to “innovate through their fingers”, learn their properties and get them “out there” on buildings.
Their obsession with novelty means that architects are as sensitive to trends as schoolkids. Right now you can’t move for buildings made from Cor-Ten steel and ETFE, the first a metal that intentionally rusts to a rich red, the second a cladding material like bubble wrap — the Eden Project is covered in it and the world’s largest ETFE building, the national swimming centre, is being built for the Beijing Olympics.
However, “conservatism is the overriding character of the building industry,” says Graham Dodd, an associate director at Arup, the world’s most innovative engineers. “So technological innovation happens incredibly slowly.”
Dodd’s department scours the globe for new components for buildings.
“There may be technologies or materials that seem new in architecture,” he says, “but by the time they’ve reached us they’re old news.”
Architects have long fantasised about the industrial production of buildings as if they were cars or boats. Future Systems famously used boat manufacturers to construct the Media Stand at Lords because there simply wasn’t the expertise within the building industry.
Today computer-aided design means that architects can dream faster and wilder than ever. Dodd spends much of his time perfecting double curved glass panels to create seamless blobs. Engineering, the actual making of the buildings, and the things they are made from are having to catch up fast with imaginations.
In fact, says Dodd, “we are on the foothills of the most exciting period of technological change since the 1960s”.
Fugitive Materials: The Art and Science of Impermanence, with Mark Miodownik, Cornelia Parker and others, takes place at Tate Modern, SE1 (020-7887 8888), on Nov 29 at 6.30pm.
Bye, bye brick? The future of building
LiTraCon
Áron Losonczi, a Hungarian architect, laid glass fibres into structural concrete blocks before they set, rendering the light ethereal and see-through.
Nanogel
Used to insulate spaceships 30 years ago, Nanogel — sound absorbent, insulating and light transmitting — is now sandwiched within building facades.
SmartWrap
American architects have invented a new façade material made from paper-thin, polymer-based film, stuffed with air gel pockets for insulation. It can be attached with flexible solar cells and LEDs, printed with patterns and wrapped around a frame.
Electrochromic glass
We already have glass that becomes opaque by running an electric current through it. More sophisticated versions change reflectivity, glare, colour and opacity: entire glass-clad buildings might act like Reactolite sunglasses, and reducing the heat gain and loss that can make glass so energy inefficient.
Responsive environments
Spaces that communicate with their user have been one of architecture’s dreams since the Sixties. One day walls will be soft, embedded with sensors and IT, so that walls become like skin, buildings like bodies. Coating walls in nanotechnology devices is being explored too, for instance to make surfaces self-cleaning — or coating them in electronic ink so that a wall becomes one giant LCD screen. The first small SmartSlab panels will emerge in the next three years.
Carbon fibre
Imagine a skyscraper, 40 storeys high, with a helical shell entirely woven by robots from IT-embedded carbon fibre, like a cocoon. The LA architects Peter Testa and Devyn Weiser are pioneering the transfer of carbon fibre technology to architecture. Most of their projects, like the Carbon Tower, remain speculative.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article590462.ece
Geodesic The Concept
As related to a cost effective mass housing solution.
http://www.nkozihomes.co.za/Tech.htm
http://www.nkozihomes.co.za/
n'Kozi Developments (Pty) Ltd dba n'Kozi Homes is a start-up innovative company led by Joseph Feigelson and has been registered as private Company in Cape Town.
A Final Patent has been granted in South Africa and the principal is in favor of discussing FRANCHISE opportunities worldwide.
Brick and mortar structures are the norm for almost all housing in South Africa.
Small profit margins associated with low-cost brick and mortar housing projects have often resulted in inferior workmanship.
Consequently, there are few satisfied occupants of these new homes, many of which are plagued with rising damp, cracking masonry, lack of adequate insulation etc.
Traditionally these "box-like" like structures have no insulation or natural air circulation; they are hot in summer and cold in winter resulting in unnecessary health related problems.
Beneficiaries of these houses, in many instances within the affordable low-cost sector, have refused to continue to pay the rent and this has resulted in the present state of affairs.
The maturation of the SA Pine industry over the past decade, now makes timber a suitable, cost effective construction material, thereby facilitating n'Kozi Homes timber framed structures to make an impact in the entire housing market.
Our technology is unique, has a provisional patent, and has no competition with similar design. We have completed the design and development of our first product, allowing us to offer a larger, insulated, better and less expensive dwelling structure compared to the normal "box-like" structures.
Vision
n'Kozi Homes' vision is to play a significant role through the delivery of integrated housing solutions in a region whereby citizens live equitably, free from poverty and the suffocating grip of underdevelopment and the control of energy and information. A region where adequate access to basic needs, technology and information for development is secured by ensuring appropriate access for civil society to effectively participate in the Global Information Society (GIS).
Mission
n'Kozi Homes' mission is to contribute towards "greening" the environment through the delivery of integrated housing solutions whereby the free and equitable flow of information and the deployment of appropriate technologies and knowledge networks are applied to enhance and deepen citizen's rights, access, usage and participation towards an open society.
In doing this to become a leading provider throughout the region, of innovative, practical, energy efficient and affordable (less expensive than any conventional structures) geodesic structures suitable for traditional housing as well as the government subsidized low-cost housing sector, holiday homes, clinics, schools, resorts, agricultural buildings, game reserves, tuck shops, spaza shops, granny flats, thatched gazebos, storage facilities etc.,.
n'Kozi Homes is focused to invest in energy efficient housing, and in the development of strong communities through the support of community development financial institutions and socially conscious venture capital funds.
n'Kozi Homes has incorporated the delivery of clean, efficient, sustainable and renewable energy technologies to meet the energy needs of under-served populations, thereby reducing the environmental and health consequences of existing energy use patterns.
Future plans envisage:
The development of (gated) energy-efficient communities consisting of clusters of affordable units of approximately 33-99 square meters each, clustered around communal facilities that would include laundry facilities, communal meeting and recreational facility, Information, Communication and Technology facility as well as a Picnic/Park/Braai area.
It is our policy and intention to deliver solar and where relevant, wind power as standard offerings.
We envisage that the beneficiaries of our products will not have the choice, solar and other applicable sustainable alternate energy would be the norm with our product offers.
The development and delivery of integrated "Smart African Villages" whereby n'Kozi Homes will provide the backbone for enabling technologies in alternative and renewable energies as well as incorporating Information and Communication Technology (ICT), thereby contributing towards bridging the "digital divide."
The gap between those with access to and knowledge of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and those without is significant.
n'Kozi Homes' intends to use the power of ICT in their business and developments which can help bridge the Divide.
Social Responsibilities and Skills Development Programme.
n'Kozi Homes will train and empower certain of its construction crews to train additional crews in order to create new jobs.
We will also encourage and promote business people to affiliate themselves with our organization so as to encourage entrepreneurism and eco-preneurism through the manufacture and sale of our products. The construction of the n'Kozi Homes will be outsourced.
This will create new small enterprises as well as job creation.
© 2003 N'KOZI HOMES (PTY) LTD. 78 Pienaar Road, Milnerton, Cape Town, South Africa, 7441
TEL: 27.21.552.7660 CELL: 27.82.572.6722 EMAIL: joseph@nkozihomes.co.za
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