Eco-Friendly Building Design and Sustainability

The provided document is an assessment of high-energy efficient technologies implemented in a building to maintain sustainability. It highlights the importance of reducing fossil fuel use, generating electricity through renewable sources like sun and wind, and utilizing sustainable materials with low carbon emission. The analysis also covers the benefits of rainwater harvesting and storage, which contribute to a more eco-friendly building design.

Sustainable energy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Summary:.....................................................................................................................................1
Analysis:......................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Energy efficiency refers to using less energy to avoid environmental impacts and
unnecessary pollution hazards for getting sustainability for the future purpose. Nowadays, many
homes, buildings, industries are adopting eco- friendly techniques to have less carbon emission.
It allows insulating homes to have less energy in cooling and heating system. One of such
building is Bowzed which is situated at east London. William Robert Dunster, an architect who
is responsible for designing building in 1960. A Zed factory group is established in 1999 to apply
the methods and solutions for achieving sustainability. This assessment is about techniques that
are used for making a building an eco-friendly building.
MAIN BODY
Summary:
Several years were spent on researching and developing a sustainable house which has high
energy efficiency to have less carbon emission. 11 architects take part in Zed factory to design
eco-villages on large scale. Zed factory and Dunster aims to provide Zed life into London’s
people (Georgiou and et.al., 2016). Their motive is to provide facilities on same level with use of
less energy. BowZED is an urban house which is situated at East London. It has recently in one
of the top list of cities in world which has sustainability plan. Hence, many researchers have
planned to develop urban designs for the cities to have less carbon emission which leads to less
pollution and makes environment friendly.
Illustration 1: BowZed building
Source: (Bowzed, Bow, east London 2012)
There are 4 storey flat in BowZed eco-friendly building which are designed critically to
ensure electricity demands, heating and cooling system, and use of sustainable materials in
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making building. It has been analyzed that non renewable resources for generating electricity has
a great impact on environment and making it polluted. Zed stands for Zero energy development
(Dodoo, Gustavsson, and Tettey, 2017). It means it has zero value of carbon emission and do not
using any fossil fuels in building. Therefore it is regarded as top eco- friendly building.
Sustainability development refers to a process of developing and meeting needs without
influencing present needs. This is beneficial for future generations which make a common idea
into existence by implementing new technologies and resources in present process. This concept
of eco-friendly building comes to maintain sustainability by using limited resources. It is found
that non renewable energy resources are reaches to extinct one and has a great part in emitting
carbon molecules in air which results in global warming. Sustainability is like social ecological
process which is defined to have a common idea to increase efficiency. Sustainability defines to
be supported, sustained, confirmed ability to achieve. There is no doubt that it involves too much
cost but it has positive results. It manage the resources in such a way that quality also improved
and no compromise in existing one (Kneifel and Webb, 2016). Therefore, they are focusing on
renewable energy sources to generate electricity instead of non renewable resources. This has
less impact on environment or can be found as negligible.
There are two ways which can have less impact on environment. Either changes in
services on ecosystem or manage environment. Ecosystem services can be changed easily
instead of managing environment. Human consumption is involved in ecosystem services.
BowZed focuses on change in ecosystem services. To have less consumption of non renewable
resources is main task of engineer to make it a green building. In managing environment, they
have to deal with oceans, fresh water, glaciers, land which is not possible for humans to control
these environmental features and save them. They can control their consumption and make
changes in it. For example, bowZed building is focusing on changes in electricity generation,
they implement solar panels and wind turbine to overcome demands of electricity. This takes
part in zero level of emission of carbon.
There are many ways to make a building sustainable. Use of renewable energy resources is
one of them. This method has average great impact on n environment and leads to an extra
procedure to generate electricity and helps to national grid system in London. Different ways like
use of sustainable materials for making internal designs in building. This helps in using disposal
waste material to reuse and recycle them. This is beneficial in using limited resources. New steel
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materials are found to be more harmful for environment. Another idea to have sustainability is
insulation. This is generally preferred to have windows in such a way that they are obliged to
have fresh air in rooms and sound proof too.
Analysis:
First the thing starts with making building, different materials are used for designing
building. But to make it eco-friendly building, special attention needs to be given to materials
that do not impact on environment. Zed factory use reclaimed steel to design basis structure of
building. They also use reused steel to making building. Graph below shows the comparison
between reclaimed steel and new steel for impacting environment.
Illustration 2: comparison of reclaimed steel and new steel
Source: ( BowZed 2017)
Above graph shows that reclaimed steel has negligible impact on environment as
compared to new steel. It generally effects on climatic change. These changes are more leading
to problems like global warming that is constantly increasing. This step by Zed factory has a
very great pleasure to use of sustainable materials. This is categorized under recycling idea to
have sustainability. They also used Yellow London stock bricks which are kept since 19th
century.
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To make a building eco-friendly means making it a green building which do not include a
percentage of harmful materials and system that can impact environment. Life is bought due to
the flow of water, air and energy. Zed factory focused on these three features to have high energy
efficiency. For generating electricity, they focus on using renewable sources like sun and wind.
Illustration 3: Solar system
Source: (BowZed 2017)
Zed factory uses sun energy to generate electricity. Solar panels are analyzed to generate and
store energy for having sustainability. They are installed on the terrace of BowZed building. But
they are aligned vertically to have more light on solar panels. Solar photovoltaic cells are
mounted on solar panels which are responsible for converting light energy into electrical energy
which can be further processed to battery for storing energy. Building is south faced, so
engineers keep in mind to aligned vertically solar panels so that they are charged for a week in
winter season. This solar system is not only limited to overcome the demands of people who are
living in building but also help in national grid to have a part to overcome demands on East
London people. Building owners get money in back to supply electrical energy to them. Solar
panels also has a gap in between to have sufficient pass of sun rays to building through windows.
