The recent British Council conference, Buildings of Today and Tomorrow’s Reality, gave us a few useful tips when designing and building energy-efficient, sustainable buildings. Here are 23 things to do when designing green buildings…

Did you know that 72 percent of total electricity, 39 percent of total energy and 14 percent of total water consumption take place in buildings? The buildings we live in and work in are also responsible for 28 percent of the CO2 emissions and 30 percent of total waste.

That’s why green buildings are becoming the new trend for a greener, sustainable and energy-efficient world. The recent conference “Buildings of Today and Tomorrow’s Reality,” held by the British Council and the Ministry of Public Works and Settlements’ General Directorate of Construction Affairs, showed us that there are more than a few ways to save energy when designing your green building.

Experts, architects and designers shared a few hints for green buildings. Make sure to use the following:

1. Spectrally-selective glasses,
2. Light pipes for lighting,
3. R410 gas, one of the most environment friendly coolants, as coolant for water,
4. Floor heating for wet areas,
5. CO2 sensors to check the return air in air conditioning,
6. Self-insulated polyurethane ducts to eliminate leakage and for assuring hygienic conditions,
7. Solar panels on roofs for electricity,
8. Wind turbines for extra electricity,
9. Solar collectors for hot water supply,
10. Ground source heat pump for getting maximum use of the constant soil temperature underground for hot water in winter and cold water in summer,
11. Frequency control in pumps and fans for minimising energy,
12. Daylight tubes for transferring outside daylight to interior spaces,
13. Energy analysers for monitoring total power consumption,
14. Waterless urinals,
15. Vegetation native to the area with minimum water requirement when landscaping,
16. Thermal insulation on the roof and the walls for minimising heat gain and loss,
17. Triple-glazing of the windows for heat loss and external noise reduction,
18. Ice storage during the night when the electricity cost is the lowest to be used during the day for cooling,
19. Multi-sensors sensitive to daylight and motion for the control of lighting switches,
20. A time-based programme for the lighting system,
21. A second piping system for the reuse of grey water for toilets,
22. Drip irrigation system with the collection of rainwater, and
23. Heat stored in concrete and heat from computers for air conditioning

Source: britishcouncilblogs.org

Demand For Certified Lumber, Recycled Content Concrete, Green Floor Coverings, And Other Efficient Fixtures Will See Double-Digit Growth Through 2015.

International business research company The Freedonia Group released an industry forecast detailing the growth of demand for green building materials through 2015. According to the report, U.S. demand for green building materials (products which can contribute to LEED credits) will expand 13% annually through 2015, generating sales of more than $70 billion.

The report is entitled “Green Building Materials,” and is available for purchase on the company’swebsite. It predicts that the demand for green building materials will outpace the growth of building construction expenditures. While this demand will support gains in the construction market, a bigger driver will be the expected rebound in the construction market after low 2010 levels.

Among green building materials, the fastest growing product will be Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified lumber and wood panels. The largest value gains will be seen in concrete products with recycled content, not only because their use will reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills, but because the concrete itself often performs better than traditional concrete. Green floor coverings (including Green Label Plus-certified) account for almost 25% of total market in 2010 and are expected to increase at a double-digit rate annually through 2015.

Efficient plumbing and lighting fixtures are also expected to post double-digit gains through 2015. This is due to improved efficiency, environmental concern, increases in building codes, and the rebound in the construction market.

The report analyzes historical market demand and forecasts for 2015 and 2020 by product, market, and region. The study also considers market environment factors, assesses the industry structure, evaluates company market share, and profiles 39 U.S. companies.

View a summary of the study (PDF).

Source: Consulting Specifying Engineer Mag

Hopefully, everyone was aware that this past Friday was Earth Day. Much of the annual event’s focus was to increase public awareness of ways to reduce pollution. There were also a number of community clean-ups, including one in Perry Hall, as well as public gatherings to promote more sustainable policy decisions with regard to environmental protection.

I would like to offer, however, some thoughts on what could really turn the tide in support of saving our planet. As is widely known, skyrocketing fossil fuel costs have increased the necessity for all sectors of the economy, leading industry leaders to consider ways to control their energy costs. One area with a great deal of promise is the comprehensive integration of energy efficient and environmentally-friendly practices into the maintenance and development of various structures, from business facilities to residential communities.

