Solar Greenhouse is a prototype for "zero kilometre" food production and energy generation

A team of students and researchers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) has designed a prototype Solar Greenhouse for energy generation and food production with a "zero kilometre" philosophy.

The timber structure, constructed in Barcelona's Serra de Collserola Natural Park, is intended to demonstrate how our most basic needs could be met in a more ecological way, in response to the EU's aims to be net-zero by 2050.

Solar Greenhouse is an energy and food production prototype that was designed by students and researchers at IAAC

Led by Vicente Guallard and Daniel Ibañez, directors of the Masters programme in Advanced Ecological Buildings and Biocities, the students worked with a variety of experts in cultivation, energy and water.

While the prototype sits in a natural landscape, it is intended it to be scalable and adaptable to a variety of settings, such as on the rooftops of inner-city buildings.

It was constructed using timber

"The aim was to design and build a system that could be replicated in both rural and urban areas," said the designers.

"[It] represents the next step towards a more ecological agricultural transformation and progress in tackling food and energy poverty," they continued.

The structure comprises two levels and features solar panels on its roof

The greenhouse is a simple, timber-framed structure with two levels, topped by glass panels and solar panels and wrapped in glass louvres that provide light and ventilation.

Germination takes place on the greenhouse's lower level, while the upper level contains cultivation spaces, with a glass, diamond-shaped roof maximising its exposure to sunlight.

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A network of pipes carrying nutrients and lighting for growth cycles is integrated into the structure. Hydroponics allow for plants to be grown without agricultural soil and LED strip lighting aids growth cycles.

The "zero kilometre" concept is normally used to describe food that is produced and eaten locally, and thus has travelled zero kilometres.

Here, the philosophy was applied not only to the greenhouse's food production but also its construction, with materials being locally and sustainable sourced.

The prototype will be used to grow plants without soil

The pine for the timber was processed in the IAAC's nearby Vallduara Labs, and the substrate materials in the planting beds consists of recycled sawdust — a waste product of the Green Fab Lab also on the university campus.

"The water, substrate and building materials are obtained from the surroundings, allowing the food grown to jump directly from production to consumption, without the need of a supply chain," explained the designers.

"The ultimate goal is for the knowledge and the locally achieved systems to be applied at a global scale and, in this respect, the Solar Greenhouse is a valuable step forward," they continued.

Materials used in the construction were sustainably sourced

Students from IAAC also designed and built a cabin for self-isolation using wood harvested from within one kilometre of the site.

In Belgium, Meta Architectuurbureau and Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten recently completed a greenhouse in Belgium atop an agricultural market to create an urban food production centre.

The photography is byAdrià Goula.

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Macdonald Wright Architects creates low-energy home in London as "scalable prototype"

London studio Macdonald Wright Architects has created the low-energy and heavily insulated Library House on an infill plot in Hackney.

Designed as a rental property for studio founder James Macdonald Wright, the two-storey home was built on a four-metre-wide plot, which was previously used as a junkyard, adjacent to the listed Clapton Library.

Macdonald Wright Architects has created a house on an infill plot in Hackney

The aim of the project was to demonstrate how an affordable, low-energy house could be created using simple yet robust materials.

Macdonald Wright Architects wanted to use the opportunity to study the energy performance of the home, which has the same footprint as "the average UK dwelling", to inform its future projects.

The dwelling is heavily insulated and low energy

Working with certified Passivhaus designer Conker Conservation, the studio created Library House to meet the Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) standard.

The standard focuses on using simple techniques and technologies to reduce the operational carbon dioxide emissions of a building by 70 per cent when compared to the average UK structure of the same size and typology.

The material palette was chosen to be simple yet robust

"We selected the AECB route over Passivhaus because it offered a more practical and affordable route to achieving excellent performance," the studio's founder told Dezeen.

"The AECB Building Standard is aimed at those wishing to create high-performance buildings using widely available technology," Macdonald Wright explained.

Douglas fir and spruce detailing features throughout

This standard was met by creating a heavily insulated external envelope for the dwelling, teamed with a Passivhaus-rated front door and triple glazed windows and roof lights.

To retain heat, the house also makes use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR). It achieves an airtightness of 1.3 ACH@50Pa, which is significantly less than UK building regulations that require airtightness of 10 ACH@50Pa or less. This refers to the number of air changes per hour at a pressure difference of 50 pascals.

All the windows are triple glazed

The dwelling is complete with an electric boiler for top-up heating and a photovoltaic array, from which surplus electricity is supplied to the national grid.

Since completion, the house has been occupied by private tenants. However, the electricity bill has been monitored and paid for by Macdonald Wright Architects.

