Initial Reactions to an Interior Condition Part I

Phase 1: Research & Preliminary Design

Week 1: January 9, 2012-January 18, 2012

I have begun working on my research towards my biomimetic design.  I focused on my initial reaction to Texas, and that is air conditioning.  It was 75/24 degrees this week and it will go up to 77/25 later this week...right now it is snowing in Michigan and cold in the Netherlands.  I started to think about the fact that I already have had to either open the windows in our house or turn on my air conditioning in the car.  I have asked people I meet "How do you deal with the heat in the summer?" and their response is always the same "You just stay inside where there is air conditioning."

Interior Condition of Focus: Cooling for Residential Buildings

In the US, heating and cooling units are one of the most common ways to cool homes and buildings.  They consume the most energy and money compared to any other system in a US home and on average take up 54% of a utility bill.  Air conditioners use energy to transfer heat from the interior to the warm outside environment.  Two-thirds of homes in the US use air conditioners that use about 5% of all of the electricity produced in the US, costing over 11 billion dollars to homeowners.  Air conditioners produce nearly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide that is released into the air each year averaging to around 2 tons per home.

http://www.energysavers.gov/pdfs/energy_savers.pdf

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12380

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm?mytopic=12370

Area of Focus:  Southwestern USA

Region/Climate

The Southwestern USA’s climate is classified as a semi-arid to arid depending on the location and much of the region is a desert climate.  Most of the Southwest lies in the subtropical zone where warm dry air is flowing back down to Earth following its rain-inducing rise in the tropics.  Descending air in the subtropics is caused by Hadley Circulation. The descending branch of Hadley circulation comes down, dry, descending air creates a zone of atmospheric high pressure that makes it difficult for clouds to form.  Having no clouds provides some Southwestern cities with over 300 days of sunshine a year.  These sunny days have a downside, evaporation rates of the landscapes and other aspects of the land often soar in the absence of clouds and rainfall.  High evaporation rates coupled with low precipitation rates create the regions arid to semi-arid climate and its characteristic vegetation.  The Southwest region has higher temperatures than Northern climates because the subtropics receive more sunlight and little water to temper its power.

http://www.southwestclimatechange.org/climate/southwest/introduction

Consists of:

    Arizona

    New Mexico

    Oklahoma

    Texas

4 Deserts of the American Southwest:

1.    Chihuahuan Desert: Extends into parts of New Mexico, Texas and sections of southeastern Arizona

2.    Great Basin Desert: Largest US desert and is bordered by the Sierra Nevada Range on the west and the Rocky Mountains on of the east, the Columbia Plateau to the north and the Mojave and Sonoran deserts to the south

3.    The Mojave Desert: Southeastern California and portions of Nevada, Arizona and Utah

4.    The Sonoran Desert: Covers southwestern Arizona and southeastern California, as well as most of Baja California and the western half of the state of Sonora, Mexico