Archives

Green Architecture students compete in the “Race to Zero” Student Design Competition – UPDATE

April 21, 2015 – Update. Richard Briginshaw, Coordinator for the Green Architecture reports – “Our Green Architecture students (Jessica Leblond and Nikita Kumar) did an excellent job with their project presentation and represented Algonquin College extremely well. I have attached some photos. Although they did not receive an award, they received some very positive comments from the four judges and others for their work. Of the 33 teams entered in the competition, most were university level teams with an average of 10 students per team, and most started work in September. Our team of three students only began work in January, but still managed to make an impressive showing.”

Congratulations to all on a job well done!

Original Story below

From April 17th through 20th, two Green Architecture students (Jessica Leblond and Nikita Kumar) and one professor (Richard Briginshaw) will be travelling to Golden, Colorado, for the students to present their submission in the U.S. Department of Energy “Race to Zero” Student Design

Competition (http://energy.gov/eere/buildings/2015-race-zero-competition-details ). The “Race to Zero” is a high profile international competition to design extremely energy efficient (“net zero”) housing, encouraging students to work directly with a “real world” builder to improve the energy performance of residential buildings. There are 33 teams entered, representing 27 universities and colleges from the U.S. and Canada.

Our team of students have been working on their design since January. This event is the culminating presentation to a panel of professional judges. There will also be an awards ceremony, tours to nearby sustainable buildings, and educational conference seminars given by experts.

This is also an excellent networking opportunity to meet other faculty and students from various International post-secondary institutions. This will provide a chance to establish connections for possible recruitment to our programs, and future collaborations or exchange of knowledge and ideas. This event will provide international exposure for Algonquin College. The students will have the experience of sharing their ideas with industry professionals and students from other post-secondary schools. They would also attend presentations from other student teams and learn from alternative approaches to net-zero design.

Best of luck at the competition!

It’s that time again: Edible Architecture!

Since 1989, the ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGY program of Algonquin College has been having a mid-semester ‘fun activity’ called “EDIBLE ARCHITECTURE”. Its purpose is to provide the students and staff with an opportunity at designing something ‘fun and unique’ during the ‘bleak midwinter’ blues, as well as an excuse for a major “sugar rush”! This Competition is open to any student in an ACCE program to participate. Great prizes awarded for winners!
The rules are very simple; each entry must be totally edible (including fasteners, glue and structural support) and must portray some architectural or design theme. The base it is presented on can be plates or boards for stability.
Rules:
Maximum three (3) people per team.
Entry must be COMPLETELY edible except plate.
Maximum size: 18” x 18” x 12”h
Entries and team members must Register in the 3rd floor Crit Space by 11:30am on Friday, Feb 13th in order to be considered for judging.
Base for carrying and presentation does not have to be edible.
The event is to be judged on FRIDAY, February 13th @ 12 noon in the 3rd floor Crit Space after the President’s coffee break. Voting for People’s choice award will start at the event. Anyone from ACCE can enter… come and have some fun!!
Categories:
Most Realistic
Most Innovative
Best Furniture
Most Humorous
Best Construction Detail
People’s Choice
For more information contact:
Chris Hewett 613 727 4723 ext 5889 or by email at hewettc@algonquincollege.com

More coverage for Algonquin College’s participation in the Isles development.

One of our 3rd year students, Martin Somers, is scheduled to be on the CBC show “All in a Day” this Tuesday, December 9th between 3:00-3:30 pm., to discuss his group’s project on the Windmill Isles site. He will be joined by one or two students from the Applied Museum Studies program as well.

Three other 3rd year students, Wes Ranger, Jeff Woodward and Adam Thomas, are mentioned in this article in the Ottawa Sun http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/12/04/construction-on-old-domtar-lands-could-begin-in-spring-2015 .

You may also want to click on this link to read what the Ottawa Business Journal had to report on Algonquin College’s participation in the Isles project.

Algonquin College Green Architecture Students win big at the North East Sustainable Energy Program Design Competition!

 

Algonquin College Green Architecture students were in Boston last week to receive the results from the North East Sustainable Energy Design Competition. The group did incredibly well an won 2nd Place and 3rd Place in Division I, as well as 2nd Place in Division II! The students are thrilled with their results as is Rick Briginshaw, the Coordinator for the Green Architecture program. Please click on the link above for more information and photos of the winning Algonquin College teams.The purpose of this competition is to “To engage the next generation of designers and engineers in the key energy issues and strategies of the day, NESEA sponsors an annual design competition for college and university students. The target participants include college, university and building science design programs in the 10 states in NESEA’s region from Maine to Washington D.C., plus the Eastern Canadian Provinces. In 2013-14 we have 9 colleges and universities and 17 teams competing across the four divisions.”

