Illinois Institute of Technology

Member Detail

Illinois Institute of Technology
10 W. 32nd Street
Chicago, IL 60616
Website:  www.iit.edu

Member Highlight

Our group brings together IIT architects and engineers in close collaboration in order to provide a framework for the design of large buildings that can generate a significant portion of their energy requirements from wind. In contrast to more conventional construction projects, buildings that rely on wind energy for power generation naturally require expertise from both architecture, to appropriately design spaces for human use, and engineering, to correctly design and integrate wind power plants.  Our vision goes beyond a mere division of labor and is truly transformative in that it aims to develop a new paradigm for an organic integration of architecture and engineering, with the hope of infusing architectural design with models and approaches common in aerospace engineering, while at the same time enriching design procedures in aerospace engineering with a design language and approach typical for the field of architecture.
 
More than two thirds of the energy used in the U.S. goes into buildings of one kind or another, and a significant portion of our energy needs can be met through wind energy in an urban environment, by integrating wind turbines with buildings. Together with the fact that integrated wind turbines can provide a significant percentage of the energy required to operate buildings, these numbers indicate that a considerable portion of our energy needs can be covered through wind energy in an urban environment, by integrating wind turbines with buildings. Energy generated by building-integrated wind turbines does not produce any emissions, and the incremental emissions impact from the addition of such turbines to the design of a building is small. Wind-powered buildings can thus help address the worldwide challenge the industrialized world is facing with the phenomenon of global warming.