Karen Raugust explores a growing trend in architecture: sustainable design, which relies on 3D visualization to prevent waste and minimize short- and long-term ecological impacts.
Sustainable design -- conceiving and constructing buildings that are "green" -- is a key trend in architecture. As with any architectural project these days, 3D visualization is an important part of the process. It not only helps clients see what they're getting, but it helps architects and builders make decisions and eliminate conflicts, all before the construction process begins.
Sustainable design "is architecture that attempts to make as minimal an impact on the environment as possible," explains Chad Oppenheim, founder of OPPENheim architecture + design, which recently won approval for COR, a green, mixed-use commercial/residential tower in Miami's design district. While the concept of sustainable design has been around since at least the 1970s, it is experiencing a resurgence today, in part because of increased awareness of global warming and other ecological issues. "I'd like to say we're in the midst of a revolution of sorts," Oppenheim comments. "It's a tremendous trend and one that's here to stay."
The 400-foot-tall COR project "is as ecologically minded as it possibly can be," according to Oppenheim. The design calls for the building to generate some of its own power with wind turbines, have solar hot water collectors, offer grey water recycling of collected roof run-off, feature dual-flush toilets and energy-efficient applicances, and incorporate high-efficiency glazing and LED lighting. It also will help revitalize an urban area by adding both residences and businesses. "That idea of getting people to use their cars less is part of it too," Oppenheim explains.
Elements of Green Design
Sustainable architectural design includes many facets. A building can be officially certified "green" by the U.S. Green Building Council through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, which evaluates a building in five areas (sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality).
Doug Eberhard, chief technology officer at Parsons Brinckerhoff, a large engineering and construction management firm, says that LEED certification is driving professional standards, and that many clients are looking to be declared officially "green." But sustainability is broader than that. "We look at a 'triple bottom line' of economic, environmental and social impacts," he reports, adding, "There are trade-offs." The goal is to strike a balance between the three to achieve the greatest good for society.
Designing a green building can mean using recycled materials in construction, employing solar panels or wind turbines to generate power, incorporating energy-efficient windows or appliances, or citing a project so as to take advantage of natural conditions such as shade to reduce the need for air-conditioning. These are only a few of the many possibilities.
Parsons Brinckerhoff is responsible for construction management on the World Trade Center project, as well as developments in downtown Seattle and Dubai, among many others. The WTC complex -- No. 7 World Trade Center is being billed as the country's greenest building -- will feature a combined chiller plant to heat and cool all the buildings in the complex; other ecological issues that have been addressed include carbon emissions, visual impacts, recyclable materials and construction methods.
Architectural designs categorized as "green" can range from high-tech to relatively simple. Anderson Anderson Architects recently proposed a landscape element for the New Orleans waterfront called the Alluvial Sponge Comb. It is a huge, multi-finger sponge made of flexible, super absorbent material. Instead of resisting the water, it flows with it, both during natural cycles and extremes. The sponge comb would assist in flood and erosion control and enhance plant and animal habitats. Most importantly, when water levels are high and floods threaten, the sponge comb absorbs water and swells, becoming a temporary levee, returning to its original form as the water recedes.
Not all green designs are so radical, however. For example, one emerging trend is to design rooftops with gardens -- modular kits are available -- which not only makes the unused roof into a livable area, but also keeps the building cooler and alleviates run-off. Joe Cordelle of Animate Digital Studios in San Diego, who does architectural visualizations for public approvals and sales presentations, notes that some jurisdictions are starting to require green rooftops on certain new buildings. He plans to install one in his own studio.
3D in the Design Process
In any architectural project, 3D visualizations help clients and other constituencies get a good feeling for the design before construction starts. They increase efficiency and reduce costs by allowing decisions to be made early in the process and mistakes and conflicts to be caught before it's too late. While the use of and need for 3D visualizations are similar whether a project is green or not, the practice is even more critical in the area of sustainable design, where reducing waste is not just a matter of economics but is an ecological imperative.
Some green design techniques may be unfamiliar to the clients, and it is important that they know what they're getting and are happy with both the environmental impacts and the aesthetics. "In 3D, you automatically get it," says Cordelle. "People get it right away. They have a natural affinity for it."
Cordelle points out that architects want visualizations for sales purposes to be photoreal, and that techniques borrowed from the realm of entertainment can help convey the desired feeling. Dramatic lighting is particularly effective, while thoughtful use of camera angles and the soundtrack also add to the experience. "The more drama you add, the better," reports Cordelle, who uses 3ds Max to add detail to architectural models, typically received as AutoCAD, Rhino, SketchUp or Revit files.
"It goes even beyond real," says Oppenheim, who has been a proponent of 3D architectural visualizations for over 15 years. "There's something hyperreal about it. 3D really communicates the power of the design. It's ingrained in what we do." His studio uses Maya, ArchiCAD and Rhino in-house, and outsources high-end renderings to dbox, a 3D design studio. (Not all architects are looking for photoreal presentations, however. Oppenheim points out that some architects put their 3D renderings through a watercolor filter to make them look old-style.)
