a more spread focus on projects spanning all
five studios,” sami says.
The new role is a shift into comfortable territory. Before joining lAs five years ago, sami
spent a year and a half at ENsAR group, a
sustainable design consulting firm in Boulder,
Colo. (now part of Rocky Mountain Institute’s
Built Environment team). There he provided
energy modeling and analysis consulting to
firms including lAs. “so interestingly,” he
says, “my role has gone back to almost serving
as an in-house consultant.”
Demand for sami’s expertise has grown
so much that the firm now has three energy
modelers. “It’s an area of the industry that’s
definitely growing,” says sami. “And from all
the projections we’ve seen, it’s going to continue to grow.”
With virtually every project at the firm
requiring energy modeling expertise, sami
works with design teams to help choose the
most efficient options available. On the May
morning we talked, for instance, he worked
on daylighting strategy with a team designing
a scientific lab in utah. Depending on the project, he may conduct energy modeling using
eQuEst software, run daylight simulations,
analyze projected performance data or liaison
with a consultant on specialized analysis.
As a side passion, sami enjoys developing
analytical design tools. One such tool, Chhaya, originated from a discussion over coffee
with Victor Olgyay, his frequent collaborator
from the ENsAR days, now at RMI. “Chhaya
was born out of one of those ‘aha’ moments,”
sami recalls.
Building on the work of passive solar giants
like Olgyay’s father, the senior Victor Olgyay,
and American solar Energy society Chair John
Reynolds, the pair theorized that they could
develop a simple matrix to identify the climate
balance point for a building. The result is a
spreadsheet-based tool that enables a designer to optimize glazing size and orientation,
shading and natural ventilation to extend the
period when a building can operate comfortably without mechanical systems. Another tool
sami developed models airflow in laboratories
to simplify ventilation-design decisions.
sami’s interest in passive design goes
back to his studies at the Academy of Architecture in Mumbai, India. After four years
honing his skills at Chennai architecture firms,
sami moved to the united states to earn a
master’s in building energy performance with
“That’s the real reward of architecture;
it’s watching these things you were
part of get built.”
— Vikram Sami, Lord, Aeck & Sargent
GINA R. JOHNSON
as part of the team that designed the Blue ridge
Parkway Destination Center, Vikram Sami did
extensive energy modeling.
pedagogic, it features what southface staff call
a “Noah’s Ark of solutions” — two of every
kind. According to sami, modeling the energy
performance of dual systems was no small chal-
lenge. “some of it was taking our best guess,
and fortunately we had some data because of
the building’s early occupancy.”
lighting was among the most important
drivers of energy savings at the Eco Office.
to reduce the load, most lighting is natural.
strategies include shading and overhangs,
light shelves to redirect light into the build-
ing, switchable windows (whose tint can be
manually controlled through the use of elec-
tricity), bottom-up shades to control daylight-
ing, occupancy sensors and top lighting with
solatubes. As sami explains, energy modeling
is always complicated by the variable habits
of occupants. Because the southface staff is
especially focused on efficiency, performance
may actually exceed his projections.
sami also played a key role in designing the
Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center near
Asheville, N.C. Designed to respond to regional
climate conditions, the project involved intensive energy modeling, from hand calculations
using the load-collector ratios and solar-saving
fractions to sophisticated computational fluid
dynamics simulations. to maximize solar harvesting, passive solar trombe walls form the
center’s south façade.
The design includes passive solar strategies refined in the 1970s by pioneers like
Doug Balcomb. “The neat thing about the
Blue Ridge project was that we were able to
reinterpret the work of passive solar pioneers
in a modern context,” sami explains. The result
is a contemporary design that employs proven
techniques like passive solar heating and daylighting, appropriate orientation and shading,
high-performance glazing and natural ventilation. such strategies are projected to reduce
the facility’s energy use by 75 percent.
“to me,” says sami, “it’s like opening a
Christmas present to watch these things come
up; stuff you drew on paper. That’s the real
reward of architecture; it’s watching these
things you were part of get built.” He and
several colleagues returned to the Blue Ridge
Parkway Destination Center last year to monitor performance. The readings show a trend
similar to those predicted in simulations.
a concentration in energy conservation at Arizona state university.
We visited one of the first projects sami
helped design while at ENsAR, the southface
Energy Institute’s Eco Office in Midtown
Atlanta, now near completion. sami did extensive daylighting modeling for the building and,
after joining lAs, became the firm’s liaison for
the design team, client and a consortium of
six builders. With much of the project funded
through donations, “It was definitely a learning
curve,” sami says.
The facility showcases “state-of-the-shelf”
energy-, water- and waste-reducing features
chosen for economy and availability to the Gina R. Johnson ( editor@solartoday.org) is editor/
layperson. Because the building’s mission is associate publisher of SOLAR TODA Y.
