It’s No Longer Building for the Future, It’s Building for Now
GGO was first interviewed about passive energy in the 2011 article with Proud Green Home. Gary Gene Olp, Principle Architect of GGOA, talked about a recent winter power outage that forced his family to live days without heat or electricity - but it wasn’t a problem. The Olp residence was designed to hold temperature, allowing the family to stay happily & healthfully at 67-degrees during the whole affair.
The Olp Residence with its unique shape that manages air movement and walls of windows that allow passive solar.
This was all thanks to his design that integrated passive survivability.
Passive survivability means that a building can maintain livable conditions in the event of an extended power outage, fuel supply interruption or water shortage. And in times like these, where millions of Americans are suddenly faced with financial shortages that make utility bills, in harsh weather conditions (cold rainy days to high Texas heat), an impossible expense, Gary hopes to make a case for the need to make passive survivability the standard for residential and multi-family spaces.
“As designers, we have the responsibility to not only design for the client’s desire, but for the needs of the people who will utilize the space,” says Michael Rosson, Project Intern Architect, talking about how the best Architects are also activists. “That’s why we’re here. We are designing for people. So every design starts with their needs and the question ‘what little can we burden them with?"‘“
Intern Project Architect, Michael Rosson — working in the GGOA Studio on a hand-drawn rendering for a multi-use complex in Dallas that boasts passive survivability design.
This original article was published in Proud Green Home in 2011.
Last winter, an ice storm took the city of Dallas by surprise, and power lines went down throughout the city. In Gary Gene Olp's neighborhood, power lines were down for nearly a week. All of his neighbors had to vacate their frigid homes, but Olp's family stayed put.
The Olp family was able to stay in their 3,600-square- foot home, despite the power outage, because the home was built with passive survivability in mind. The home is heavily insulated, so the temperature never dropped below 67 degrees indoors, and as soon as the family was up and a fireplace was lit, the home stayed at a comfortable 71 degrees each day, Olp said.
Passive survivability means that a building can maintain livable conditions in the event of an extended power outage, fuel supply interruption or water shortage. Passive survivability is important in all areas, whether areas are hit with snow, ice or hurricanes. This need is increasing as scientists predict that with global climate change there will be more intense storms and, as a result, more power outages. Olp, the founder and principal of GGO Architects in Dallas, said, "The way the house is designed, the air moves through it and the house stays warm. It was kind of fun last winter. We brought in Coleman lanterns and candles because we had no light, but we had a gas cooktop and a gas stove and we're campers anyway. But through a passive survivability standpoint, my house was able to weather the situation." His home is also staying cool this summer while temperatures are topping 110 degrees in Dallas. Air conditioning is only turned on at night, during off-peak rates, to cool the air to 68 degrees, and during the day, when air conditioning is not used, the indoor temperature is never more than 74 or 75 degrees.
"We could weather these extremes simply by the effect of the conscious design decisions I made in the construction of the home. The way many people's homes are designed is that within hours after a power outage in summer, the temperature inside the home is higher than outside," Olp said.
Passive survivability is not a new concept Tristan Roberts, editorial director for BuildingGreen.com, said that the concept stems back to homes built a hundred or more years ago, when there was natural ventilation to allow the air to flow through a home. "If you go back to older building designs, you see that designers and builders were using passive elements to make a home livable with minimal or no fuels or electricity." Many modern buildings feature a wall of windows. "That's a bad idea. It creates a high need for cooling when the sun hits all those windows and a high need for heating because those windows won't insulate very well," he said. "Passive survivability is about an objective. The objective is to have a home that you can live in, even in a long-term power outage. Is your home going to be a place where you are safe and able to stay in? It's about meeting that objective, but it also meets a lot of green building goals and objectives. A home that is well insulated will stay comfortable longer if the power goes out — or a home with a renewable energy system on site, whether wind turbine or solar panels, to power some or all of the building if power lines are down," Roberts said.