Ideas Keep Patterson On The Move


by Steve Sullivan

Ideas have had a big impact on Jim Patterson's life.

Ideas pulled the architecture professor back to teaching 
after several years in private practice. An idea for a new 
approach to design education is taking him to Oklahoma. And 
yet, ideas also are keeping him tied to Iowa State.

Patterson, director of the College of Design's Architecture 
Technology Laboratory since its creation in 1991, joined the 
ISU faculty in 1988. He is leaving to become director of the 
University of Oklahoma master's of architecture program at 
the University Center in Tulsa. But Patterson will retain the 
title of collaborating professor at ISU and maintain his 
involvement in three research projects.

In 1970, Patterson left his position as director of the 
Research and the Graduate Center at Texas A&M's architecture 
program to go into private practice. He was founder and 
principal architect for International Building Systems Inc., 
a design and construction consortium in Texas and Mexico. But 
eventually the idea of teaching again took hold, and 
Patterson found himself at Iowa State.

"When you teach, you can spend a lot of time dealing with 
ideas," Patterson said. "You can experiment in teaching. 
Students are inherently positioned to benefit from design 
experiments. In business, nobody wants to be the client you 
are experimenting with. Clients want something that has been 
tried, tested and quantified."

Patterson has spent a lot of time with ideas at Iowa State -- 
ideas aimed at creating better, more energy-efficient 
buildings. The research project that has most dominated his 
life the past few years is the "smart" window, which now is 
the subject of a patent application. 

Patterson and Gregg Luecke, assistant professor of mechanical 
engineering, lead the smart window project, which involves 
faculty and students in design and engineering as well as 
photovoltaic research done by Iowa State's Microelectronics 
Research Center (MRC). Funding for the project has come from 
the Iowa Energy Center, ISU's Center for Advanced Technology 
Development and the MRC.

The project utilizes an existing window design with a 
venetian blind sandwiched between two panes of glass. 

"We built a brain to make the window smart," said Patterson, 
the project's principal investigator. 

The window has a microprocessor that calculates information 
on light and heat conditions provided regularly by 
photovoltaic strips, which sense light levels. Using this 
data, the microprocessor can activate a small motor, which 
controls the blinds between the window panes. 

The mechanism can respond to varying sky conditions, light 
changes and changes in heating and cooling needs. 
Subsequently, the windows can optimize available daylight 
while minimizing heat gain better than conventional windows, 
thus reducing electricity required for lighting as well.

Computer simulations and prototype testing indicate the smart 
window saves energy. Data collected from simulations have 
shown that annual energy savings of 70,000 to 96,000 Btu per 
square foot of window glazing can be expected from the smart 
window technology. This can amount to up to 30 percent of 
some buildings' heating and cooling loads, Patterson said.

The other two ideas that will keep Patterson tied to Iowa 
State involve energy-efficient shelving systems for grocery 
stores, and building materials made from soybeans, a project 
Patterson is working on with Jay-Lin Jane, professor of food 
science and human nutrition.

"Lumber continues to skyrocket in price," Patterson said. "We 
need to find more efficient, economical building materials. 
This soybean project holds great promise to create these 
materials."

Meanwhile, Patterson is embarking on a new teaching 
adventure: representing Oklahoma's master's of architecture 
program in downtown Tulsa.

"We're creating an urban laboratory. We're bringing 
graduation-level architectural programs to the students who 
want and need them," Patterson said. "Programs and faculty 
from all of Oklahoma's regent institutions participate at the 
University Center. This is a great educational experiment 
aimed at defining a new posture for higher education in the 
21st century."

The Oklahoma job also is going to cut Patterson's commute to 
work by about three hours. His permanent residence is in 
Texas, and he regularly makes the nearly four-hour flight 
home from Ames in his own plane.

"The flight home from Tulsa is about an hour, so, yes, I'll 
be closer to home," Patterson said. "But the flight to Ames 
goes by pretty quickly, too."

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contact:  Steve Sullivan, News Service, (515) 294-3720
updated:  8-17-95