Students Present Designs of the Mountain Health Centre

On April 28 students of the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) presented their designs of the Health care and Community building to the Sun Peaks Mayor and Council. While varying in architectural style, from traditional Thyrolean to distinct modern, all designs carried energy efficiency and "green" features - from optimal building orientation for better use of natural sunlight and enhanced thermal insulation to incorporating solar panels and accommodating other onsite energy generation capabilities. The project was a collaboration between Architecture & Technology Department of TRU and Ascent Systems Technologies.

Performance Home designs presented at the Council

From October 2012 through April 2013 Ascent Systems Technologies in cooperation with Architecture and Technology Department of Thompson Rivers University conducted a students’ contest for the best design of the performance home for Sun Peaks Resort. 20 actual vacant Sun Peaks lots were chosen by the students. The competition was completed in April when Ascent Systems Technologies presented a cash prize for the best performance home design, while Sun Peaks Corporation supported the initiative by donating two ski passes to the author of the design which was the best accommodating the resort guidelines. Some of the best designs were presented at the Sun Peaks Municipal Council meeting at on June 24, 2013. The purpose was to show to the Council and to the residents the home built at Sun Peaks Resort can be energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and at the same time seamlessly integrated in the overall look of the resort. The presentation was received with great interest. 

Performance homes, together with other efforts undertaken by the Sun Peaks Municipality, will form part of the Sustainable Community concept at the Resort.   

Green Home designs for local landscapes

CaGBC Conference: Lessons Learned - Part 2

Another very important lesson, which confirmed what I have been becoming increasingly convinced in from my own experience - THERE IS PRACTICALLY NO PERFORMANCE MONITORING after the building or system has been commissioned. All kind of reasons can be put forward for that - from lack of time, resources to confidentiality considerations. However, sustainable technology and "green" industry can not evolve or even properly function without a feedback loop ! Lack of consistent real-life data is a major factor slowing down progress of the industry.

Here is what I propose should be done. A network of performance (a.k.a. "green" or "sustainable") buildings and facilities should be created. They should be connected via centralized online data and performance optimization repository in a "smart info-grid" of a sort. The data obtained from each node (facility-member) should be presented in (or translated into) the universal consistent format and made available for other facility-members for comparison, benchmarking and cross-reference.

One of the good examples of guidelines for implementing the intelligent network infrastructure is Unified Access Network Design based on the CISCO concept of Borderless Campus Architecture.

University and college facilities, such as CIRS at UBC in Vancouver and Centre of Excellence at Okanagan College in Penticton, BC must collaborate with the industry on creating such a network and become first nodes of such network. The network should utilize Systems Architecture principles of  expandabikity (i.e. allow adding new nodes), and evolvability (i.e. allow seamlessly adding new functionality). This can become a major factor in propelling the sustainable (high-performance, "green", alternative) technology and buildings industry, which is currently threading the water.

Performance Home design contest is a success

Ascent Systems Technologies in collaboration with Architecture & Technology Department of Thomson Rivers University in Kamloops conducted a contest of the students projects for the best performance home at Sun Peaks.

A number of different and interesting designs were presented for the contest.

 

Architecture Instructor of the class Dale Parkes announces the winners of the contest from the Sun Peaks Corporation.

The winner of the First Prize from Ascent Systems Technologies for the best Performance Home Design, Joe Dion-Croteau

Performance Home Design Contest Update

Sun Peaks Resort Municipality is offering an opportunity for the author(s) of the selected Performance Home to have an opportunity to present their design to the Council and the public.

Sun Peaks Resort Corporation donated two ski passes to the authors of the designs best fitting into the Tyrolean style of the Sun Peaks Resort while satisfying the code and the guidelines.

Ascent - TRU Performance Home Design Contest

Ascent Systems Technologies in collaboration with Architecture and Technology Department at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops is announcing a prize for the best design of a performance home for Sun Peaks Resort.

Sun Peaks Resort is a mountain village in the Interior British Columbia, Canada with some of the best snow in North America. Long recognized for some of the best ski conditions in Canada, Sun Peaks Resort attracts a growing number of skiers and snowboarders each winter with its champagne powder and wide variety of terrain. It is also one of the youngest and is the first Mountain Resort Municipality in Canada.

Sun Peaks is rapidly becoming a place of choice for people who want invest in both in some of the finest pieces of real estate and an active lifestyle.  Its mountain conditions however present a challenge for an architect and a builder. Steep elevations with trees, wide range of temperatures, from +25C in summer to -30C in winter, large amount of snowfall, and the absence of "cheap" natural gas all require for a special approach to design and construction. At the same time, it offers a great opportunity to try new ideas ! More than 2000 hours of sunshine a year, clean air void of any industrial pollution ask for utilizing some of the most abundant and non-exhaustible resources - energy of sun.  There are number of technologies and ways to improve energy efficiency of the mountain home.

The best performance home award will be given to the design which will be not only energy efficient, but also functional, have distinct style, be easily accessible, allow for maintainability, expandability and upgrade for future emerging technologies.   If you would like to sponsor students competition, please contact Vladimir: VG@ascentdevelopments.ca

University Solar

Anniversary visit of the solar thermal system providing hot water for three buildings at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

Courtesy Optimum Air.

Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University

Last Tuesday I met with director of Sustainability at TRU, Tom Owen. Not only I was glad to know that TRU is very interested in the subject of Sustainable Development I also found Tom being a very interesting person, with rich background and wide range if interests - from wild mushrooms to aerospace. His dad was one of the chief designers of the legendary Canadian super fighter jet, Avro Arrow. Accidentally, the first plane was rolled out of the gate on October 4, 1957 - the same day the first satellite was launched into space,  and under the star of Sputnik
Yours Truly was born ...