| This design thesis explores sustainable design through the International House Residential complex for graduate students on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton, Alberta. This project uses sustainable, on-site energy resources to explore architectural design as an infill process, re-articulating the surrounding context, rather than as an individual object. A climate control strategy is applied to the project, using an external skin to completely encapsulate the residence. This skin mitigates the extreme climate of Edmonton and allows for increased flexibility, in both the physical structural and functional capabilities of the internal buildings and atrium spaces. The moderated interior focuses on the function of the personal spaces. The controlling skin becomes an architectural expression of the functions which provide sustainable and efficient energy use. Using the existing urban fabric—the contextual and climatic conditions—drives the sustainable strategy of the architecture. The student residence program is significant to the architectural-strategy as it requires a balanced presence of both unified and separated relationships between the private and public International House spaces. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
