Sustainable Building Design

Principles and Practice

Miles Keeping, David Shiers, Miles Keeping, David Shiers

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119063766
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Nachhaltigkeit in der Architektur

An inside view of how one of the world's leading architecture and engineering practice does business

Sustainable Built Environments: Principles and Practice offers detailed, environmentally sound design solutions to a wide range of building engineering challenges. The text uses case examples and project data provided by engineers and designers at Arup Associates. It covers a broad range of relevant issues, with focused commentaries and explanations presented in an accessible format for use by students, busy practitioners and informed clients.

Whilst this book stresses the importance of a unified approach to design, the text is divided into six principal chapters, each addressing an important aspect of sustainable architecture and engineering. These chapters (Master Planning, Transport, Energy, The Building Envelope, Environmental Services, and Materials) may be read on their own or in sequence as part of a narrative. Throughout the book, photographs, architectural and engineering drawings and diagrams, examples, and other data illustrate the case studies. Numerous web links are provided to additional information. This inspirational book:

• Focuses on the work of Arup Associates, the award winning architectural and engineering practice
• Uses real-life examples of functioning buildings and structures to provide information and guidance on the development of sustainable solutions
• Is packed with informative illustrations

Sustainable Built Environments: Principles and Practice is a unique text that will inform and inspire architects and engineers, as well as students of those disciplines, around the globe.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Miles Keeping¹, David Shiers², Ann-Marie Aguilar³ and Michael Beavan³

¹Hillbreak Ltd., Buckinghamshire, HP18 9TH, UK

²School of the Built Environment,, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

³Arup Associates, London, W1T 4BQ, UK

The term ‘Total Architecture’ implies that all relevant design decisions have been considered together and have been integrated into a whole by a well organised team empowered to fix priorities. This is an ideal which can never - or only very rarely - be fully realised in practice, but which is well worth striving for, for artistic wholeness or excellence depends on it, and for our own sake we need the stimulation produced by excellence.

Ove Arup, 1970, http://publications.arup.com/publications/o/ove_arups_key_speech.

Achieving excellence in design and construction is, arguably, an even greater challenge today than when Ove Arup first began practice as an engineer and architect in the 1920s.

Now, as then, each project design and construction team must tackle what is a unique combination of variables, particular to an individual building or piece of infrastructure. Site-specific technical and aesthetic considerations, the functional needs of the eventual users, financial and contractual constraints, macro-economic conditions, Building Codes and legal requirements (all of which are subject to constant change), mean that every new project is, in effect, a prototype.

But as awareness has grown of the potentially devastating effects of contamination, atmospheric emissions and the finite nature of many natural resources, now, at this point in the 21st century, designers and project managers must also help to achieve the international community’s wider goals of reducing negative environmental impacts arising from human activity. The increasing interconnectedness of societal systems around the world means the design and management of buildings and infrastructure must respond not only to local and national ecological issues but also to global environmental concerns.

It could be said that the principles of sustainability have long been at the heart of the best architecture and engineering projects. Even before the term ‘green’ was applied to buildings, many designers tried hard to strike a responsible balance between the natural and the built environments and to meet the needs of the present, whilst leaving a positive legacy for future generations. However, today there is an expectation that all property professionals put sustainability at the heart of their projects and indeed, there is legislation in many parts of the world to ensure that this is the case. But how is the environmental impact of property to be minimised whilst at the same time ensuring that buildings also meet the high aesthetic, practical and financial expectations of stakeholders?

In order that Built Environment students and practitioners can better understand how to meet today’s sustainability objectives, this book sets out to explain some of the techniques used by leading architects and engineers.

Sustainable or ‘green’ building can be defined as ‘design and construction which seeks to minimise negative environmental impacts in an integrated and holistic way over the whole life-cycle of the project’. Green projects will commonly have the following features:

• Maximised opportunities to re-use existing buildings, structures and materials through recycling, refurbishment, conversion, adaptation and extension.
• Utilised and/or enhanced existing public transport networks to reduce dependency on fossil-fuel-powered vehicles as part of a carefully planned transport strategy.
• Minimal negative site impact through sensitivity to site ecology, flora and fauna.
• Minimal consumption of energy from non-renewable sources both during construction and post-occupancy through the use of energy-efficient lighting, heating, ‘natural’ ventilation and cooling systems and by careful orientation and façade treatments.
• The use of materials which have the lowest possible environmental impact and which have been responsibly sourced as part of a carefully planned maintenance, repair, reuse and replacement strategy.
• Responsible water management both in use, through ‘grey water’ capture and in disposal, through Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS).
• Carefully planned waste management strategies during both construction and after occupation.
• Minimal use of harmful chemicals in the construction and post-occupancy management of the project through careful specification of construction material preservation treatments, cleaning fluids, paints and solvents as well as substances which may harm human health, wildlife and insects.
• High standards of air quality and natural lighting to ensure healthy indoor environments for living and working.
• Respectful, transparent and inclusive engagement with local community and stakeholder groups and a positive contribution to the public realm.

Principles of ‘Natural Ventilation’ as illustrated at the Sky TV studio, London, UK.

Source: Image courtesy of Arup Associates; http://www.arupassociates.com/en/case-studies/sky-studios/.

Environmental Assessment

Low environmental impact projects would also normally have an independently certified ‘green badge’ which measures and verifies good practice. Licensed assessors evaluate energy efficiency, levels of carbon emissions, transport impacts, the use of low impact materials etc. against a set of metrics derived from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data by leading environmental researchers, architects and engineers within organisations such as the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and the US Green Building Council (USGBC). Assessment programmes including BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) in United States and Green Star in Australia are now widely used with some 538,200 BREEAM certified developments globally and almost 2,230,600 buildings registered for assessment since its launch in United Kingdom in 1990 (BRE, 2016).

Commonly used green design and assessment tools:

• BREEAM: http://www.breeam.com/
• LEED: http://www.usgbc.org/leed
• Green Star: http://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-overview
• Passivhaus: http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/
• The Home Quality Mark: http://www.homequalitymark.com/
• SKA: http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/ska-rating-/
• The Green Guide to Specification: http://www.brebookshop.com/documents/sample_pages_br501.pdf & https://www.bre.co.uk/greenguide/podpage.jsp?id=2126

Other sources of guidance for practitioners and clients include:

• Blue Angel Ecolabelling: http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ecolabel/blue-angel
• Managing Agents Sustainability Toolkit: http://www.betterbuildingspartnership.co.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachment/bbp-managing-agents-sustainability-toolkit.pdf

The use of environmental scoring systems has become a popular way of marketing the ‘green credentials’ of the buildings and master plans of property owners, occupiers and other stakeholders. Such badging is seen increasingly as an indicator of, and is synonymous with, high-quality design and a progressive, responsible approach to social and environmental concerns.

Users of these tools should be aware that although their methodology strives to be objective and robust, as...