Nathan Good Architects

Last Friday, I took an all-day class on “Investigating Energy Use in Occupied Buildings” that was taught by two building science gurus, Dr. Alison Kwok from the University of Oregon and Walter Grondzik of Ball State University. Both professors have been active in the development and roll-out of the Vital Signs and Agents of Change projects, which train architects, engineers, students and others on simple techniques to assess a building’s performance.

This was an outstanding class that I highly recommend to others who are interested in learning how buildings actually function. We were trained in the use of simple tools to access a buildings lighting and daylighting, thermal comfort, airflow and energy loss. Attendees of the class plan to lobby NEEA’s BetterBricks, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and the University of Oregon to create a lending library that will enable design professionals and building operators access to these tools. The infra-red cameras that record the temperature differentials of adjacent materials is highest on my list of requested measurement equipment.

Dr. Kowk demonstrated the use of low-tech “high-performance” bubbles to assess airflow and circulation.

I was introduced to the Vital Signs project by Dr. Don Woolard in 1996 and conducted my first formal building assessment of the daylighting at the Mt Angel Abbey Library. My study was initially published as “User Responses to the Lighting Design at the Mt Angel Abbey Library” through the Vital Signs portal at the University of California at Berkeley, and can be viewed at http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/vitalsigns/bld/Casestudies/angel.pdf. The case study was republished as “Learning from a Library” in the October 2001 issue of Environmental Design + Construction, and can be downloaded from my web site at www.nathangoodarchitects.com/press.html.