The studio has calculated that the "operational energy for heating the house is a tenth of the requirement of a new build house under current building standards".

Blue Lias stone is used as flooring

Visually, the Library House is designed to mirror the proportions, styles and details of the neighbouring red brick library and a row of white cottages.

Lime-pointed white brickwork is teamed with a russet-hued Corten steel panel outside, which incorporates the front door and perforated solar shading for the first floor.

The russet-hued front door is Passivhaus-rated

Materials used throughout Library House were selected to minimise the need for maintenance and reduce the embodied-carbon footprint of the dwelling.

This includes the use of Porotherm clay block party walls and timber structure, along with internal finishes such as Blue Lias stone flooring sourced and sustainably sourced douglas fir and spruce detailing.

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Internally, walls are predominantly finished in a parge coat, trowelled over the Porotherm clay blockwork for a textured finish that also contributes to the home's high airtightness.

Macdonald Wright Architects hopes that the Library House will become a "scalable prototype" and inform its future projects at various scales.

Porotherm clay blocks are used on party walls

"Each project we complete informs the next," Macdonald Wright explained. "The use of Porotherm block and Larsen Truss has helped us develop techniques of external envelope construction we are now developing in larger scale designs."

"By focusing on the build quality, airtightness and thermal performance of the external envelope construction we can reduce the overall cost of building to higher levels of sustainability," he continued.

Corten steel functions as solar shading

Another recently completed low-energy house on Dezeen is the Devon Passivhaus, which McLean Quinlan nestled into a sloped walled garden of an old English country house.

The building's envelope performs to the highly energy-efficient Passivhaus standard, achieved using substantial amounts of insulation and triple glazing throughout.

Rooflights feature throughout the house

Macdonald Wright founded his eponymous studio in east London in 2005. Another notable project by the studio is the Caring Wood country house in Kent, which won the 2017 RIBA House of the Year.

Designed in collaboration with architect Niall Maxwell, the dwelling is topped with chimney-like roofs and provides a residence for three generations of the same family.

The photography is byHeiko Prigge.

---

Project credits:

Architect: Macdonald Wright Architects

Structural engineer: Osbourne Edwards

Sustainability consultant: Conker Conservation

Quantity surveyor: GQS Services.

Contractor: Daneco Build

Groundworks: Hauge Construction

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"Wherever I work I must understand that place" says Marina Tabassum

Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, who was recently awarded the Soane Medal, explains why she only works in her home country in this exclusive interview.

Tabassum is known for designing buildings that use local materials and aim to improve the lives of low-income people in Bangladesh, where all her projects are based.

"The reason I've never really worked outside Bangladesh is the fact that wherever I work, I must understand that place, it is very important to me," Tabassum told Dezeen in a video call from her studio in Dhaka.

"To go somewhere and build something without having the full knowledge of it makes me quite uncomfortable," she added.

Marina Tabassum's designed the underground Museum of Independence in Dhaka. Photo is by FM Faruque Abdullah Shawon

As Tabassum feels the need to have a connection to the spaces she designs, she doesn't see any reason to create buildings outside of her home country.

"We have so much to do in Bangladesh, we have a lot of work that's there," she said. "I really do not feel the need to go anywhere else to look for work – we all have our own places to concentrate on."

"In a lifetime there's only so much you can do, so staying focused is probably more important," she continued.

Among her designs in Bangladesh are the country's Museum of Independence and the adjacent Independence Monument, as well as the Aga Khan Award-winning Bait Ur Rouf Mosque.

Architecture is a "social responsibility"

Tabassum grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she established her studio Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), which she has led for the past 17 years.

Her childhood in the country has influenced her practice, with a number of her studio's projects aiming to create better homes and lives for people in Bangladesh, which has a high income inequality.

"I come from a country where I've grown up seeing this disparity between the rich and poor, and every single day when I get out of my house, you see this disparity," said Tabassum.

"I don't know about architects in other countries and how they should be doing it, but in my case, I encourage the younger generation of architects to come and work for the people who have no knowledge about architecture," she said.

"I think it's a social responsibility for us, especially in Bangladesh, where we can make our knowledge and our skills available to people which can really help better people's lives and living environment."

The Comfort Reverie building in Dhaka, where MTA is based. Photo is by FM Faruque Abdullah Shawon

With her architecture, Tabassum aims to create appropriate buildings with "a sense of place", something she believes has been lost as architecture has become more homogenous over the past 30 years.

"Every place has a uniqueness that through an evolutionary process has come to a point where it's the geography, the climate, the history, everything comes together and creates something which is very essential of a place," Tabassum said.

