Nature's Net Positive

Abstract

Nature’s Net Positive is a community housing project that focuses on using light at three different scales to help achieve its goals. The first scale is site with a focus on a checkerboard pattern of light and dark spaces that interact with nature and the homes. The second scale is that of the building which focuses on the contrasting of light in social spaces with that in private spaces. The living room, kitchen, and dining areas are lit using the roof form while the bedrooms and private spaces use more conventional apertures to control the light. The third scale is room which occurs mainly in the bedrooms where light is controlled and acts like a cave entrance with a window spanning from floor to ceiling. The different lighting experiences all work as a system of ideas alongside other passive systems to retain water and heat. The site has shaded spaces that are there to collect the water on site in rain gardens to control the water. Then the roof feature works as a solar energy collector and a heat collector as well using a double skin system. Nature’s Net Positive is a set of integrated systems that all work together to achieve the namesake goal.