Architects | bright123

SOLAR INDUSTRY ARCHITECTS

FedEx Trade Networks, the freight forwarding and customs brokerage arm of FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), has announced the opening of its new environmentally advanced 88,000-square-foot facility at Riverview Solar Technology Park in New York. The office and distribution facility streamlines the company’s operations and provides several unique features that promote environmental sustainability.

With the opening of Riverview, FedEx Trade Networks consolidated its local workforce from multiple locations for greater efficiency, enhanced collaboration, and a smaller carbon footprint. The new facility uses innovative sustainability technologies including solar panels, low-flow water consumption, and dedicated bio-beds, which provide underground water retention for storm water management and soil erosion control, reducing impact on the native vegetation significantly. To Read More Click Here

FedEx Leading the Path in Solar Architectural Design

Solar Architectural & Artistic Design for Stadiums

Iconic Solar Structure

Synthesis Design + Architecture has been named the winner of the "Switch to Pure Volvo" International Design pavilion competition sponsored by Volvo Car Italia and The Plan Magazine.

Volvo’s “Switch to Pure Volvo” competition, organized by international architecture magazine THE PLAN, called for an innovative and original design for a temporary pavilion that expressed a “strong and creative identity” to showcase the car at fairs and open air presentations in Italian squares.

SDA’s approach was to use the car’s design as a flexible and sustainable vehicle as the basis to reimagine the typical trade show pavilion. Toward this end, SDA emphasized the qualities of dynamic form, interactivity, visual impact, functionality, and efficiency to create a novel temporary structure that while iconic also offers high-performance.

The design integrates structure, form, and performance by utilizing a continuous organic form composed of HDPE mesh fabric with integrated photovoltaic panels tensioned over carbon fiber rods. In fact, the digitally designed contours of the mesh fabric are what bend the rods into their curvy forms. The result calls to mind the image of an elegantly diaphanous orchid.

Artistic Structural Design

The Solar Spiral, created by the Shortlist_0 Design Group LLC, is a stunning sustainable design for Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, utilizing urban infill space with great vertical exposure for low cost solar power generation with public or commercial mixed-use floor area.

The Solar Spiral generates more than 1MW (megawatt) of electrical power from over 5000+ solar panels in an elegant renewable energy building, while also offering community auditorium facilities, conference and exhibition space.

“Exhibition, conference and reception space occupy the street level, from which the Solar Spiral wraps around the auditorium gallery.

The spiral's south facing skin integrates frameless PV solar panels, half of the total array,” explain the architects.

Aesthetically Pleasing

Madrid-based architect martin ferrero has sent us a preview his research on hexagonal photovoltaic laminated glass for curved building-integrated photovoltaics BIPV systems.

The system is based on a-Si (amorphous silicon) thin-film technology and serves to ensure complete photovoltaic integration while allowing for curved structures.

The photovoltaic glass is produced by projecting fine layers of amorphous silicon onto glass with high optical transmittance. Special lasers are then used to design and interconnect the cells that make up the unit.

The use of hydrogenated amorphous silicon as an absorbent material eliminates many of the problems found with crystalline silicon when it is used for a BIPV system.

The potential of this technology can be applied to a variety of structures including stadiums, private homes, charging stations and, eventually, electronic roads.