What is Digg?53 Comments
- compubrook, on 08/08/2008, -3/+34I work in the sustainable building industry and I can tell you almost certainly that the vast majority of those buildings are not green. The high window-to-opaque wall ratio is a terribly inefficient design which effectively creates an R-4 wall (that is equivalent to a STONE building, like the ones built in the 1920s with no insulation). Also, the rotating building: exactly what is green and efficient about having your building rotate? To me, that just creates a roof and floor for heat to escape PER FLOOR, as opposed to an entire skyscraper with only 1 roof and 1 bottom floor. Those drawings of how their natural ventilation is going to work are just that - drawings. Its what they think is going to happen - they are literally not doing any heavy analysis on if it will work.
Sorry for the rant, but these green building stories are popping up a lot, and I just got sick of it. If you want green think low window-to-wall ratio (about 40-50%), Low-E windows, heat recovery on ventilation air, making the building airtight, and modulating or condensing boilers. Its not sexy, but thats how to make a green building. - diggit08, on 08/08/2008, -0/+13Mirror: http://www.demotivate.info/2008/08/08/15-more-futu ...
- Eifandil, on 08/08/2008, -1/+13Those buildings look badass.
Next step: Making them PRACTICAL--Imagine the rent in one of those. - AmyVernon, on 08/07/2008, -2/+11Love the Chicago spire.
- inactive, on 08/07/2008, -2/+10Quite cool. Santiago Calatrava is a genius.
- ironeus, on 08/07/2008, -3/+9The 'disc house' is only missing the treadmill for Astro to exercise on.
- Ihatehillary, on 08/08/2008, -0/+6Dugg down, I prefer the color blue...
Take your buzzwords and shove them up your arse..... - McHoffa, on 08/08/2008, -0/+5I don't like anything that talks about "what might be possible in 100 years". People had no clue 100 years ago what we would have now, they were not even close. If we do increase technology exponentially, 100 years from now will be simply amazing, but nothing most of us can grasp right now.
- mbarker2, on 08/07/2008, -0/+4Oh yea, looks amazing. Can't wait to see it built.
- diggit08, on 08/08/2008, -2/+6Well if its not sexy it's not green.
- diggit08, on 08/08/2008, -0/+4I'll make sure that you are CC'ed in on the next memo.
- pitdog, on 08/08/2008, -0/+3Passive house is a good concept, but not a magical trick. Those designs do have several flaws, it is not enough to create sth strange looking and call it green (though i see some nice designs there). It seems soon it will suffice to paint something green for it to be "green".
- GreyICE, on 08/08/2008, -0/+3While floor to ceiling glass might seem inefficient from the HVAC point of view, you have to remember that from the lighting point of view its pretty much golden. Remember, lighting is only 20% efficient, so for each watt of lighting you're getting from the outside, you're saving 5 watts of power to generate that lighting.
And to remove that watt of heat only requires 1/4 of a watt if you're using a high SEER unit. Which, frankly, if you're not, you can't call your building green.
Also, a triple glazed double pane window has an U value of about 0.15. While that's still high, it's not exactly unacceptably high.
Please consider the tradeoffs involved before over-focusing on one section (the HVAC) and neglecting the other (Lighting) especially given the relative power usage of both applications in a typical office environment.
I will give you that rotating buildings are just nonsense, and our entire company thinks so. - Taiyoryu, on 08/08/2008, -0/+3Glad to see at least one architect used the easiest to implement green building technique: earth berming. I understand that vertical structures are an efficient use of limited land area, but even among the buildings showcased in this article, few took advantage of putting greenery on the roofs and walls.
- SolarPandaBot, on 08/08/2008, -2/+5Can someone PLEASE tell architects that covering the envelope of a building entirely in glass is NOT green design?
- ace429k, on 08/08/2008, -0/+2omg!!! that building looks like a doobie!!
- sircomix, on 08/08/2008, -0/+2Perhaps when we become energy sustainable so our children can survive and breathe clean air?
