Man - Nature - Energy

Universal senses

2010-09-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!" ... but almost!

First shelter = Clothing

2010-03-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

Do you wear clothes? ...or do you dress clothes?
The thermal complexity paradigm of a human body!
[ coming soon... ]

photo: robertnelson

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

The true essence of Living!

2009-12-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

photo: Helder Neves

... nature's rules ... body temperature control... comfort ... human habits/needs ... permanent vs temporary ... materials ... details ... cultural interfaces ...

[ coming soon... ]

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Performance in Life

2009-02-09T04:18:00.000-08:00

How does your design influences overall performance?

photo by: pustatoris

Aesthetics, function, ... what about performance? Not a priority in most cases but its worth looking at it's potentials.
Self-shading systems are very impressive and the Cactus is just an example of it.

Have a look at its surface and the way it can handle the Sun:

As you can see, a the cactus surface can provide 16% more shade then on a spherical surface. Magic hein! Digging a bit further on this systems takes design to another level. It is probably within the same field as "funtion" but in a particular level I would say.
Form/shape does really affect performance and in Nature you can find the essence and simplicity of it.

Architecture seem to be somehow not finished nowadays and this performance aspect might be one of the forgotten bits! Technology is good and fancy, and it sells the product nowadays. But somehow I see this system quite fancy as well. Dont you? Too complex and free self running, for human taste maybe ;)
...even if complex, Nature's technology often comes from very simple concepts and is always highly efficient, healthy and CHEAP! We like it cheap, right?! Maybe that is a start!

"It always seem that as far as we go away from those basic rules of Nature, as difficult it gets to sustain any system."

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Tags: Self shading form... biology inspirations... nature's analogies

What is wrong?

2008-09-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

What is wrong in this picture?
Since when Man need an air condition device?
Why are our needs raising?
It is a fact that core temperature in human body's drops during the sleep.
That is due to the low body activity (see work=heat). But there is a certain stage during the sleep where temperature drops significantly!
- That is why unconsciously you dress and cover yourself before falling asleep.
- That is why you do not feel cold during that "low temperature" stage.

A bed is a dynamic device that extends your level of comfort. Some knows how to use it, others not! Though, I cannot see how an air condition extends your comfort while sleeping.
In a perfect night sleep, you should not strange temperature differences so that your sleep is not disturbed. Notice that naturally, you "overdress" before sleeping: clothes, bed sheets, blankets... When your body reaches the stage where it needs a low temperature, it simply uncovers itself during the night and covers it again after that stage and you won’t even notice that! During the low temperature stage, known as the "deep sleep" phase, you are temporarily paralyzed – that means no body activity, which results in a significant temperature drop. Most activity remains then in the brain and it’s during this phase that most dreams occurs. Nature’s answer for the muscles inhibition might be to prevent our body from acting while dreaming! - Isn't this beautiful?! Apart from its beauty, this is a very important rest stage for humans. If for some reason you wake up in the middle of this stage, you normally feel extreme disorientation and hard consciousness of time&space. For sure you have noticed that at least once in your life.

If you think that you have found a new solution to regulate precisely this complex and basic need, then you are challenging Nature!

So, if your body temperature needs to drop during the night you should deal with it instead of avoid it. The first common reaction to this is to provide a warmer environment although that will collide with the cooling need. This is of course a wrong approach to the issue and might be the answer to this post. You have to ask the right question - why does it cools down? For sure you don't want to interfere in your physiological needs by avoiding them!
If you heat/cool your room beyond those basic needs, your body won’t be able to find a temperature that matches its needs even by uncovering itself. If the body cannot get the cooling needs, it will start to sweat. By doing that it will definitely cool down, but since our system is “down”, the temperature change occurs rapidly and it will disturb your sleep. The sweating stage will take you into a cold stage, (wet skin get cold faster), and you will need to cover yourself again, but remember, your body needs a low temperature at this stage and you are offering the opposite!!! I cannot see a way to achieve this using any extra device such as air conditioners but your brain.

Life has already solved this complex system for you and it is based on millions of years of Human evolution. Do not interfere with it, unless you find a way to improve it!

