Workshop: ECOlogics with Ecotect
Instructor: Nataly Gattegno (Future Cities Lab / CCA eLAB) and Olivier Pennetier (Symphysis)
Date: February 13-14, 2010 (10am – 5pm)
Location: California College of the Arts, Graduate Center, San Francisco Campus
Eligibility: Open to all design students and professionals
Cost: $100 for students, $200 for professionals.
Prerequisite: No prior experience needed.
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Description: “In this sense, ‘building’ gives way to ‘ecosystem’, to a built organization that operates at the level of vivisystems – dynamic and complex systems that learn, adapt, evolve, and mutate in response to the feedback of environmental conditions.“ – Helene Furjan

This workshop section will develop techniques of evaluating and representing environmental forces and ecological systems on built form. We will investigate the relationship between form and its environment, geometry and its surrounding ecological systems. The workshop will focus on the use of Ecotect as an environmental simulation program. This will include external and internal performance criteria, including climate analysis, site analysis, shadow casting, solar envelopes and right to light studies, solar stress and radiation analyses, dayligting and thermal behavior. We will further review outputting from Ecotect and connecting to 3D modeling environments such as Rhino.
ECOlogics will begin with an Ecotect training session [1.5 days] and culminate in a small test project that will allow participants to work through the material covered. The workshop will be led by an architect and a bioclimatic designer with experience working with designers. No prior experience is required.

Nataly Gattegno is a founding design partner of Future Cities Lab, an interdisciplinary design and research collaborative that was recently awarded the prestigious Van Alen NY Prize in 2009. FCL’s work has been awarded an Unbuilt Architecture Award from the Boston AIA and has been most recently published in Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space, ed. by Lally & Young. Additionally they earned Second Prize in the 2005 Seoul Performing Arts International Competition. In 2008 an exhibition of their design work was mounted at the Extension Gallery for Architecture in Chicago.

As founder of SYMPHYSIS, Olivier Pennetier has been consulting for architects around San Francisco Bay Area since 2003, providing bioclimatic design solutions, site and climate analyses as well as recommendations on daylighting, solar stress mitigations, and passive strategies. He has also been conducting training workshops throughout the country for the building performance analysis software Ecotect™ since 2006, while being an active forum user on the SQU1 Research support website from 2002 to 2008. Prior to his current designer position at DNM Architect in San Francisco, Olivier worked for Van der Ryn Architects in Sausalito, CA. Olivier holds a Bachelor degree in Environmental Science from Humboldt State University and a Master in Architecture from the University of Hawaii. He has been a LEED accredited professional since 2003.

Software/Hardware: 30 day free trial version of Ecotect available here. Student and faculty licensing available through Autodesk’s student community website. All workshop attendees should bring their own laptop with the workshop software pre-installed.