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art, museums, & climate risk | the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Museums, as stewards of cultural heritage, are in it for the long term. To safeguard the artistic, historic and scientific resources they hold in trust for the public, museums need to adapt to a world where change—and water—are the new normal.

Designing for Resilience, Elizabeth Merritt, founding director, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums

The Swiss architectural firm of Herzog & de Meuron designed what is now called the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). The museum is anchor for a 30-acre museum park on Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami. The Biscayne Bay location was provided by the City of Miami. Construction of the building cost $220 million. $100 million was provided by Miami-Dade voters in general obligation bond funding. $120 million came from private donors.

The museum of modern and contemporary art is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting international art of the 20th and 21st centuries. The museum holds the largest collection of contemporary Cuban art in the United States.

The National Climate Assessment of 2014 named Miami one of the U.S. cities most vulnerable to severe damage as a result of rising sea levels. According to the report, sea levels have risen eight inches since 1870. The report projects a further rise of one to four feet by the end of the century.

The National Climate Assessment of 2014 found that while melting Arctic and Antarctic ice and rising sea levels are threatening the entire American coastline, Miami is exceptionally vulnerable due to its natural geology.

The city of Miami is built on top of porous limestone. The limestone absorbs seawater. The rising sea waters are being absorbed into the city’s foundation. The water bubbles up through pipes and drains, encroaches on fresh water supplies and saturates infrastructure. County governments estimate that the damages could rise to billions or even trillions of dollars.

In such circumstances and given Miami’s geology, how is the Pérez Art Museum Miami designed to fulfill its responsibilities as a steward of art and cultural heritage?

The architecture has been designed to adapt to the climate of Miami. The new building, opened in 2013, was specifically designed to withstand hurricanes. The museum is raised on an elevated platform above the flood plain. The museum features the largest sheets of hurricane-resistant glass in the U.S. Art storage facilities are situated more than 46 feet above sea level. The museum’s backup-electricity system runs on generators. The generators are located on the third floor.

  • The first floor of the museum was elevated by Herzog & de Meuron above the 18-foot high-water mark left by Category 5 Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The elevation acts as a safety cushion for projected effects of climate change.
  • Gaps in the floors of the patio surrounding the museum allow water from rain, storm surge or flooding to drain into the parking garage, located underneath the museum.
  • A power generator is located on the third floor of the museum. Electricity to the building is ensured even if lower floors are affected by flooding. The generator has enough fuel for three days of use, and can be refueled by truck or barge (in case the roads are blocked).
  • Second-floor windows feature the largest panels of hurricane-resistant glass in the US (17.5 feet tall by seven feet wide, each weighing 2,500 pounds).
  • The teak entrance doors weigh 550 pounds each. They each feature a multi-prong pin system. The pin system locks the doors in several places to secure them against category-five hurricane winds.
  • The hanging gardens, inclusive of the mechanical system and irrigation system, are designed to withstand a category five hurricane.
  • Should a major hurricane head towards Miami, the museum maintains plans to de-install and place in storage as much of the art as possible, starting with the most sensitive works, such as particularly rare works on paper that are sensitive to humidity and temperature fluctuations.
  • The museum’s art storage facility is situated 46 feet above sea level. This is to ensure security from flooding and water damage. Storage HVAC is designed to handle humidity levels that might follow a storm event.

See:

“Jorge Pérez Donates $15 Million in Cash and Art to Miami Museum” | Hili Perlson, Artnet, 30 November 2016

“Designing for Resilience” | Elizabeth Merritt, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums, 11 August 2015

“Protecting Priceless Art from Natural Disasters” | John Whitaker, The Atlantic, 27 May 2015

“Trendswatch 2015” | Elizabeth Merritt, Center for the Future of Museums, an initiative of the American Alliance of Museums“

“Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate” | Carol Davenport, The New York Times, 7 May 2014

“Pérez Art Museum” | Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering

National Climate Assessment

Pérez Art Museum | Wikipedia

 

#PérezArtMuseumMiami #Miami #Herzog&deMeuron #JorgePérez #art #artcollections #climaterisk #resilience #realestate #artstorage #electricity #powergeneration #carbondioxide #CO2 #risingsealevels

 

 

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21st c building design & construction ・re-exploring wood & rammed earth

While concrete, glass structures, polished stone walls, brick facades and steel beams now prevail in urban design, wood and rammed earth are getting attention.

The use of steel in urban buildings began with the production of steel in bulk. Mass production of steel was enabled by Henry Bessemer’s development of the Bessemer converter in 1857. Once steel could be produced in bulk, it became cheaper and easier to obtain.

The 10-story Home Insurance Building, completed in 1885 in Chicago, was the first building in the world to use structural steel in its frame. Due to its architecture and weight-bearing frame, the building is considered the world’s first “skyscraper.”

The 16-story Ingalls Building, built in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1903, became the world’s first reinforced-concrete skyscraper.

