Summary: The AIA is pleased to announce the four projects chosen to receive Upjohn Research grants for work beginning December 1 and to be completed within 18 months. Named for the AIA’s first president, Richard Upjohn, these grants provide matching funds of up to $25,000 for applied research projects that advance professional knowledge and practice. This year’s grants totaled $75,000.

The Upjohn Research program gives preference to proposals that team academics and practitioners. The research must relate to one or more domains of architectural knowledge: Leadership, Practice, Design, or Building Performance, and be framed within one of six broad research agenda areas: social, technological, environmental, cultural, organizational, or design. The Institute’s research priorities this year include sustainability, urbanization, demographic measures for public health and well being, energy consumption and better metrics for building performance, ergonomics, and integrated practice collaboration models.

The four projects receiving grants this year are:

Project: Nonlinear Biosynthesis
Researchers: Jenny E. Sabin and Peter L. Jones
Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania
In this project, the researchers propose that through the analysis of biological design problems in specialized three-dimensional designer microenvironments, the architect is afforded new ways of thinking about sustainable design by understanding how dynamic and environmental feedback informs structure and form.

Through the design of digital and algorithmic tools, the researchers aim to escape the imitation of these biological structures (popularly known as “biomimicry”) in favor of biosynthesis, where new tools and models for performative surface architectures, membrane structures, and building systems may be generated. The intent of this research project is to foster new and ongoing dialogues between the disciplines of architecture and biology and to investigate jointly fundamental processes in living systems and their potential application in performative structures and sustainable buildings—and vice versa.

Project: Case Studies of Carbon Neutrality
Researcher: Alison Kwok
Affiliation: University of Oregon Pacific Energy Center
This project will catalog the design and delivery process for carbon-neutral buildings through a series of case studies that describe design intent and actual performance. Research methodologies will include interviews with selected practitioners from architecture firms on the West Coast on the design process and strategies that delivered buildings that meet carbon neutrality.

Performance outcomes will be measured by using a nationally implemented set of investigative protocols that focus on particular design strategies. By documenting the delivery process for carbon-neutral buildings, the barriers to sustainable practice will be better understood by examining the issues faced by design teams during the design process and the role of clients, consultants, and contractors. Examining the results of postoccupancy performance will offer the architecture practice a means to “close the loop” of design lessons learned in building design.

Project: Eco-Effective Design and Evidence-Based Design: Removing Barriers to Integration
Researchers: Bill Rostenberg, Mara Baum, and Mardelle Shepley
Affiliation: Anshen + Allen Architects, Texas A&M University
Eco-effective design and evidence-based design are two powerful trends currently shaping health-care architecture. Eco-effective design, similarly known as sustainable design, addresses the design and operation of buildings to support improved ecological health and indoor environmental quality. Evidence-based design addresses the design and operation of buildings to support positive health outcomes in hospitals through a growing collection of solutions informed by research and practical knowledge. Although both trends have had a significant impact on recent health-care architecture, they are generally executed separately and are considered by many be at odds with one another.

This study will begin to bridge the perceived gap between both goals by proposing a structure through which design teams can effectively integrate them into the design process. The researchers will identify 15 “centers of excellence” for both evidence-based design and eco-effective design; compile case study information on each; and survey one or two administrators of each, including persons knowledgeable about physical, clinical, and operational drivers and the facility’s environmental impacts. They anticipate that some projects will be identified under both categories; these will be of special interest. Researchers will follow up with additional surveys and telephone interviews of administrators and project design teams, as necessary. Researchers will analyze and tabulate possible conflicts and synergies among specific strategies and practices.

Project: Passageways/Portes et Passages du Retour
Researchers: Coleman Jordan, Muhsana Ali, and Paul Gerstenblatt
Affiliation: University of Michigan
Passageways is an interdisciplinary association made up of artists, academics, architects, scientists, and related professionals that promotes holistic development in Africa. “Holistic” is defined as the accentuation of the integral relationship among various aspects of society, including environmental, technological, cultural, and social. Through this approach, Passageways seeks to develop community-based projects and promote intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange in visual culture and science between Africans and the world community at large. Passageways presently is developing a Holistic Art Center in Mbodiene, a rural area of Senegal, where it owns 10 acres of land.

The targeted project is the design and construction of the first model building, which will serve as the nucleus for all of the Holistic Art Center's activities, incorporating aspects of the utilitarian elements of all subsequent buildings to facilitate immediate functioning of the establishment. The researchers will use local, recycled, and natural resources and incorporate the latest in renewable energy technology with a focus on self-sufficiency (e.g., wells, irrigation systems, composting toilets, biogas, and passive solar and renewable energy). Technological studies include use of materials such as overabundant seaweed as a replacement for straw in bale-building and local earth-rich clay for brick and tile-making, as well as cow dung and clay mixtures for bricks.