The Low Down On Green Living
July 5th, 2009
California Architect Thinks About White Roofs
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Written by Susan Kraemer, courtesy of GreenBuildingElements.com
If every building had a white roof, we would be able to cool the surrounding areas. That is the reasoning behind a California law about to go into effect next month requiring light reflective roofs on all new buildings. It is already the law for new flat roofs here.
Here, architect Richard Meier and his partner Michael Palladino have apparently created a design to go one further. It’s entirely white; roofs, walls, and interiors.
So this luxury design of a cool and airy Southern California beach house is glamorous and climate friendly.
Well, no. The McMansion-sized size of the thing at 4,280-sq.-ft is not so planet friendly; because it takes more energy to heat and cool a larger space. But this house would be well suited for a ground heat exchange to passively heat and cool itself with 55 degree air cooled from 10 feet under the ground.
As architects in California get closer to 2020, they will need to think more about passive cooling and heating and zero energy houses, as that will be the law by 2020. All new building must be zero energy by then.
Incorporate solar roofing on the white roof, and this could be a zero energy house.
The blue of a solar roof would visually extend right out to the ocean. (And conceal that horrible mess of mechanical contraptions on that roof.) White elastomeric cool roof paint under the solar panels would help cool the modules making them more efficient on hot days.
But are architects thinking about these things?
With 2020 almost upon us: “The beams at the roof, located above the horizontal framing, express the structural rhythm and layering of components,” explains the architect. “This cadence is repeated with the joinery of the painted aluminum exterior wall panels and modular windows. The mass of the exterior plaster walls are juxtaposed to the transparent glazed facades, creating a mosaic of layered materials.”
Blah, blah, blah.
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Comments
Michael Anschel
July 8th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Beautiful to look at. But to live in a museum? Besides with all that western glazing this house is going to get hot hot hot. White exteriors have been used in Mediterranean architecture for centuries with great success, of course they have tiny little windows and use the thermal mass of the structure to help keep it cool during the day and warm at night.To call this mansion with huge cavernous spaces Green is a heck of a stretch. It doesn’t need a Ground source heat pump. It needs an architect who understands how buildings work.
shems
July 8th, 2009 at 9:09 am
This is not green!
We need to refine our use of the term green. Nothing about this home is really eco-friendly.
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