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Penguin frozen feet?

2008-09-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

The penguin possesses an amazing concept to keep body's temperature while standing permanently on ice.
Their feet are designed so that it never reaches 0°C and the cold blood never affects its core body temperature!
How is that possible? Life design is beautiful: At the top of the legs the cold blood channels (returning from the feet) will cross pass the warm blood channels (going to the feet) and they exchange their temperatures. So that the "up coming blood" is always warm and the "down going blood" is always cold. In this way penguins get a very low heat loss through their skin. The low temperature on their feet is then much close to the environment temperature preventing it from ice burn as well.

Concepts like this one are in fact a common practice in Man creations:

Although we see this as systems attached to our design. What if your design contains already this concept just as Life do. Being aware and understanding its potential may provide clues for more efficiency and natural climate control.

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

...a perfect body

2008-09-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Human Body has no heating system - It heats through Life / Work.
If you move your fingers, you are creating heat...
...thats the concept!

Photo: Stridsberg and RJ

I have been recently amazed with the fact that human body has no system in charge of heating it up. Life does not see heat in common way that we are probably used to. In Life, heat is created through transformation processes. In fact the body often use the blood to cool down its core temperature!
That is because your kidneys are working, our liver is working, heart, brain, etc, and all are those processes produce heat a a result of its primary function! So Work produces heat as any other thing in Life.
Notice that the outlet blood temperature from an organ is always higher that the inlet one. Obviously!

That is probably one of the biggest answers to the facts that I've been beating on; the fact that it is not possible to change your body core temperature. People should bear this in mind! We just need to care about not loosing too much heat instead of worrying about heating it up. In another words, One can not manage to raise his core temperature by heating it up with an external source of energy. That is because your body is designed to keep a constant temperature, therefore it will always protect itself from temperature changes. If somehow you manage to do it, than you will get sick. If you're healthy, it doesn't matter if you are in a sauna or swimming in a cold lake, your body temperature will always be about 36,5°C (+-1,5°C as max limits).

To control those slightly fluctuations in the core's temperature, (that happened due to different body activity), your body raises the blood near to the skin surface in order to get rid of the heat, (the red skin effect of when people are too warm). Or it keeps the blood as far away as possible from the skin surface in order to keep the core temperature steady. (the white skin effect of when people are cold)

The overheat produced buy your organs is normally enough to match heat losses on a 20 to 23°C environment. As much as you raise up your environment temperature, you are making it more and more difficult for the body to efficiently cool down. In the limit, when the air temperature reaches your body core temperature, your body will activate a secondary cooling system by sweating.

In the other way around, if you cool down the air temperature below 20°C, your body is having a heat loss that is higher than it needs and so it will start the first protection system by raising the hair in the skin. (goose bumps) That allows to trap a layer of air that works as an insulation.
And now, to finish as lovely as we started; the best of Life:
If air temperature is greater below 20°C your body is finally designed to generate heat by shivering. Shivering is actually your muscles contracting in repeated cycles. Generating heat through work!

You should re-question your levels of comfort according to some of those facts, otherwise you will constantly and ignorantly get sick. "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

If our body is so well-done and logical-designed, why dont we use the same approach in architecture? Understanding nature and learning from it! Just like in physics, we use the physics laws because they are "obviously" easy-logical-efficient-natural...

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Landscape refrigerator?

2008-09-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

If you tilt down your refrigerator does it look better? Maybe then kids wouldn't be able to hang stuff on it! But for sure we would still use it as a post-it board.
Come on Designers, where are you?
So far I can see only advantages, a "lower heat convection" and a "fantastic overview" of all products inside the fridge, just to start!!!

White goods have standardized dimensions so that we can plan easier the "right corner" for them.
Todays they are 10x better in terms of energy consumption. Although its design remains the same.
And, of course, architecture depends on how refrigerators look like.
But why? Why architecture has always to depend on existing cliches and obsolete models!
Why dont we change the obsolete models and cliches instead of the architecture? Because its cultural to use the comum fridge so that everyone can find it? Cultural facts are not relevant for white goods design! Architects have to save the world but they are not Elves, so please promote evolution within your generation.
As we all know, cultural it is not an intelligence synonym! "People still think in our Era, that they get sick if they dont were shoes". oh... oh... my left eye tingle each time I hear that!

