Off Grid: Ideas for Building a Carbon Neutral Future

The William Turnbull, Jr. Environmental Prize
Sponsored by the California Architectural Foundation
In conjunction with the AIACC Monterey Design Conference, "Lateral + Vertical”, October 19-21, 2007

As noted by the US Green Building Council, buildings in the U.S. consume more than 30% of our
total energy and 60% of the electricity. The U.S. consumes 5 billion gallons of potable water per day just to flush toilets. A typical North American commercial construction project generates up to 2.5 pounds of solid waste per square foot of floor area. Sustainable Design practices can substantially reduce these negative environmental impacts and reverse the trend of unsustainable construction practices, but we must look beyond doing less harm to providing designs that heal the earth. Design should consider creating a “Zero Carbon Footprint” that is “Regenerative”.

A Carbon Footprint is the measure given to the amount of green house gases produced by burning fossil fuels, measured in units of carbon dioxide (i.e. Kg). Like walking on a soft sandy beach everyone leaves a footprint. The aim of this competition will be to examine strategies that not only minimize the footprint created by the construction and ongoing operation of this project but reach beyond to heal the damage inflicted by less sensitive development.

The winners are: Citation recipient Candice Liu from DES Architects + Engineers, for the group project "Cascading Energy"; Commendation recipients’ are Gray Dougherty from Ratcliff Architects and Daniel Sullivan UC Berkeley student with their team project  "Dissipative Colony" and Danielle Krauel of IBE Consulting Engineers for her "Off-Grid Community". All of the entries were displayed at the Monterey Design Conference and will be featured in the 08.1 issue of arcCA in a special, supplement section.

Commendation Award: "Cascading Energy" group project of DES Architects + Engineers: Candice Liu, Tracy Wong, Howard Kwok, Chi-Wing Wong, Ginny Yi, Waibun Lee, Rico del Moral, Amy M. Strazzarino, Byron K. Wong, and Enoc Lira from.

Citation Award: “Dissipative Colony" team project by Gray Dougherty from Ratcliff Architects and Daniel Sullivan UC Berkeley student.

"Off-Grid Community" group project of IBE Consulting Engineers: Howard Ho, Peter Simmonds, Danielle Krauel, Michael Leung, Neil Alexander, Christie Lyons, Isaac Chambers, Paul Baker, Patrick Wilkinson and the rest of IBE Consulting Engineers and Hong Gip (Cannon Design).