The production of steel and the production of concrete are, however, both energy intensive and carbon intensive. Steel and concrete have high levels of embedded energy. Neither steel nor concrete are renewable.

As of 2014, 54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. The world’s urban population has grown rapidly, from 746 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014. The world’s urban population is expected to continue to grow – to 66% of the world’s population by 2050, surpassing six billion people by 2045.

With more people moving into urban areas, the demand for big buildings is likely to grow. The building industry (materials production, building technology, architecture, construction, …) is increasingly exploring the ratio of demand for buildings with the environmental impact of building materials.

Two building materials that are coming to attention are wood and rammed earth.

Wood is manufactured into large cross-laminated timber panels for purposes of tall building construction. Cross-laminated timber panels, a layered composite like a super-strong plywood, are made by gluing pieces of smaller wood together.

In order to build tall buildings, large wood panels that can be as large as 64 feet long,  eight feet wide, and 16 inches think  are engineered. Builders use concrete and steel only at high-stress locations like joints.

Architects are now able to build with timber, in tandem with precision digital manufacturing processes like CNC milling, to heights that have hitherto been unimaginable.

The environmental properties of cross-laminated timber panels make it even more attractive. As trees grow wood stores carbon dioxide, sequestering CO2 from the air. Michael Green of Michael Green Architecture in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose firm who recently completed T3, a seven-story building in Minneapolis that is now the tallest wooden building in the US, observes that wood is manufactured using solar power:

“Steel and concrete don’t grow back. They are not renewable materials. They are not even remotely renewable materials—they use massive amounts of energy in their creation, whereas the most perfect solar power system of making any material on Earth is the making of our forests.”

Rammed earth can be used for both residential and commercial buildings. Rammed earth walls are solid masonry walls. These walls are massive, built for the long term, and not easily replaced. That said, they are beautiful and contain a fraction of the embodied energy of manufactured wall products such as fired bricks or concrete blocks. Rammed earth walls also possess unique thermal qualities that keep residents cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The market for rammed earth now includes both residential and commercial buildings. Commercial buildings built with rammed earth walls include wineries, resorts, offices, and university buildings.

See:

“The Next Wave of Building Materials” | Emma Kantrowitz, CBRE, 6 July 2017

“Get Ready for Skyscrapers Made of Wood (Yes, Wood)” | Elizabeth Stinson, Wired, 30 May 2017

“Will Skyscrapers of the Future Be Built From Wood?” | Natasha Geiling, Smithsonian.com, 20 June 2016

“World’s population increasingly urban with more than half living in urban areas” | United Nations, 10 July 2014

Chadwick Dearing Oliver, Nedal T. Nassar, Bruce R. Lippke & James B.

McCarter (2014) Carbon, Fossil Fuel, and Biodiversity Mitigation With Wood and Forests, Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 33:3, 248-275, DOI:

10.1080/10549811.2013.839386

“History of the steel industry (1850-1970)” | Wikipedia

“Ingalls Building” | Wikipedia

“Home Insurance Building” | Wikipedia

Michael Green Architecture, Vancouver, British Columbia

T3, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Earth Structures Group

#architecture #design #smartluxury #construction #climaterisk #CO2 #energy #wood #crosslaminatedtimber #rammedearth #CNCmilling

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CO2 vibrates, that’s just what it does

The CO2 molecule vibrates. As a matter of fact, it vibrates in three different ways. As it vibrates, it absorbs and emits the radiant heat (energy) of our sun as it reaches our earth, and it does so very well and very efficiently … That’s just what it does.

The CO2 molecule is composed of three atoms: one atom of carbon (C) and two atoms of oxygen (O). Hence CO2, carbon dioxide (“di” refers to “two”).

The carbon and oxygen atoms move around each other and interact with each other at different frequencies. Each different way of moving around constitutes a vibration mode.

In one vibration mode, with the oxygen and carbon atoms interacting at a certain frequency, the CO2 molecule attracts and absorbs the energy (radiant heat) of the sun. Just the way a magnet might attract a paper clip.

As the molecule absorbs the energy of the sun, it switches into another vibration mode, moving faster. In this faster vibration mode, with the carbon and oxygen atoms interacting at another frequency, the energy of the sun is emitted. Think of two magnets, repulsing each other.

This is a very good thing. Without the presence of these little CO2 factories doing their work day in and day out, absorbing and emitting the radiant heat (energy) of our sun, our planet would be a frozen ball of ice.

These little CO2 factories do their work well and efficiently. That’s just what they do. The more of them there are in the atmosphere, the more radiant heat is absorbed and emitted into the air all around all of us.

See:

“What is Infrared?” | Jim Lucas, Live Science, 26 March 2015

“Carbon Dioxide Absorbs and Re-emits Infrared Radiation” | UCAR Center for Science Education

“Molecules Vibrate” | UCAR Center for Science Education

“John Tyndall” | Wikipedia

“Introduction to Structure Determination; Infrared: Introduction” | Prof. Adam Bridgeman, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, 2017.