3D visualizations in architecture traditionally have been focused on conveying the aesthetic and visual aspects of a project, such as how a building blends in with the environment or how a room looks at certain times of day. But their use has become broader. "We were creating [the visualization] to help better communicate the project," Eberhard says. "Now, the 3D computer models we build are the basis of the design itself. The models are informing the design and informing the process."
Using 3D visualization as part of the design process reduces the chances of error in a number of ways. "The bigger the project, the more likely you are to make a mistake," says Cordelle, who points out that 3D integrates both the floor plan and the elevation into one model, which can bring to light conflicts between the two that aren't obvious in 2D. Meanwhile, any changes are automatically updated in all dimensions, eliminating miscommunication. Certain components, such as compound curves, are much easier to design and evaluate in 3D than in 2D. And 3D enables designers and builders to understand each other more easily, which eliminates problems during the construction process.
3D visualization has even started to penetrate to the consumer level, where easy-to-use software installed at retail locations allows homeowners to see the results of their design ideas without wasting money, time or other resources. For example, India's Anibrain Digital offers Anibrain RT, a realtime visualization software that is being used by paint companies in that country to help their customers visualize paint and décor ideas for their homes or offices.
Made possible by running NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards, Anibrains visualization software calculates ambient occlusion and image-based lighting in realtime to give a home owner near real pictures of what their interiors will look like. According to Anibrain founder Jesh Krishna Murthy, the software comes with a library of furniture, household items and textures. "At the end of a short session, users can end up with various permutations of their homes and really be able to make a decision on the paint they wish to use, upholstery... everything." The images, although done through a fast, intuitive and user-friendly interface, are lifelike, Murthy says, and nearly unlimited combinations of furniture arrangements, artwork, paints and finishes are possible. "We have truly harnessed the power of the GPU to provide the end user with high-end techniques like image-based lighting and ambient occlusion. These calculations are transparent to the end user, but they do enhance the final rendered images tremendously." The company is considering adapting the software to enable consumer-level visualizations in other sectors, such as the auto industry.
Integration of Construction, Design and Visualization
Design, construction and visualization are all converging. BIM (Building Information Modeling) software, examples of which include Revit and Architectural Desk Top, take into account building specs -- lighting calculations, solar heating, shadowcasting, orientation, weather patterns, lifecycle energy costing, travel demand, dirt-moving requirements during excavation and more -- but also can produce photoreal visualizations good enough for many presentations, without rendering in Maya or Max. "The walls know they're walls," explains Eberhard, "and the visualization is good enough to inform designers and even be used for presentation."
When the word "sustainability" is used, it usually refers to the attributes of a building itself. "People rarely talk about the sustainability of the information," Eberhard says. "Typically we work in silos." For example, a visualization company builds sales collateral, while the architects separately build their own models from scratch. Meanwhile, the engineers and builders receive the minimum amount of information they need and must recreate the rest. With BIM, however, this is changing. "You get the same quality visualizations in the same or less time, and have a simulated design model afterward," Eberhard explains.
The companies involved in a project can use a BIM package to model structural, architectural and mechanical systems in a single 3D file. Then, clash-detection software, which originated in the petrochemical industry to evaluate refinery pipe designs, can be used to unearth any conflicts. "If your beam goes through my heating duct, we can catch that," Eberhard says.
BIM also allows the 3D model to tie in with the construction schedule for a "4D" model. A typical 3D rendering or fly-through is constructed differently from the building itself; for example, concrete slabs are added floor by floor instead of in sections. By integrating the schedule with the visualization, an animation can show the building being constructed as it will be in life, which brings to light issues that can be resolved before physical building begins and helps the builder optimize how and where construction will be done. Even beyond that, a sixth dimension can be added to assist the builder in reducing waste by generating quantities based on the 3D model. The builder can extract data such as how many pieces of rebar or cubic feet of concrete are needed for a floor slab, for example.
"We can build on and share information we're collectively generating, and derive more value out of what we're creating, with these new animations," Eberhard says, noting that the World Trade Center construction project benefited from an integrated model that included the elements listed above.
While the BIM software packages can produce visualizations adequate for marketing purposes, there are times that models still need to be rendered in Maya or Max. These include high-end 3D presentations or visualizations done early in the process, such as when a developer needs to presell condo units in order to finance a project. Noting that the needs of BIM users and those of users of traditional 3D animation packages are somewhat different, Eberhard says, "I don't know if the two worlds will ever meet completely. It's sort of not natural at some level." In the world of 3D animation and vfx, success is measured by how real an illusion looks, and by the invisibility of the tricks used to create a sense of reality. In architectural visualization, on the other hand, "our objective isn't to fool our audience," Eberhard says. "It's to inform and inspire."
Karen Raugust is a Minneapolis-based freelance business writer specializing in animation, publishing, licensing and art. She is the author of The Licensing Business Handbook (EPM Communications).
