Vivian Loftness

pulp #45: biophilia Title: FEATURE: INTERVIEW WITH VIVIAN LOFTNESS THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN. Excerpt: "NK: Let’s start with the basics. What is biophilia? VL: Biophilia is a critical subset of energy design in the 70’s, sustainability design in the 90’s and now regenerative design. Some people believe that sustainability is passé, a “We have been there and done that,” and we are basically saying “No! We’re not even close!” It is not just about sustaining about what we have, it is about regenerating what we have used. It is also resiliency: making sure that what we have built is not going to be underwater in three decades, or is not going to be blown away by incredible wind storms and hurricanes that we never anticipated because of climate change. These worlds are highly tied together: sustainability, resiliency, and regenerative design. NK: So is biophilia not then just a different way of saying sustainability VL: Sustainability actively focuses on the question, “How can we reduce demand?” It proposes highly insulated, highly efficient equipment, essentially trying to shut out climate and nature that contribute to the energy loads and inefficiencies. There has been a very strong focus on how to tighten everything down, creating “thermos bottle” buildings for easy conditioning with mechanical systems. The antithesis of that is a focus on ways in which we can open up our buildings to natural conditioning. Many cities around the world have long periods of benign conditions. People move to Florida because Florida has nine months of beautiful weather, and maybe three months of beastly heat and humidity. But if you design a thermos-bottle in Florida, you’re dooming yourself to living in artificial conditioning for twelve months: you are basically running mechanical systems all the time. Why move to Florida? That’s a phenomenon that we are trying to balance out with biophilic design. Balancing the super tight, super insulated buildings with the open building that embraces climate and nature."

Program: Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Title: Access to Nature for Human Health and Sustainability | Vivian Loftness In her presentation entitled “Access to Nature for Human Health and Sustainability,” Carnegie Mellon University professor Vivian Loftness addressed the reasons why nature is vitally important for our wellbeing and encouraged us to become better demanders of safe and healthy built environments. Little changes can often be taken for granted, but something as simple as opening the window or turning off the air conditioning can make a difference when it comes to creating sustainable building conditions. Drawing from various studies, Loftness examined key design components that are necessary when creating functional spaces. Specifically, Loftness argued that views of nature, circadian light, solar heat, thermal variability (alliesthesia), natural ventilation and access to outdoor spaces are all elements that need to be considered during the design process. Traditionally, American buildings have been sealed off from nature. Rather than utilizing the inherent benefits that come from the outdoors, the environments we live and work in rarely take full advantage of our available resources. For example, because of its exposure to sunlight, a hospital room facing the southeast may experience a decrease in rates of medication needed, and a change of room temperature can be the deciding factor between someone having more or less creativity or productivity. Loftness suggests we focus on taking steps such as designing around sunshine, maximizing views of nature and creating dynamic thermal conditions. “We know we need fresh air. We could deliver it through the mechanical system, or we could deliver it through open windows. This is my life’s goal—to make operable windows mandatory in all buildings. I cannot believe that we’re taking old buildings that had beautiful operable windows and locking them down.” Even if it comes with pollution and noise, outside air brings in increased levels of oxygen, and this has been shown to increase performance on tasks. However, these are not the only benefits of open windows. “This is not just about getting more oxygen into the room and less carbon dioxide. What other content is there in the outdoor air that we might need? We’re very afraid of the outdoor air because of fine particulates….[and] we’re afraid of the noise that comes with it, but ultimately outdoor air is often better than indoor air.” “We need to design our systems and buildings to support daylight and electric light, to support natural cooling and mechanical air conditioning, to support natural ventilation and filtered ventilation, and we need to design for indoor/outdoor work and learning.” By engaging our environment, Loftness says, we can create functional spaces that reach their maximum potential. “When in doubt, default to nature.” ### The implications of biophilia extend across a vast array of disciplines including design and engineering, nutrition, psychology, public health, education, biology and the humanities. Biophilia is expressed all over the world every day, through complex collaborations such as the design and construction of buildings and landscapes; and intimate, personal encounters including nature hikes and home gardening. Since 2013, Phipps has held a monthly Biophilia: Pittsburgh gathering to bring creative minds together for learning, exploring and strengthening the bonds between people and the natural world. At Phipps’ first Nature of Place Symposium, this concept finds a new expression as leaders across disciplines come together to discuss the influence and impact of biophilia on their work and the work of the future.