"I think especially during the very high-flying capitalist time in the 1990s, and even in the 1980s, where we were just building profusely all over the world in this capitalist endeavour, we lost that idea of uniqueness," she added.

"We are losing the value of the uniqueness of a place"

Tabassum studied at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, at a school set up by the Texas A&M University, and graduated in the mid-90s – a time when, according to her, architecture was becoming increasingly homogenous.

"When I graduated from architecture in Dhaka, I saw the same thing," she said. "It's just stacks of floors, built very quickly – you just put glass on [buildings], everything is about aluminium and glass and that's it, the building is done. "

"It had no sense of the place and if you see the cities that were growing up during that time in China, or in the UAEs and the Arabian Peninsula, everything echoes that idea of globalisation, where everything is kind of standardised, fast-breed buildings," she added.

"To me, that really felt like we are losing the value of the uniqueness of a place."

Tabassum's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque is made from brick, a material traditionally used in Bangladesh. Photo is by Sandro Di Carlo Darsa

Instead, Tabassum aimed to find her own voice by designing using local materials. Many of her projects, including the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, are constructed from brick – a common material in Bangladesh.

"I have tended to work with brick because it works with the climate, it ages very gracefully, in my opinion," the architect said.

"Instead of let's say concrete, which is not that great and especially in our weather – we have so much rain that within a few years the concrete ages quite poorly. But brick ages quite beautifully."

"Glass is not able to take enormous heat"

As architecture has become more global, she believes that buildings have also become less adapted to local climates.

"We've always focused on the idea that the building must be climatically appropriate, so that it's not dependent on any kind of artificial means, like air conditioning, only," she said.

"Which you don't see anymore when you have glass buildings because glass is not able to take enormous heat – it just turns into a greenhouse," she added.

"That's what's wrong with the kind of architecture where you take something from a cold country and bring it to a warm country like ours."

The Khudi Bari lets owners sleep on a higher level when needed. Photo is by FM Faruque Abdullah Shawon

Among the projects that Tabassum designed specifically for the Bangladeshi climate is Khudi Bari, modular houses that can be moved to help communities survive in Bangladesh's "waterscape," which is increasingly affected by flooding exacerbated by climate change.

"Khudi in Bengali means tiny and Bari is house, so these are really modular houses, especially for the landless," Tabassum explained.

"Bangladesh is all about water – it's a waterscape rather than landscape, there are so many different varieties of water bodies."

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There are essentially two types of people affected by the flooding in Bangladesh, according to the architect – people whose land is periodically flooded during the rainy season, and people who are continuously on the move because the land is constantly shifting.

The Khudi Bari houses were designed to be of use to both groups.

"Each one is quite different so we're trying to give them different solutions to these kinds of houses," Tabassum said.

"We deliver a modular structure which has two levels, so if you have flooding you can move yourself to the upper deck and save yourself and when the water recedes you can start living your life," she added.

"When you have to move, this is a lightweight flatpack system that you can take down and it's very low-cost, it's about £300 all together."

The modular Khudi Bari houses were designed to be disassembled and moved. Photo is by Asif Salman

The homes are built from bamboo and steel in order to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to source the materials and build the houses themselves.

Tabassum hopes to eventually be able to train steelworkers locally to make the steel joints needed for the building, which are currently supplied by the architects.

"We would like to make it in a way so that any steelworker in any location can make it," Tabassum said.

"But the rest of the material people source on their own so they can decide how big their house will be and what accessories it will have – there's a sense of ownership about it, which is important."

Designing for refugee camps requires understanding "definition of beauty"

As well as designing homes for those who have become displaced by flooding – a problem that is likely to increase as the climate crisis continues – Tabassum is also creating architecture for people who have been displaced from their country of origin.

Her studio is working with the World Food Programme to build food distribution centres in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar refugee camps, which house Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

Designing for the camps, where nearly one million people live, comes with its own unique difficulties and limitations.

"A lot of things are not allowed," Tabassum explained. "You are not allowed to use any permanent materials, everything has to be temporary."

The Baharchora Aggregation Center is one of the buildings created for the World Food Programme. Photo is by Asif Salman

"You cannot build anything beautiful," she added. "So being an architect, you deal with beauty and aesthetics in many ways – it's what we have been taught."

"And now to go against that and design something that is so-called not-beautiful is a challenge, you have to work around that, you need to understand the definition of beauty – what is beauty?"

To create beautiful and practical temporary buildings the studio worked with bamboo, rather than more permanent materials.

