Project Data:

Completion Date:     8/1/2016

Square Footage:      425000

Building Use:           student housing

Design Architect:      Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Inc.

Project Description:

Fogcatcher embraces the specific microclimate of western San Francisco to generate a design that provides net-positive energy, utilizing no mechanical system for the student housing, relying instead on passive strategies for heating and cooling. This is accomplished by utilizing a tight and well insulated building envelope and incorporating a “flipped” tiny living housing concept with smaller internal sleeping quarters, which supports student’s demand for more privacy, and general communal living spaces located on the perimeter, addressing student’s desire for more daylight and wellness from their campus residential experience.

The building is enveloped in a “cloud-like” metallic shroud expressive of the natural breezes that enfold the student housing buildings like a perforated, filmy blanket. Addressing California’s continued struggles with droughts, the design follows biomimicry. Similar to homeohydrous desert plants that collect dew, the design highlights a transparent mesh ‘shroud’ that collects fog condensation acting as a fog-catcher, gathering enough water from the ambient fog to provide sufficient water for each student annually, while providing customizable sun shading devices. The cloud-like fog catcher has operable shutters that can be opened or closed depending on the privacy desired or the controllability of sunlight and glare.

LED lighting is incorporated into each building behind the shroud signifying the energy usage per building, and creating a dynamic, ever-changing expression while educating the community on the building’s energy consumption. Power would be generated by PV’s on the roof and wind turbines located in a series of wind parks, capitalizing on the natural breezes to generate energy.

Through the smart, tiny living concept and almost entirely passive strategies, this project requires only 65-75% of typical square footage for comparable student housing and promises to be not just net-zero but actually Net-Positive by 18%. Though we agree with the premise that density is appropriate, we did not support the number of beds proposed for the site. Daylight, natural ventilation and appropriate scale of living drove our design that accommodates 2,168 beds.