Translator: Diana Cruz Ceballos Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Good afternoon, thank you very much.
Sustainability starts at home.
To start, I would like to re-visit a day a few months ago.
One of those days that anyone would like to leave behind.
This was an important day, because me and a group of students,
- architects, academics, also engineers -
all of us passionate about energy efficiency and sustainability.
We were exited because we were among the 10 top universities out of 20,
from all Latin America
to present our work in the first Solar Decathlon,
of sustainable houses in Latin America,
to take place in April, in the O'Higgins Park, in Santiago.
I was in the O'Higgins Park on March 20th of 2015,
checking the location of our house when I received a Whatsapp message
from a student on the industry panel for housing modules.
There in Lautaro, north of Temuco,
letting me know that the construction
of the first module, one of 100 housing units, was starting late.
This happened about three weeks away from the contest opening.
I was stressed out.
In that moment, I only had one further question to ask myself;
"When did you sign up to this?"
On top of that, pressure from the sponsors,
for a year of work from all the team.
Mainly the students, professionals.
But quickly, I fought my thoughts with the certainty that since 2007,
when I got to know, and started to understand
the field of energy efficiency and sustainability,
I realized back then, that this is simply the way to go.
And this was the opportunity to make our own housing with sustainable energy.
From the south of Chile, to the world.
It was a challenge; we had only three weeks until the presentation.
To explain a bit about my feelings and knowledge,
we have to go far back to the origin;
the relationship of human beings with the environment.
I simply get obsessed with this multi-layered relationship.
The first layer is the most sensible; the biological layer.
The first limit is full of sensors; our skin.
The second layer; our clothes, which controls the first layer.
At times, this layer exposes the first one.
Other times, completely exposes, like on heated nights.
And the third layer, where we will place our attention; the housing.
The constructions, that shield us from the outdoors.
That is our focus.
If you observe traditional constructions of people around the world,
they had built control layers with minimum material,
without environmental impact.
Culturally relevant; fighting in the South of Chile,
freezing rain, extreme heat in Africa, and extreme cold in the North Pole.
When did man forget all this?
This has to do with industrial revolution in architecture
When man realizes that he is able to land on the moon,
discovers machines, and wastes his legacy on manual work, knowledge,
and tradition.
He looks at himself, and starts to run instead of walking.
He runs so fast, that he forgets the environment,
and is obligated to use machines that replace environmental considerations.
He makes huge mistakes with its culture, his heritage, constructing
a horrendous mall in a world heritage city, like in Castro.
Or, constructing cities where rivers run in the north of Chile.
But not everything is lost, not everything is bad news.
We got to stop; stop running, observe, and understand.
The proposal I bring you is "bio-climatic architecture".
It is the base of what we did, together, students and professionals
for the contest 'Construct Solar - 2015'.
To explain bio-climatic architecture, I'm going to show the process briefly.
About how we proceeded, conceptually,
breaking architecture paradigms that sustainability is new,
cutting edge, and information is unreachable to humble people
from these places of the planet.
Today, knowledge is found recorded.
Not only can I look around and be observant to my surroundings,
but, I can find climate statistics
of over 100 years, for a particular place, to be used for design.
I can, through a psychometric chart,
understand which passive strategies are recommended.
I can know the azimuth of the sun each day, in every place of the planet.
It is very easy to find.
When I review this information for the place given by the contest,
- central Chile -
I rely on traditional architecture
a colonial house, with patios, shaded spaces, gazebos.
What a nice place to live, under a gazebo!
And from there, the project was born: 'the gazebo house'.
A house that has an extra layer, or special layer, that transforms itself.
As it is made of deciduous climbing plant, it allows the sun in in winter,
and provides shade in summer.
This extra layer allows for thermal control,
and balance of the room underneath it.
This was the idea.
Also, we chose to have one patio for winter, and another for summer.
Logically, a sunny northern facing patio for winter,
and a summer patio facing south, with nice shade.
Thermal balance between patios, using simple strategies,
is extremely easy to accomplish.
Another important concept;
to explain, I will use a dog.
I give it my glasses, for what reason?
Thermal insulation.
The continuous thermal insulation is the key for thermal control.
99.9% of housing in Chile lack this characteristic.
This housing has thermal bridges.
I use the dog to explain this in a simple manner;
a dog breaks its continuous insulation by sticking tongue out, to cool down.
The tongue is the element with higher thermal transmittance;
heat always moves towards masses of cold air.
At your house, cold isn't getting in; heat is leaving to find an equilibrium
with the surrounding temperature.
The dog sticks the tongue out, and cools its body immediately.
Now I understand that houses in Chile are like a dog with lots of tongues.
Because all the materials,
- concrete, brick, glass -
all are tongues, or thermal bridges, and break the insulation.
In Chile, almost 100% of construction is built this way.
The pergola house solved this.
Today, there is software to simulate and understand the modeling in detail
of how the sun beats down on the house, and how to make an efficient insulation.
There is a series of software that allows you to understand lighting,
artificial and natural.
It is all within our reach; our students do this from highschool.
The industrialization is the key to success,
and also the future to social housing in our country.
The hundred housing units were constructed in three weeks,
They were brought from Lautaro, to the O'Higgins park,
and set up for the contest, where they were evaluated.
From March 20th to April 10th of 2015.
The day of opening, the 10th of April, I couldn't believe it.
The excitement overtook us.
All expectations that we had, all achievements we could have,
in the contest, were not enough.
compared to being able to go around the house and understand
all that started to happen,
in the south summer patio, and the north winter patio.
The thermal control was noticeable, the spaces were enjoyable,
due to the expansion of the inner areas achieved by the patios.
To start captivating the most important thing in architecture
the human being, the public.
I remember when some "alias", that is how we nicknamed boy scouts,
came to tell me that they had gone around the houses
of the solar village and they wanted to have lunch in ours,
because they found it the most pleasant.
I had lunch with them that day, and understood a series of ways
to see the architecture.
For example: in this house,
between corridors, interiors and patios, at some moments,
there were more than 60 people without feeling uncomfortable.
The solar house, that has also a trellis on the west facade,
that allows vertical garden, it's also surprising to see that in bloom.
More surprising, is knowing it can be done in three weeks,
and that it can fit into the category of social housing in Chile.
In summary, from the evaluation of the contest,
this house has a demand of 80% less energy.
Interior temperature was between 19 to 22° C,
when surroundings had a minimum of 10° C and maximum of 33° C.
Three weeks from construction, and a cost of materials,
photo-voltaic equipment and LED technology were 20 million CLP.
This classifies under social housing category in Chile.
Self-generated electrical energy covers 100% of all housing activities:
cooking, eating, bathing with hot water, and electricity.
In addition, a surplus of 150% is returned according to the new law
of electrical enterprise, that would return money, so not only you save,
but you earn by returning or generating clean solar energy
to our country.
Finally, it is an anecdote that the team "Wallmapu" has won.
What we cared more about than the house,
was making a dream come true.
Demonstrating to our country, and the rest of the world,
that in the south of the planet,
there are young people with potential, with talent, knowledge,
who are ready to innovate.
Simply by taking into account the most simple formula of all times;
observe with detail, respect our ancestral culture,
and our legacy in education of centuries, and finally, love our fellow humans.
And a job well done.
Thank you very much
(Applause)