There is so many obsolete things that architecture includes, trying to sustain preconceived needs that actually do not fit anymore. Stop worship Culture! We do not live in a "slow-motion evolution" anymore.

Each Architecture should integrate new systems that allow people to question themselves and contribute actively to an intelligent development or what ever you want to call it. Come on, if we live in this massive information age, make some use of it!!!

Architecture can provide the bridge to that "new evolution". Creating codes that help to re-educate and adapt Man kind within one generation.

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Leonardo da Vinci

2008-09-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

Human subtlety will never devise an invention
' more beautiful,
' more simple or
' more direct
than does Nature because in her
inventions
' nothing is lacking, and
' nothing is superfluous.

Hydrogen on Housing?

2008-09-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Do you think that Hydrogen is Green?
Actually I've read that if you burn it, it has no colour! :)
We know where our diesel comes from. But what about H2?

I've heard so much about hydrogen these days. Usually associated to car industry, but now it reached other areas such as housing and construction or production of other things.
A recent news announced that the new World Trade Center construction will be powered by this new fuel. So... I really had to have a look at its potential:

There is 2 "trended" ways to produce energy through hydrogen:

1 - One is to burn it in your car instead of gas or diesel, to obtain torque energy. I read recently about some conversions like to natural gas.
2 - Another is through the hydrogen fuel cells process, to obtain electricity that can then be used to move or light anything.

On the first one, since there is combustion with lubricants (although you need much less oil in the mixture since hydrogen burns much faster that gas), we are still producing carbon dioxide on this process. While in the second one, by using hydrogen fuel cells, it is mixed with oxygen (O2) and the final product is electricity and water.
Thats the one that has more potential specially because you can extract much more energy from the same amount of Hydrogen in this way.

Everything seems beautiful but I see a problem here. Where does it come from?
I read about 2 ways:

1- Fossil fuel, they can extract H2 through natural gas. But for that it seem that they need more energy to make it than is obtained once you burning it.
2 - Photovoltaic, that will produce electricity, that you can use to remove hydrogen from the water through a common electrolysis process. But thats not a zero emissions system because there was a lot of CO2 emissions to produce the PVs. They are quite energy consumption!

Actually Toyota says that the current hybrid cars in use, are more energy efficient than the new Hydrogen fuel cells ones due to the hydrogen cost production and transportation!
Maybe to power the new WTC with this technology will be still worth considering the electricity sources in the USA.

But actually, I imagine Hydro Power Stations being the best place to Produce Hydrogen. Everything starts there and plus it is a completely zero carbon dioxide production.

Summing up, through hydro power it can be produced 2 types of electricity, but one of them will be stored as H2, which can later on be transformed into electricity through hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Should it be consider the cost of its production in that way? Of course it consumes energy to produce it, but in this case this energy is free, right! Quite weird to think on that early stage of production!

Hydrogen as a liquid green battery :)
Interesting.... I miss the future!

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

How to catch a Cold?

2008-09-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

"Architecture can not solve everything"

photo by: Ivyisarobot

"...oh wait, I need to get a jacket otherwise I will get sick!"
Which drugstore sell those jackets?

Why do I never use a jacket and I never get sick then? Maybe you should say:
"...oh wait, I need to get a jacket otherwise I will feel cold!"
________________________________
Do you think that your mom taught you right?

If you're outside and got a dripping nose... "Go and put some proper clothes you freak!"
Actually it seems that you and your dog got this condition in common, but why doesn't he get sick and you do?
Because he had no mom?!? :) Well, try to dress your dog wrongly and he might get sick as you do!

You think that the reason for your sickness is the lack of clothes, so in the next time you will dress more clothes, right?! Well, by doing that you achieve more heat as well as more humidity in you body. It can not breath through all those clothes. (we normal sweat under lots of clothes even in the winter, isnt it?!) Bacterias like it warm and humid, right? And you have just created the perfect environment for them. Well done! Now you can get from a simple Cold to anything else, its just a matter of luck!