Solar system is efficient to explain limited use of non renewable sources. So that environment
can be protected from such harmful impacts. This cut down one method of carbon footprint for
generating electricity.
Now second factor is come i.e., of wind. It is also a renewable energy source which has no
impact on environment. Wind energy is also used to generate electricity through wind turbines.
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These turbines are located on the top of terrace and they are free to move. This is not on a large
scale but took part in overcoming demands of electricity in building. Similar with solar energy, it
can also send back energy to national grid against money. In combination with wind turbines,
wind cowls are also mounted for ventilation of air in flats. Keeping the house fresh is important
for people who are living inside so these wind cowls are made up of aluminum which can easily
take the procedure of intake and extract air to have proper ventilation in house. This makes
constant flow of air inside flats which makes people comfortable to live there.
Another feature in building for people to have hot water for their personnel use. A boiler is
required to warm water. But to make it eco-friendly, Zed factory uses wood pellet boiler for
warming water. It works on the basis of burning wood pellets in place of coal. This is connected
to hot water system. It emits only less carbon as compared to carbon. This saves cost of people to
have big appliances which consumes electrical energy to boil water (Ferrari and Beccali, 2017).
This wood pellet system saves both time and money and makes it eco-friendly. This method is
far better than burning coal. This emits too much carbon which results in many diseases which
affects the health of people.
For making building sustainable, another feature is to have insulation in walls which make it
eco-friendly. Many other materials come in market for making walls of building which are
involved in emitting carbon and are not sustainable. Therefore, engineer focused on it and plan to
made walls and ceilings to have hollow- core concrete slab. It is useful in transferring sunlight to
rooms to store it for five to six days in winter season. This is also good in summer season to have
cold air during night which is stored in rooms and making inside temperature cooler than outside
environment. This idea came out from volcanic rocks to have easily transferring of air. Similarly,
windows are also made in specialized manner. They are not only limited to thermal insulation by
having glazing triple times but also used for making it sound proof. Some people in flats are
conscious about noise and it irritates them which decrease their work efficiency (Sun and et.al.,
2018). It can also categorize under noise pollution. To make it sound proof windows are filled
with krypton which does not allow noise to pass through and makes people inside comfortable.
A very spacious look is given to rooms of flats in BowZed building. This helps in getting
fresh air constantly and in every season. At the time of rainy season, it is beneficial to store rain
water for future purpose. Water is also a renewable energy sources. By the analysis of shortage
of water in world, Zed factory also focused to save water. They make a tank on bottom of
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building which has feature of storing rain water. This tank is connected with top roof to harvest
rain water. This is useful to have sustainability for the future purpose whenever there is a
shortage of water.
Reason behind BowZed to be one of top eco-friendly building is to be a part of eco-technic,
eco- social and eco- centric. To be included in eco – technic list, building has sustainable system
to generate electricity either through use of renewable sources like sun and wind. It reduces
energy consumption level to meet demands also saves money of people (Perlova and et.al.,
2015). This does not emit carbon as compared to thermal system for generating electricity. This
acts like as an extra source to have contribution in national grid as well. This is sustainable for
the future purpose to have limited use of energy. It also has high efficiency. Now second factor
come is to have eco- social environment.
CONCLUSION
This assessment summarised about high energy efficient technologies that are
implemented in building to maintain sustainability. It has been analysed that fossil fuels have a
more part in carbon emission. Fossil fuels are used for generating electricity, in motor vehicles
mainly. For a building, generating electricity ids framed as main concept. Therefore, architects of
BowZed building are focussed on generating electricity through sources like sun and wind.
Sustainable materials are also outlines which are using recycling idea for making walls in
building. These type of materials are defined to have low carbon emission as compared to use
new material. To make a eco- friendly building is not a easy task. This consumes both time and
money.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dodoo, A., Gustavsson, L. and Tettey, U.Y.A., 2017. Life cycle primary energy use of nearly-
zero energy building and low-energy building. In ECEEE 2017 Summer Study of energy
efficiency. 29 May–3 June 2017. Hyères, France. (pp. 1075-1081). European Council for
an Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE).
Ferrari, S. and Beccali, M., 2017. Energy-environmental and cost assessment of a set of
strategies for retrofitting a public building toward nearly zero-energy building
target. Sustainable cities and society. 32. pp.226-234.
Georgiou, G.S. and et.al., 2016. Optimal utilization of Renewable Energy Sources in nearly Zero
Energy Buildings–A review.
Kneifel, J. and Webb, D., 2016. Predicting energy performance of a net-zero energy building: A
statistical approach. Applied energy. 178. pp.468-483.
Perlova, E. and et.al., 2015. Concept project of zero energy building. Procedia Engineering. 100.
pp.1505-1514.
Sun, Y. and et.al., 2018. Building-group-level performance evaluations of net zero energy
buildings with non-collaborative controls. Applied energy. 212. pp.565-576.
Online
BowZed 2017. [Online]. Available through. <https://thebowzedproject.weebly.com/case-
study.html>.
Bowzed, Bow, east London 2012. [Online]. Available through. <
https://vitruvianas.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/bowzed-bow-east-london/>.
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