Sustainable Building

Efficient and accurate methods and models are ever-demanding to determining the user satisfaction in energy efficient buildings. Thus, several techniques are developed based on sustainable building assessment tools and standards to achieve such target. However, the user satisfaction from adaptive behavior in the design phase of buildings lifecycle is never addressed. This paper attempts to identify the most applicable data input method to measure the satisfaction from adaptive behavior with energy efficient buildings in their design phase. A comprehensive literature survey on all user satisfaction data input methods is conducted to serve the taxonomy by classifying them into two major clusters depending on performance and perception. Kano method to measure satisfaction perception from cog-nitive experience is demonstrated to be the most suitable user satisfaction data input method. Furthermore , Kano method can delicately assist energy efficient building design consultants to assess the user contentment requirements for sustainable building accreditation effectively. &

Tabique construction is one of the main Portuguese traditional building techniques that use earth based building materials. It is peculiar building technique which uses corn's cob as a filling material for the external tabique walls. The existing tabique construction in Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro region of northeast Portugal was studied to learn from it for modern day construction. The research showed that corn's cob, an agricultural waste, has the potential to be used as a sustainable building material for thermal insulation. An ...

Sustainable" and "ecological" are becoming fashionable words for advertising products: eco- logical car, ecological food, ecological bag, even ecological fuel. To claim that a product is sustainable or ecological helps to sell it. This trend applies also to buildings, and "sustainable architecture" and "sustainable design" is becom- ing a fashionable wording. Sustainable architec- ture has been, for decades, a small

... Graham, PM 2003. Building Ecology. ... Callenbach, E. 1975. Ecotopia , New York, NY: Bantam. View all references) to be delivered by the sustainable city at scales from buildings upwards. ... In Europe, a parallel movement of 'green urbanism' (Beatley, 20048. Beatley, T. 2004. ...

Sustainable building is an abstract and broad concept encompassing many issues and thinking, with the aim to minimise adverse environmental impacts and promote resources eco-efficiency. In order to apply and achieve sustainable building in hot and humid climates, efforts must be put into understanding the local climate, and integrating appropriate building technologies into the architectural and urban designs. This research paper explains the basic concepts of sustainable building, describes the principles of building climatic design for hot and humid climates, and discusses the important considerations for sustainable building technologies. With reference to the conditions in Hong Kong and Hangzhou, the key factors affecting the development of sustainable buildings are analysed and the strategies to promote sustainable building practices and effective technologies are examined. As many cities in China will continue to expand and grow, the building and construction sector has major ...

Sustainable construction movement has been deeply transforming the traditional construction sector. As an important part of the sustainable construction delivery system, sustainable/green building rating systems play an essential role in implementing the sustainable principles into the construction industry and assessing the building’s rating. Most of the countries of the world have now developed their own rating systems. But as a matter of fact all the sustainability rating systems are not the same as they all provide different weightages to the assessment tools and even mention different assessment tools according to their available resources and regional location. Also each rating system has its own method of calculating weightages. For evaluation of buildings in Saudi Arabia the other rating systems cannot be used because for Saudi Arabia ‘water’is of major concern but the other rating systems provide very less weightage to it. Hence building rating system developed for any specific region becomes inappropriate for other regions. This paper makes detailed description and comparison among the mainstream green building rating systems and their common assessment tools. A short discussion about these sustainable/green building assessment tools has also been made, and it also briefly points out the importance and urgency of a separate sustainable rating system for Saudi Arabia and gulf region. New assessment tools and their weightages have been proposed in this paper for Saudi Arabia, which shall be very beneficial for the concerned authorities and shall help as guideline for the development of a separate rating system in the Gulf region.

Sustainable building design is paving the road for future building designs. In the research presented, a group of diverse civil engineering undergraduates designed a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified building and computed its cost analysis. A comparison between the cost of a conventional building versus a LEED certified building is presented to provide a realistic view of the cost of environmentally friendly buildings. The cost analysis compares between traditional materials, and typical building methods versus recycled materials, and new sustainable designs. Among these topics the group also discusses the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification standards and the green features that are added to the conventional building to make it an environmentally friendly building. In the research, it is illustrated that a green building is more costly in the present time but can pay itself off in the future as it consists of several cost saving features. Although sustainable building design requires detailed planning, and costly material, it is beneficial for the environment and society.

Building designers are struggling to deeply integrate the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in projects. The review of the literature revealed that the available research is focused on linking the current practices, including sustainable building practices, with the SDGs. This has, in turn, limited the development of novel approaches as well as new building design methodologies that specifically aim at attaining the agenda's targets. To help building design teams achieve the meaningful integration of the agenda's five Ps, this paper proposes two analytical mapping tools which can be used during the integrated design process to track the integration of SDGs in the building projects, and to analyze the building design approaches and visions in reference to the topics of the goals. The research uses a case study for an energy-positive building in Quebec to test the proposed tools. The analysis focuses on the integration of 8 of 17 SDGs, discusses the specific building features which were used to achieve this integration, and analyzes the team's design visions regarding the goals. The results reveal that in the case studied, the integration of the 8 SDGs moves beyond the current standards by mostly applying design approaches which are future-driven and focused on products and technologies. This research provides important practical tools that can inform building practices in the private and the public sector and contributes to the theory and practice of sustainable building design. It also supports the current effort towards the implementation and localization of the SDGs.

Earlier this year, the United Nations released Buildings and Climate Change, which reports that 30-40% of all primary energy is used in buildings. A host of other authorities have joined the U.N. in calling for green building standards, not only to conserve energy, but also to achieve more socially responsible real estate development. A discernable movement is now afoot for government to play a significant role in promoting green building projects. But there is not yet agreement on what that role should be. In particular, green building standards have not yet found their place within the realm of land use regulation. In the United States, land use controls are normally adopted, implemented, and enforced at the local level, where they are subject to local political influences that make it unlikely that municipalities alone will bring about the required green building revolution. And prospects for effective green building initiatives resulting from international or national sustainable development policies are dim due to the resurgent private property rights movement in this country. While the principles at stake are considerable, we must not allow deep philosophical, normative, and political battles over the more controversial aspects of sustainable development theory to retard progress on this matter of critical global concern. This article argues that timely, meaningful movement toward sustainability in the U.S. building industry requires state-level legislation that promotes, and sometimes even mandates, green building standards at the regional and local levels.

Research studies have shown that the initial energy embodied in a building can be as much as 67% of the operational energy over a 25 year period. With growing global concerns over material and resource consumption and the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere, the energy embodied in buildings constructed in town and cities becomes important and one of the key issues that needs to be tackled in the design stages in order to strive towards sustainable buildings design. In this paper, a hybrid embodied carbon ...

How can the concept of sustainable housing be implemented in Indonesia? Prompted by various housing problems, especially in dense urban areas, this research proposes an integrated approach towards the sustainability of housing projects, which emphasizes the importance of community participation and the use of local solutions and resources. In general, existing guidelines and requirements for sustainable housing refer to efficient