Or, alternately, when everyone dies and the earth floods. - Cyrus042, on 08/09/2008, -0/+2I really hate the elevations for some of these buildings. They're far too science fiction for me and while I don't expect the buildings to be traditional, that doesn't mean that they can't use at least some classic styles. The best buildings are timeless. Creating a giant impractical building that looks like an Xbox is not timeless and completely rejects the beautiful history of architecture.
- swimmin00, on 08/08/2008, -0/+2It's not about the look... the look was "futuristic", the "green" came from all the supposed low-resources, high vegetation ideas. Go read a book or something.
- da5id, on 08/08/2008, -0/+2These light v. heat arguments fail to account for climate/geography.
- zip000, on 08/08/2008, -0/+2I can't say I'm wild about it. I wouldn't say that it is ugly exactly, it just seems out of place.
- halogenik, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1I was thinking the same thing about the Swedish building
- davidwasman, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1Don't you mean :
"15 Awesomely Futuristic Green Designs we already saw LAST MONTH"? - zadadka, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1Let's Get Lunar !!
- Vector713, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1I was surprised to see CityCenter on there. I knew it was green, but I didn't ever expect it to make it into a Digg article. Either way, it's cool to be able to drive by it every day and see the construction progress. It's enormous and only about half to three-quarters of the way done.
- britblogger, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1just about the most honest comment I've read on Digg all week. bravo that man.
- wheelit, on 08/08/2008, -1/+2These buildings are amazing in design asthetically, but it makes one wonder how much these architects know about green design or energy use in general. Lately "green" has just become a marketing ploy....
- reeder84, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1Great, now I have the Jetson's theme song in my head.
- peccadillop, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1I still dont see the Jetsons home :(
- swimmin00, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1...and then you have Idiocracy's view on our future.
- bombadda, on 08/10/2008, -0/+1pretty gimmicky, was hoping for some actual smart green designs...
- hyperlexic, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1we'll probably see those in Dubai within 20 years.
- zmigliozzi, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1Those are link jacked I have seen some of those before.
- CplMax, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1They made a spinning tower like that in newport, or huntington beach. It was suppose to allow everyone to have a bit of sunshine everyday, But the thing that allows it to turn, broke a month into it being built, and they never fixed it, so now it looks like a jenga puzzle.
- naugrim, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1While the details about the Chicago spire sound totally amazing, the notion of having a giant phallus as part of your skyline isn't quite as appealing.
Nautilus inspired or not, it still kinda looks like a dick. Sorry.
(O.o) - theadvinci, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1Attention span of an average internet user is 3-5 seconds, about the same as a goldfish. So... What you do next time is:
1.Use subheadings
2.Use bullet points - firebhaal, on 08/09/2008, -0/+1I think green design and futuristic design are getting clumped together as one and the same these days, as made evident by this article
- CCunitz, on 08/08/2008, -0/+1"They're" sir.....
- bman85, on 08/08/2008, -1/+1Amazing concepts in here, i love it.
- djkidspinz, on 09/09/2008, -0/+0awesome!
- serif69, on 08/08/2008, -3/+3When will the "green" meme go away? What happened to buildings just being ***** cool without being labeled "green"?
- P1um, on 08/08/2008, -1/+1one of those looks like a giant joint.
that is all. - chix0r, on 08/08/2008, -2/+2Am I the only one that thinks the Chicago spire is horribly ugly? Especially when compared to the other buildings listed on that website. :-/
- nevadajames, on 08/08/2008, -1/+1Great post.
- Bucky, on 08/08/2008, -1/+1What ever happened to Buckminster Fuller's vision of cities encased in geodesic domes? He said just the savings in snow removal (in northern cities, of course) would pay for the cost of the dome itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Biosph%C3%A8re_ ... - x1015, on 08/08/2008, -0/+0I like how one of the fastest growing cities is Dubai and they aren't really doing sh@t for building eco friendly anything (minus the rotating building)...
What do you expect though its money they got through oil. - Evilblobs, on 08/08/2008, -5/+5Green this, green that...
Well the buildings look pretty damn sweet. - SRCR, on 08/08/2008, -5/+4I like them and best of all there green.
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