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Sustainable Building Design Concepts

   

Added on  2020-05-16

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Architecture and the Culture of Sustainability 1ARCHITECTURE AND THE CULTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY – THE RECYCLING OFBUILDINGSNameCourseProfessorUniversityCity/stateDate
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Architecture and the Culture of Sustainability 2Architecture and the Culture of Sustainability – The Recycling of BuildingsThe way we design, create structures and use architecture significantly shapes our identity. There are many famous buildings worldwide that are known to express different standpoints of identity. Some of these include: Eiffel Tower (Paris, France;), The Colosseum (Rome, Italy), The Giza Pyramids (El Giza, Egypt), The Capitol (Washington DC), Big Ben (Westminster, London), Taj Mahal (Uttar Pradesh, India), The Louvre (Paris, France), Sydney Opera House (Sydney NSW, Australia), Empire State Building (New York), and The Burj Al Arab (Dubai); among others[CITATION Per10 \l 1033 ]. These iconic buildings are known all over the world and clearly demonstrate how architecture shapes local identity. Architectural works aregenerally seen as works of art and cultural symbols. Therefore architecture is used to express cultural, social, economic and environmental identity in many parts of the world[ CITATION Mah07 \l 1033 ].Buildings have a huge impact on the environment because they change and uses[ CITATION Who17 \l 1033 ]. The amount of resources consumed by buildings in their entire lifecycle are large and have continued to increase over the years. In the U.S., it is estimated that buildings contribute 40% of carbon emissions. Globally, buildings are the biggest consumers of energy and emitters of greenhouse gases. These buildings contribute significantly to climate change, which has become a life-threatening problem. Thus there is urgent need to develop and implement strategies that will reduce energy consumption, minimize emissions and increase resource efficiency of buildings. Some of these strategies include recycling of buildings and use of renewable resources[ CITATION Sag11 \l 1033 ]. This essay discusses architecture and the cultureof sustainability. It focusses on the recycling of buildings.
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Architecture and the Culture of Sustainability 3Architecture in general has greatly revolutionized over the years. Many years ago, most architects were only concerned about the general appearance and uniqueness of buildings. They wanted to design the most spectacular buildings without putting much emphasis on the impact ofthese buildings to the occupants and environment. However, the continuing lifestyle changes, global population growth and depletion of natural resources have prompted architects to start considering environmental impacts of building designs and architectural styles they apply. This has led to development of numerous sustainable design principles that guide architects on how todesign buildings with minimal environmental impacts. That is why today’s architects are always looking for ways to increase resource efficiency of buildings without compromising indoor requirements of occupants. The concept of sustainability has become very important in the recent years for various reasons. One of these reasons is the rapidly increasing global population, which has resulted to increased exploitation of natural resources. In the context of this essay, the high global population has led to increased demand for buildings. This means that more natural resources have to be extracted and processed for use in the construction of more buildings. As a result of this, the resources become depleted and the processes of extraction, processing, transportation and use cause a lot of negative impacts on the environment. It is for this reason that the culture ofsustainability is very important in architecture as it helps in ensuring that buildings are resource efficient and environmentally sound. The best way to promote the culture of sustainability is to design buildings with an aim ofreducing the amount of resources they consume during construction, operation and maintenance stages. But it does not end at that point – it extends to demolition stage where the buildings can be reused or recycled. In general, sustainable architecture entails seeking ways of minimizing
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Architecture and the Culture of Sustainability 4negative environmental impacts caused by buildings throughout their lifecycle. This basically requires architects to design environmentally friendly buildings i.e. energy- and water-efficient buildings that have low impact on the environment and human health. The processes of designing, constructing, operating and maintaining buildings use a wide range of materials including water and energy[ CITATION Rag161 \l 1033 ]. The vast materials also translate into large amounts of waste, emissions and pollution. There are different ways in which architecture is used to promote the culture of sustainability. One of them is ensuring efficient use of resources, including energy and water, throughout the lifecycle of buildings[ CITATION KMB15 \l 1033 ]. Architects can achieve this by ensuring proper building envelope (to regulate flow of heat, wind, industrial pollution, vapor pressure, solar radiation to and from the building during different seasons of the year)[ CITATION Iwa13 \l 1033 ], appropriate orientation and layout of rooms (to capitalize on natural ventilation, daylighting and natural air conditioning), suitable construction materials, air-tightness[ CITATION Che15 \l 1033 ], efficient construction methods that use less resources, incorporation of automation systems (to ensure that resources are consumed appropriately and only when needed), use of recycled and recyclable construction materials and constant monitoring of the impacts of sustainable strategies applied. If a building is oriented properly, it will capitalize on daylighting. This means that the building will consume zero energy for lighting during the day – which reduces the total amount of energy consumed by the building. Other design features such as large operable windows and wind catchers will also reduce a building’s energy consumption because they use natural ventilation and air conditioning[ CITATION FuH13 \l 1033 ]. All these strategies are known as passive design techniques because they use zero or very minimal energy, compared to active design approaches. Majority of these passive design features were the ones
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