ENCOURAGING THE FUTURE WITH GREEN BUILDING
ENCOURAGING THE FUTURE WITH GREEN BUILDING
By Kaushik K. Shandilya
Legionnaires' outbreak incidents were regularly reported from a 1976 Philadelphia convention at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and the Croatia Hotel. The source of the bacteria was contaminated water used to cool the air in the hotel's air conditioning system. Moreover, people dream of living long into their seventies, eighties or even nineties. Both these causes and incidents certainly indicate the effect of bad indoor air quality on human life. Sometimes living healthy does not take strict dieting or excessive exercise, but the right place to live. This is why green building is ideal for people who care about good-quality living, an important issue in recent times. Unfortunately, only a few middle- or upper-class urban and suburban residents trust or even know about advantages of healthy environment of green buildings.
Conventionally, the houses we live in are often made from wood or concrete, which cause some dilemmas and adversities. Green building practices tend to decrease the environmental impact of buildings. Buildings account for a large quantity of land use, power and water consumption, and air and atmosphere shift. Typically, buildings use slightly less than half of the total power and one eighth of the total amount of water consumed in both the U.S. and the European Union.
The poor building quality issue is not just about atmosphere: individuals are harmed too. For example, a typical American or European spends 90 percent of his or her time indoors, which is at least twice as contaminated as outdoor air. Mortality and morbidity associated with this is well established in scientific literature. Indoor air quality also causes financial stress as health and productivity losses cost tens of billions of dollars annually to the nation. Buildings liberate large amounts of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide and produce raw building materials. While particulate matter and sulfur dioxide are detrimental to human health, the raw building materials and debris cause solid waste management problems and global warming.
Green building avoids the conventional construction pitfalls and provides residents with a good, healthy indoor environment. Green building brings together an infinite range of practices and techniques to decrease and eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. The innovations of green building and inside-building are increasing day by day. The Rocky Mountains Institute in Colorado includes a green building interior garden which fosters bananas, orange trees, lizards, avocados, grapes, papayas and passion fruit—even in the mountains at 104ºF. Building materials usually considered to be 'green' comprise renewable plant materials like bamboo (as bamboo grows rapidly) and straw, lumber from forests, dimension and recycled stone, recycled metal and other products that are safe, reusable, renewable and/or eco-friendly (e.g. linoleum, sheep wool, panels made from paper flakes, adobe, compressed, baked and rammed earth, clay, vermiculite, sea grass, cork, coconut, wood fiber plates, calcium sand stone, high and ultra high performance concrete, etc).
The ING Bank Building in Amsterdam is also a superior example of the positive benefits of green building. It is an organic building with natural materials, natural light and interior gardens with small waterfalls. Natural ventilation through operable windows is used in place of air conditioning. A cogeneration system powers an absorption chiller by waste heat for dehumidification. The 1500 USD cost is cheaper than for many banks which consume five times as much energy. Green buildings frequently comprise measures to reduce energy use. To enhance the effectiveness of the building envelope, they may employ high-efficiency windows and insulation in walls, ceilings and floors. Moreover, efficient window position (day lighting) can offer natural light and reduce the need for electric lighting. In conclusion, onsite creation of renewable energy through solar power, wind power, hydro power or biomass can notably decrease the environmental impact of the building.
It often emphasizes taking benefit of renewable resources, e.g., using sunlight through passive and active solar, and using vegetation through green roofs, rain gardens and for decrease of rainwater run-off. Other interesting techniques, such as packed gravel for parking lots as a substitute of concrete or asphalt to enhance percolation of ground water, are used as well. The Queen's Building at De Montfort University, Leicester’s the biggest naturally ventilated building in the U.K. Most shell area is operable so the occupants can operate windows to regulate their comfort conditions. Air flows throughout the building by means of chimney effect. Heating is accomplished by the use of passive solar design and internal heat gain from the occupants and equipment. In fact, a collection of smaller domestic scale buildings, the huge masonry structure has gorgeous polychromatic brickwork by local masons and offers the thermal mass for the structure. Carefully designed overhangs and a narrow footprint permit sunlight in during the cooler months and blocks it during the heat of summer. The classrooms in this superior building have natural day lighting and require virtually no powered lighting.
Green architecture also seeks to trim down waste of power, water and materials used during construction. In the construction phase, one goal is to decrease the material going to landfills. Well-designed buildings also assist to decrease the waste generated by the occupants as well, by offering such onsite solutions as compost bins to reduce matter going to landfills. The Passivhaus in Darmstadt, Germany uses only 10 percent of the energy required by other houses in the city and only 25 percent of the typical electrical energy. Rather than being gloomy and repressive as might have been the case, the Passivhaus is dazzling and cheerful and very much linked to nature.
By collecting human waste at the source and running it to a centralized biogas plant with biological waste, fertilizer can be produced. This idea was verified by a resolution in Lubeck Germany in the late 1990s. Practices like these make available soil with organic nutrients and create carbon sinks that eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere, offsetting GHG emission. Producing synthetic fertilizer is also costlier in energy than this process.
Why is green building not used more often? The answer rests in fears and assumptions made overtime by decision-makers in the building industry. The environmental impact of buildings is underestimated, while the apparent costs of green buildings are overestimated. A recent investigation by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development finds that green expenses are overrated by 300 percent. Some property holders don’t take the time to research the benefits of green building. Some lack knowledge and experience in construction and depend too much on older technology and regulations, without regard to the quality which it often lacks. Quick assumptions also abound among lenders and funders afraid of the cost risk. They may think that since wood and concrete are so profitable, they should not give them up.
Apparently, it doesn’t matter to the holders that green buildings produce greater benefits in health, well-being and productivity (thanks to day-lighting). Resource consumption is minimized, construction waste is low, resource reuse is maximized, the natural environment is better protected, energy efficiency is greater and human health is improved thanks to the absence of toxics. Those who care about this quality of living should carefully compare green building with the more common but inferior buildings available. They may be surprised by the healthier lifestyle that comes from green building. According to U.S. EPA, reducing the amount of natural resources buildings consume and the amount of pollution caused is crucial for future sustainability.
About the Author
Kaushik K. Shandilya is a Civil Engineering graduate student and a member of the University of Toledo AWMA student chapter.
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