Carnegie Mellon Profession - Vivian Loftness Vivian Loftness is a University Professor and former Head of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. She is an internationally renowned researcher, author, and educator with over thirty years of focus on environmental design and sustainability, climate, and regionalism in architecture and design for performance in the workplace of the future. Her research has contributed to innovative design projects with leading architectural firms, the General Services Administration, and international governments. She has served on ten National Academy of Science (NAS) panels, the NAS Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment, and has given four Congressional testimonies on sustainability. Vivian Loftness – Sustainability Minded Early Vivian received her BS and MS in Architecture form MIT and has served on several National Boards. She is a registered architect and a LEED Fellow. She knew as early as high school she wanted to be part of the environmental movement. Vivian had the opportunity to travel to Finland on a Rotary Scholarship and focused on modern architecture and continues to be sustainability minded. Mentors with Different Backgrounds Vivian’s first mentor was her father. He was a Physicist focusing of energy from the supply side while Vivian was on the demand side. He gave her incredible insight and taught her the way energy was going to change practice. She credits John Everhart, an MIT Advisor and Fred Dubin, an engineer she worked with. Lastly, she had the privilege of joining her husband, Volker Hartkopf at Carnegie Mellon who was involved in the heart of both energy and environmental design. “It’s absolutely invaluable to have a partner and a spouse who is as dedicated to the same kind of revolution you are.” – Vivian Loftness. Greatest Achievements Vivian’s proudest achievements include serving on several boards in advocacy roles. Hence, accomplishments in research and practice. Vivian was part of a collaborative team that built a 7,000 square foot Living Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon to explore and research the next generation of lighting, facades, mechanical, networking and interior systems. ”It’s a real wonder to know that we’ve been able to transform education and practice to a certain extent.” – Vivian Loftness Book Recommendations: Vivian recommends to start with books on biophilic foundations, cities and patterns. There is a series by author Stephen R. Kellert that she believes everyone should read.

Title: Is the future Flat? Moderated by Louise Harpman Vivian Loftness, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien will be discussing, with Louise Harpman, the ascendance of the street in New York, and whether we may be a better city if we let its changed character change the way we build. Is the future flat?

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Vivian Loftness, of Carnegie Mellon University, discussed “Humans and Nature in the Loop: Integrating occupants & natural conditioning into high performance buildings” as part of the 2018/2019 Highlight Seminar Series. ABSTRACT Post Occupancy Evaluation plus Measurements (POE+M) has revealed that thermal, visual, acoustic and even air quality standards derived through controlled experimentation alone does not ensure comfort or health in buildings. Introducing human input into environmental standards and into user centric controls is critically needed for a sustainable future. For over a decade, CMU’s Center for Building Performance & Diagnostics has been gathering POE+M data from over 1500 workstations around the world and testing the benefits on innovative environmental control systems. The separation of ambient and task conditioning, the provision of task controls through the ‘Internet of Things’, the introduction of occupant voting and bio-signal inputs into ambient and task set-points, offers major gains in comfort, task performance, energy savings, as well as health and wellness. Moreover, Triple Bottom Line cost benefit analysis will make these investments an economic imperative for a truly sustainable future.

The aim of the interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral programme is to promote cooperation between the knowledge communities in the Nordic countries in order to enhance opportunities and address challenges to sustainable urban development and smart cities Objectives The overarching aim of the Nordic Programme on Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities is to address challenges of urban and regional life in cities of all sizes through thorough analysis, and use of essential knowledge for successful implementation The programme supports cutting-edge research in the fields of sustainable urban development and smart cities. The challenges within the area require knowledge from many disciplines as well as multi-disciplinary research. The programme encourages interdisciplinary, fruitful cooperation between different research fields from socio-economic sciences and humanities to natural sciences and engineering, and to health sciences. The programme seeks to develop innovative and interdisciplinary analyses and methods in studies of urban development and smart cities. Further, the programme has a cross-sectoral approach and aims to stimulate cooperation of the research community and public authorities in the Nordic countries. Increased Nordic collaboration, researcher mobility, and cross-sectoral collaboration/co-creation will strengthen the potential for evidence-informed policymaking by local, regional and national authorities. The Nordic Programme on Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities will produce useful knowledge and smart solutions for policy development in the whole region. Also, it contributes to building the needed capacity in the Nordic research communities, encourage more cooperation between the researchers and research communities in the Nordic countries, and between researchers and the users of research. This programme is the first NordForsk programme that was initiated as a response to Open Invitation. The Programme Committee for the Nordic Programme on Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities organized a workshop on 30 January 2019 in Copenhagen, Denmark to develop contents of the Programme Memorandum. Informed by the discussions of the workshop as well as national and European programme documents, the Programme committee has developed a framework of integrated solutions and inclusive approaches to urban sustainability and smartness.