"You have a very limited palette of materials but you try to create something out of that," Tabassum said.

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As Tabassum continues working on both her studio's regular projects – it is currently designing a hospital on the outskirts of Dhaka – and its designs for displaced people, she feels that people are at last taking action to help mitigate the climate crisis.

But above all, she believes there now needs to be a focus on collaboration.

"I think it's important to understand that we're living on one single planet, and the north and south are connected in every single way," she said.

"And the majority of the population of the world lives in the Global South. And so it is an enormous responsibility of the north and the south, equally, to come towards a resolution where it is about mitigating our existential crisis."

The main photograph is by Barry MacDonald.

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House built from 100 different plant-based materials unveiled at Dutch Design Week

Eco-design studio Biobased Creations has built a showhome almost entirely from biomaterials including wood, mycelium, seaweed, straw and vegetable fibres as well as earth and sewage.

Unveiled at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven this week, the house showcases 100 different plant-based or natural materials that are either commercially available already or coming to market soon.

The house is built from 100 different natural materials

The only non-bio materials in the timber-framed house are metal screw fixings and glass windows.

"We used 100 bio-based materials because we wanted to show what is possible," explained Biobased Creations co-founder Lucas De Man. "It's an exhibition in the shape of a house."

It showcases 100 different biomaterials, including earth, plants and fungi

The project is called The Exploded View Beyond Building, although Dutch Design Week calls it The Embassy of Circular and Biobased Building.

The designers' aim is to show how eco-materials can be used in the construction of ordinary homes. All the materials used are listed on the projects' website.

Materials include lime plaster coloured with algae and an algae textile screen

The house, which features a modular design, was mostly built in a factory. It has a layout based on a standard grid so it could become a template for a variety of different house designs.

"If we want to build a million houses here in Holland in the next 10 years, then the design has to be scalable," said De Man. "So it has to come from the factory and it has to be sustainable."

The bathroom exterior tiles are 3D printed from sewage sludge and algae

"Some people think it's too expensive to be modular and sustainable, but it's actually cheaper," he told Dezeen. "Non-sustainable modular is way more expensive."

The building, which has been erected at Eindhoven's Strijp-S district for the duration of Dutch Design Week, is also designed to be circular.

The structural timber frame is demountable so the house could be relocated or recycled in the future.

The toilet is framed by a 3D printed wall of filtered sewage residue

Biomaterials provide surfaces both inside and outside the house.

They cover walls, floors and ceilings, and are also used for furnishings including tableware and bedding.

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These materials are presented in different categories relating to their material properties.

The bathroom features materials made from waste, with examples including blue wall tiles made from sewage and algae, and a compost toilet framed by a wall of 3D-printed sewage sludge.

Tableware is made from food products including eggs and oyster shells

The kitchen showcases materials made from food and plants and includes tableware made from plants and food waste including plates made from eggshells and beakers from 3D-printed seaweed.

The ceiling is a material made from flowers, the walls are lined with grass and the door is clad in Totomoxtle, a wood veneer that promotes biodiversity because it is made from heirloom corn species.

Linen coloured with waste from the metal industry is hung on the wall in the kitchen

Upstairs, elements on display include insulation made from reeds, seaweed wall tiles, acoustic wall panelling made from bioplastic and a bed made from natural rubber and linen.

There's also a whole room dedicated to products derived from bacteria and fungus. Mycelium is used to create wall tiles, insulation and a composite flooring.

A wall of mycelium tiles is fire-retardant and water-resistant

This material is one that both De Man and Pascal Leboucq, lead designer for Biobased Creations, were already familiar with. The pair previously worked on The Growing Pavilion, a mycelium structure presented at Dutch Design Week in 2019.

"We're going to solve a lot of problems by reinventing bacteria," said De Man. "In Holland, they are now making bacteria that can eat plastic and give back oxygen."

The bed combines a natural rubber mattress with linen fabric

An air filtration system integrates plants and nutshells while rainwater is harvested and reused. The house also features six different roof types, including two types of green roof and paving that absorbs rainwater.

De Man hopes the project will show that biomaterials are a viable option for new housing developments.

"When we built The Growing Pavilion two years ago, a lot of people said it was too futuristic. This time we've created a house that is realistic and scaleable."

Straw cladding is used on the outside of the house

The house is on show for the duration of Dutch Design Week. After that it will be demounted and reassembled at the Floriade Expo, a horticultural exhibition taking place in 2022.

Dutch Design Week runs from 16 to 24 October 2021 at venues across Eindhoven. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Photography is by Oscar Vinck and Jeroenvander Wielen.

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