The Second and Third place prizes for each of the four Divisions: Up to 4 Two-day passes for Building Energy 14 conference in Boston in March, plus a cash award of $500 for 2nd place, $250 for 3rd place. The other participating Algonquin team receives a merit award and a cash prize of $125. To learn more about this competition please visit http://www.neseastudentdesigncompetition.org/

 

Results from all areas of the competition are below

Carlos Vega Park (4 schools / 6 teams)

  • ALGONQUIN COLLEGE1 (4) – THIRD PLACE
  • ALGONQUIN COLLEGE3 (4)
  • ALGONQUIN COLLEGE4 (4) – SECOND PLACE
  • KSC3 (3)
  • Harvard GSD1 (4)
  • WPI (2)

 

Parsons Paper (4 schools / 4 teams)

  • ALGONQUIN COLLEGE2 (4) – SECOND PLACE
  • KSC2 (2)
  • Rowan University (2)
  • UMass Amherst (4)

 

The Alpine (1 school / 1 team)

  • KSC1 (4)

 

The Riverside (4 schools / 4 teams)

  • KSC4 (2)
  • Harvard GSD2 (3)
  • NEU1 (7)
  • Yale (2)

UPDATE 5 – Some great news for Team Ontario’s Solar Decathlon entry…..

Our latest update from the Team Ontario ECHO entry into the Solar Decathlon comes again from Rick Briginshaw, the Coordinator for the Green Architecture program.

“Hello from California!

The last three days have been fairly
quiet since the houses have been closed to the public for jury
walkthroughs. I just got back from the first of three consecutive award
ceremonies (today, Friday and Saturday) and we have some EXCELLENT NEWS!
….

Today they announced that we took 2nd
PLACE in the Affordability Contest, and 4th PLACE in the
Market Appeal contest!!

With those results, we have moved
from 9th place overall to 3rd PLACE OVERALL!…
http://www.solardecathlon.gov/scores.html

Our team is thrilled with
those results! The next two contest announcements will be Architecture
and Communications, announced Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m.
EST) You can watch a live stream of the announcements here… http://www.solardecathlon.gov/videos-livestreams.html

The final awards ceremony will
be this Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m. EST) where they will announce
the winners of the Engineering contests and the overall winners.

Also… perhaps equally important (??),
this morning we had a friendly (?) street hockey game against Team Alberta,
on Main Street in the Solar Decathlon village, and we are proud to report that
Team Ontario won!! As a result, the lead student manager from Team
Alberta has to spend the day wearing a Team Ontario shirt!”

UPDATE -Team Ontario’s ECHO house completes trip to California intact!

Team Ontario - ECHO house onsite in California

UPDATE – Team Ontario in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon has reassembled Project ECHO and continues to work on a few things to get the house ready for next week’s competition.
They are working on installing the solar thermal collectors and heat dump in the next day so they can pressure test those before they get water on Sunday. Good luck team! The competition starts Thursday, Oct 3.

 

Original Story –

What began as a dream for several students and faculty at Ottawa’s Algonquin College and Carleton University, and Kingston’s Queen’s University, has culminated in a million dollar project to construct a net zero home that will compete on a global stage this fall.

ECHO, short for ECological HOme, was showcased today as part of an Open House and mock competition to ready the team for the 2013 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

“Our mission was to create an ecological home that sets the standard for sustainable living and creates waves of change in the housing market,” says Karl Kadwell, Project Manager for Team Ontario. “We are proud to have built this net zero home as a standard for future generations, and we are eager to showcase it in the competition this fall.”

ECHO is a 940 square foot, $300,000 home with a master bedroom, one bathroom, a multipurpose room that can be used as an office or second bedroom, and a combined kitchen/living room/dining room. Designed to be ‘net zero’, the home will utilize various solar and energy efficient technologies to produce at least as much energy in a year as it will consume. Students began designing the building in the summer of 2011: brainstorming its architectural appearance, running simulations and performing structural analysis. Construction began in September 2012 at Algonquin College’s campus in Perth, Ontario, where the students were able to complete most of the main structure and conduct a test move. In May of 2013, it was relocated to Algonquin College’s Ottawa campus for completion.

“This home is the result of a multi-disciplinary effort that brought together the theoretical knowledge taught by universities with the applied, hands-on learning offered by colleges to create a home that is both environmentally and financially sustainable,” says Professor Richard Briginshaw, Algonquin College Green Architecture Coordinator and member of Team Ontario. “These students have put a tremendous amount of effort into this project and I know they will make their schools and their country very proud of them.”

Dr. Kent MacDonald, President and CEO of Algonquin College; Dr. Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President and Vice Chancellor of Carleton University; and Laeeque Daneshmend, Deputy Provost of Queen’s University were all in attendance for the Open House, and offered the students words of encouragement. Ontario’s Minister of Energy, the Honorable Bob Chiarelli, was also in attendance to offer his support and announce that the team will receive $80,000 in provincial support from the Smart Grid Fund.

“I want to congratulate Team Ontario for their hard work and wish them the best of luck at the Solar Decathlon. The ECHO home and the students behind it are a prime example of why Ontario is considered a global leader in renewable energy, conservation and smart grid technology,” says Ontario Minister of Energy Bob Chiarelli. “I am proud the Ontario government is a supporter of Team Ontario.”

The next steps for the students involve preparing the house for shipping. The home is designed in two separate modules to make it easy for shipping, and those will be loaded onto flatbed trucks that will likely depart on Saturday, August 24. This year’s US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is set to begin Thursday, October 3rd, in Irvine, California, with the competition wrapping up on October the 13th.