Site search Search. Site search Search Menu. Better buildings: Designing solutions for sustainable architecture. Home Projects Campus Grounds and Buildings. Material Constructing a sustainable building means using appropriate materials in the most efficient way possible. Specific economic design and construction factors include the following: Construction costs During the design process, factors such as building size and materials should be considered in terms of their cost effectiveness.
Running costs Once a building is constructed, its ongoing maintenance costs are an important factor. The possibilities of exploiting local environmental resources is one of the critical things to consider when carrying out initial site inspections.
Proper building placement is vital in minimizing its energy consumption, creating a design that works with its natural surroundings, rather than against them.
The orientation of a building and its windows or the size of its rooms are all examples of passive architectural strategies to ensure energy efficiency. A well-insulated building will require less heat generating or dissipating power, provided it has the capacity to ventilate and expel polluted indoor air.
Solar panels can be added to the roof to generate electricity for the home, with roofs often angled toward the sun to enable photovoltaic panels to capture energy efficiently. Solar water heaters are a cost-effective way of generating hot water for the household, while air-source heat pumps can be used to remove unwanted heat from the interior of the house. Small-scale wind turbines can also be employed to generate electricity, with their effectiveness determined by the wind conditions at the site.
Recycled materials such as reclaimed lumber can help to reduce the energy consumption that goes into manufacturing new materials. When older buildings are demolished, useable wood is usually reclaimed and renewed, allowing these materials to be retrofit and serve a new purpose, together with old doors, windows, mantels and hardware.
When looking at new materials for sustainable buildings, those that can be rapidly renewed, such as bamboo , are good options. Bamboo can be harvested for commercial use after just six years, which is a rapid reduction when compared to timber. Examples of projects that embrace sustainable materials and concepts.
Sustainable architecture and environmental issues are now a part of the agenda for businesses, as well as local and international communities. Any object that is considered sustainable must show ecological awareness , therefore its functionality must be tied to its relationship with the environment through its appearance.
Sustainable architecture designs and constructs buildings in order to limit their environmental impact , with the objectives of achieving energy efficiency, positive impacts on health, comfort and improved liveability for inhabitants; all of this can be achieved through the implementation of appropriate technologies within the building. Designing sustainable architecture means taking a few fundamental elements into consideration: orientation, shading and sunlight crated by pre-existing elements, natural ventilation, as well as the use of biomass, Ambient Assisted Living or domotics and renewable energy systems, all created and incorporated with materials studied specifically to interact with the environment and its characteristics.
An organic or bio-architecture project must be approached holistically: from technical aspects to environmental, social and even psycho-sensorial ones. Modern milestones of successful sustainable architecture that fully embody its principles and concepts can be often found in developing countries, where the local workforce and community are at the core of the projects.
The design of this structure fully embraces the limits as well as the qualities of the location, in addition to the culture and customs of the population, a project culminating in a school entirely created with reused materials. Fortunately, these types of architectural projects are becoming more common, even though they still remain a very small percentage of what is actually constructed. The main problem is appearance: the image dictates the rules.
The sustainable image runs the risk of being trivialised and becoming a typical wooden house with a vaguely comforting shape fitting the common imagery of eco-friendliness. So could appearance be more important than substance? One of the main objectives of people who delve into sustainable architecture is to recycle almost everything they use. The buildings should be modular, constructed with elements and materials that can be easily retrieved, reused and disposed of without causing any pollution by recycling them integrally or globally.
The separation of modern elements, composed of various layers of materials that have been stuck together chemically, poses a serious problem for recycling. Voluntary sustainability standards are available to help assess and compare the level of sustainable design and construction a building achieves. This is an international scheme that provides independent third-party certification of the assessment of the sustainability performance of individual buildings, communities and infrastructure projects.
What this means is that in order to achieve the highest BREEAM sustainability standards, a property owner must make it a priority to consult with experts who can provide sustainability-related advice when undertaking a design and construction project.
Achieving the highest level of sustainability standard requires significant consultant involvement during the earliest RIBA Design stages to ensure sustainability issues are addressed and embedded with the project and not just an afterthought on the scheme. Sustainable architecture benefits everyone — individuals, businesses, communities, the economy and the environment. It is true that more and more countries are leaning towards sustainability, but the progress achieved is still not able to keep up with the unceasing demand for resources.
There are also challenges that may hinder the advancement of sustainable architecture and one of the biggest obstacles is monetary cost. While a sustainable structure might save you more money in the long-term, there is still the common belief that sustainable materials and methods are way more expensive than traditional resources.
Working with a design team that understands the complexities, demands, and challenges of constructing a sustainable building will be able to better offer proven solutions that can deliver both the required environmental benefits and cost-efficiency. For expert advice on sustainable architecture, contact Barker Associates to find out how they help your project.
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