SUSTAINABILITY IN ARCHITECTURE
Within the evolution in the built footprint and the impact that has been accounted by the building sector on the environment, societies, and planet resources, coming along with the endangered future generations due to this miss-strategic resources-use planning.
Sustainable needs within architecture have thus become a major fundamental need to be addressed by all who are working in the building sector or the ones responsible to put strategies for city planning. To be more efficient and save what is left on the planet for future generations and the continuous evolution of civilization.
As part of the rising awareness for our endangered planet due to non-sustainable strategies being taken or not taking any step forward towards optimizing the impact of the built environment, global organizations have put sustainable strategies as rising standards by which the design must be addressing all the negative environmental and social impacts of the desired building on the context and surrounding environment.
Sustainable topics have been taken into consideration within design going back to old traditional design mentalities, but with the rise of the industrial sector and high implementation of technologies within the design, green architecture has been shifted away from the very fast-growing civilization until it became clear that the planet is being endangered with these strategies.
To avoid the continuous spread of non-green projects and to decrease the impact of this mentality on the future of the civilization, global organizations working with local authorities have been implementing strategies and certifications to push designers towards greener design and facilitate their work more they are going sustainable with their projects.
HOW DID WE GO FROM BEING SUSTAINABLE TO THIS LEVEL OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGING ?
Human civilization is in a very fast evolution in terms of industry and technologies by which it needs a high demand on resources for adapting to how the world has turned to be. Moving from housing modules within spread spaces into highly dense cities and the demand for energy to manage the process of this functioning. High-rise buildings and condensed cities with buildings staked near each other, to adapt to the rising population numbers and the need for apartments with the role of cities and their condensation.
The need for infrastructure for the buildings (electricity, ventilation, air conditioning, etc..) has put a high demand resource to power up buildings. The move towards energy consumption was not through renewable energy and this has taken down our resources which is now endangering future generations with some nonrenewable resources being taken down.
To take into consideration high-demanding cities on energy consumption, by which high-rise glass towers that are built with the rising cities in the 90s and ’20s, but a high demand on energy consumption by which cooling the indoor space that is always affected by direct sunlight. Condensed cities make it harder to allow natural light access into the indoor space all day long thus a need for electricity is a must.
BUILDING
SECTOR
“The building sector worldwide uses up to 40% of primary energy requirements and also a considerable amount of overall water requirements.” (Bauer, Mosle, and Schwarz)
The building sector by numbers consumes most of the energy that is being generated to run all the units to function properly, with implementing guidelines by authorities on projects, we can reach a greener environment and reduce the impact of the building sector on our resources.
IS SUSTAINABILITY A NEW TOPIC IN ARCHITECTURE?
Architecture in the technical use of the word, started from the very first when humans started dwelling in nature as a shelter from natural threats. Dwelling caves, building shelters from local materials, and upgoing towards traditional unit housing when building techniques started to evolve with the development of civilization as small groups within nature. Shelters’ design and materials are always from the local land. For this reason, and for which shelters were built for the simple need that is to live within a closed space, such architecture even though it is the most basic and simple technique to be used, but still it was a very sustainable module of architecture. And to know more, many examples are still existing all over the world, each reflecting its context, and still working properly where it is still away from the need for mechanized ways for making the indoor space quality a comfortable space to be used.
At this point, we can develop the theory that traditional architecture was sustainable for the need not for the aim to be sustainable, and the reason behind being sustainable is that designers use the existing tools for designing and executing a project. At that time, the tools surely were all passive ones by which the unit must be properly oriented, exact dimensions and proportions to ensure correct air quality and flow, sunlight integration to the indoor spaces as per the climate for each region, and many other constraints that were the hard lines that defined how the outcome was generated.
As an example to that, a wind catcher tower is found in desert architecture by which it creates a natural ventilated building by watching natural wind from high points and transferring down through a wind tower.
PASSIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES
“Passive – design techniques increase the effectiveness of renewable energy in reducing the environmental impact of a building. As mentioned above, on-site renewable energy, such as solar electricity, remains relatively expensive. Building design measures that improve energy efficiency are, up to a point, much cheaper than providing on-site power generation. Good site orientation, air sealing, high-performance windows, high levels of well-installed insulation, efficient appliances, and other such “low-hanging fruit” are cost-effective in reducing the need for energy”.
(Keeler and Burke)
On the other hand, the project even with passive techniques that reduces the power consumption still needs a sufficient power supply to function the equipment and the technological appliances that are part of everyday use by people. The always-working generators and factories that generate electricity using fuel are the main problems of CO2 emissions that have to be reduced if we want to save the planet from the over going crisis. Studies and research are being developed and implemented day by day to find new ways to generate electricity using renewable energy sources rather than fuel and non-renewable energy resources.