I think that the problem starts normally before all of that, while still at home. Too warm indoors will increase your need of clothes once you go out. That is due to the temperature differences. Instead, if you lower the indoor temperature and put on more clothes, the temperature difference is much lower and/or easier to handle, when you walk your dog out! :) Therefore you dont need as much clothes as before which lets your body breath and dry efficiently. But... like this you dont get a Cold! :)

I believe that people get often sick in the winter, NOT because of the cold BUT because they spend more time together at home sharing warm and exhausted air, allowing bacterias to spread quickly.

Please, bear in mind that your nose will continue dripping once you alter big temperature differences and I dont believe that someone can get sick through that, either through a fresh breeze... or what ever myth you have inherited!

... you are welcome! :P

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Sustainable Dance Club?

2008-08-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

A dance club in Rotterdam generates energy through people dancing.
Flush the toilet with rainwater.
The color of the walls changes as a reaction to the heat without any energy use.
...

More info here.
By Enviu and Doll

When to use a T-shirt

2008-08-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

"Architecture can not solve everything"

Photo by: Christian

A t-shirt is a thin piece of cotton that is dressed in a warm climate.
That allows our skin to be more exposed to the air, which will help to evaporate human sweat and cool down our bodies.
You can find many other definitions but non relates a T-shirt to the Winter!

Why do people use a T-shirt in the winter?
Either they are sick (like me) :) or they drive a bicycle instead of a car (like me) :) or they have bought an air conditioned device that allows them to wearing a t-shirt indoor even during cold seasons.

Is that the reason why you bought your heating system?

Nowadays we are used to compare things in order to realize facts quicker. So how is it that you didnt got that yet? We do remember not so long ago, (our parents time), they all use to dress more than a simple t-shirt while staying indoor in a cold season, right?!
So why do people want to live in a tropical climate in the cold season nowadays?

Compare the cost of a good wool shirt with the cost of an air conditioning unit. Are we really intelligent beings?
Our parents didnt had that technology, but more important than that is the "need"! Why do we need that?

This is of course just an example. Our new needs are leading us towards something totally artificial that WE will manage to survive, (of course, as always), even in an ecological way, but please notice that it is not the Human nature.

Artificial environments are and will weakness Man kind.

Not even sustainable architecture can solve that! OK?!

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Sketch book

2008-07-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Can architecture be based on a dynamic design which allows the natural flux of the air?

Where the efficiency of each System is taken to its limit!

Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation is the process of supplying and removing air through an indoor space by natural means.
Two types:
- wind driven ventilation
- stack ventilation.

H2 car

2008-06-22T17:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.pureenergysystems.com/store/Horizon_Fuel_Cell_Technologies/H-Racer_and_Station/

Solar Thermochemical

2008-06-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

A number of laboratories are developing thermo chemical methods to produce hydrogen from solar energy and water.

Switch on the sun

2008-06-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

By rogerio

Zero emissions

2008-05-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

I hate cars technology. Compare the last 5years progress on computers and cars. Ok ok, now cars got a GPS, thats nice! Even the fuc**** computer in the car have a lot of limitations and its developing process is ridiculous - anyway its nice decoration and VIP like it.
Even I (poor student lol) have a better control on energy consumption on my bike's computer than any car on the market! Actually 5years ago my father had a car than told the tires pressure and let you know if you losing air in real time. Impressed? I am not!

June 2008 - Toyota announces the FCHV-adv first real Hydrogen car! (Fuel Cells)
I mean real because it can be compared with a normal car having the same performances.

800km tank
155km/h max speed.

Wood store co2

2007-11-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

Helder Neves
in "Architecture cannot solve everything!"

Testing....

2007-10-26T03:52:00.001-07:00

testing out...

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/05/greenpix-giant-solar-powered-led-wall-in-china/

http://www.norwaypost.no/cgi-bin/norwaypost/imaker?id=160725