Photo via Northeastern UniversityHometta partner Kiel Moe, who received a 2009-2010 Rome Prize, will spend a year as a Fellow at The American Academy in Rome working to extend the research documented in his upcoming book, Thermally Active Surfaces in Architecture. The book documents the basis and effectiveness of heating, cooling, and building with thermally active surfaces—a low-tech, high-performance method of heat transfer in which the structure of the building acts as the primary mechanical system. The book explains to architects, engineers, contractors, and clients this technique that is central to multiple aspects of sustainability. In this guest post, Moe provides an in-depth description of his ongoing research.

The Thermodynamic Figuration of Rome

My work at the American Academy in Rome:

Rome is a formal project less evident in any one isolated act as much as an evolving set of urban structures and ecological dynamics. I admire, with equal and convergent interest, the formal permutations of Rome and the material ecologies and thermodynamics of its engenderment. As such, the qualities of life that the buildings and urbanisms of Rome trigger over time will be at the center of my observation. During my time in Rome, I will look back at the archaic material modalities and thermodynamics of the Roman corpus—its thermally active surfaces and its perpetual next-uses—in order to look forward to the mongrel material and energy systems that will be fundamental to the evolution, use, and qualities of life of twenty-first century architecture, cities, and technics.

I am thrilled that this significant prize was awarded to someone working on the fundamental thermodynamics that stand to amend building and energy systems in the new roles of architecture in the twenty-first century. This award points both the fact that these thermodynamic and physiological aspects of architecture have profound formal and compositional possibilities and the award also points to the role of artistic and humanistic research in the transformations in the twenty-first century that will make architecture and multiple aspects of life more ecologically and economically sane and sustainable. This work in Rome extends the research documented in my upcoming book, Thermally Active Surfaces in Architecture.

Thermally Active Surfaces in Architecture documents the basis and efficacy of heating, cooling, and building with thermally active surfaces. In this transformation of energy and building practices, the thermal conditioning of a building is decoupled from the ventilation system by using the mass of the building itself as the thermal system. This method of heat transfer is physiologically and thermodynamically optimal. It also reinvests the fabric of the building itself with a more a poignant role: the structure is also the primary mechanical system. As the basis of energy and construction strategies, it yields a cascading set of advantages for the building design and construction industry: radically lower energy consumption, more durable buildings, more healthy buildings, and more integrated building systems and design teams. An important aspect of thermally active surfaces is that they are low-tech yet high performance and are thus equally applicable in the developed and developing worlds. As such, thermally active surfaces are central to multiple aspects of sustainability. It is designed to explain this technique to architects, engineers, contractors, and clients. It consists of a few sections that include past, current, and future practices. It will be released in late 2009/early 2010.