In 2007, as part of the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act, federal government officials expressed their desire to advance this process. It involved the construction of new, energy-efficient buildings and the targeted retrofitting of energy efficient devices into existing facilities.

All levels of government have since begun to promote environmentally sustainable practices. These efforts will certainly promote energy efficiency and also stimulate the growth of a broad green jobs industry. Baltimore County, for example, has devised a sustainability strategy for government operations and is now working to create a community-wide sustainability plan. As a result of this and related state initiatives, there will be a substantial need for a green labor pool capable of meeting the workforce needs of this emerging industry.

But what exactly are green jobs? Green collar jobs are ones that focus on the conservation of natural resources, the restoration of the environment or the mitigation of pollution. Thus, green collar jobs include the installation of green roofs, the auditing of energy use for an office building, brownfields restoration, installing energy efficient retrofits in existing industrial facilities or dismantling and recycling computers. Jobs that help to promote the more efficient use of commodities (such as fuel and lumber), or help to clean up previously unusable industrial sites, certainly help to benefit both our economy and our natural surroundings.

The promotion of green jobs can simultaneously help our environment and economic viability and also create new job opportunities for unemployed or underemployed Baltimore County residents. The emerging cadre of green or environmentally-driven employment opportunities could offer many area job seekers the chance to be productively engaged in the workforce, helping them support themselves and their families financially. Additionally, as more employers integrate new energy efficient practices into their businesses, many existing jobs will become more “green” and incumbent workers will need to upgrade their skills in order to stay qualified for their jobs and retain their employment.

Policymakers and citizens at-large have made it a priority to promote a sustainable, environmentally-responsible future. Not surprisingly, there has been heightened interest on what impact these efforts may have on the job market. A 2007 study conducted by the Cleantech Network, an organization which tracks green investment, indicated that for every $100 million in venture capital targeted to green industries, approximately 250,000 new jobs could be created.  Thus, if our nation accelerated the emerging transition to a cleaner economy, millions of jobs associated with the construction of green buildings and alternative energy could be created.

As exciting as these projections may be, they will only become a reality if individual consumers change their lifestyles to include sustainable practices. New jobs—green collar, blue collar or some other color—don’t just grow on trees. Our willingness to reduce, reuse and recycle will help create the demand, which is the only sure-fire way to guarantee the creation of green jobs. These jobs could offer many area residents the chance to support themselves and their families, all while helping us to preserve our planet.

Source: PerryHallPatch.com

Green architecture, also called sustainable building, isn’t complicated and doesn’t require expensive or unusual materials. Houses, offices and schools can be built using locally produced materials in a way that isn’t high-tech. Buildings consume 30 percent of our fresh water and 25 percent of all of our wood products, so it makes sense to practice green architecture and save our resources.

1. Heliostats

   • Heliostats are an arrangement of mirrors that use preprogrammed sequencing software to track the sun. The mirrors reflect sunlight from a large roof-mounted circular tracking mirror to a secondary mirror or mirrors, and is then directed inside a building. The sunlight looks as if it’s provided by electrical means. Architects have only lately begun using the mirrors as light and energy sources since the cost of machining specialty optics has come down in price.

   Green Roofing

   • A roof can and should do more than just keep the rain out. Architects today can design roofs to collect water for gardens, supply energy for electricity and even be a habitat for plants and animals. Solar roofing, also called a photovoltaic system, can provide an infinitely renewable source of energy. A solar roof can be used to charge batteries for use on cloudy days or as a back-up electricity source.

   Passive Solar

   • Your entire home can be designed to make use of the sun’s energy. A passive solar home doesn’t use any type of mechanical devices like pumps or fans to move the solar heat; instead it’s built to take advantage of your local climate. The size, location and glazing of windows are a major component in collecting and storing solar energy. Roof overhangs and placement of trees or other shading devices like awnings help prevent excessive heat buildup inside the home.

   Earth-Sheltered Homes

   • Earth-sheltered homes are not considered as radical as they once were; they’re increasingly seen as energy-efficient, comfortable and weather-resistant homes. In an earth-shelter designed home, temperatures are more stable and therefore more comfortable. Because an earth-sheltered home is largely surrounded by earth, it needs less maintenance than a traditional home; painting and caulking aren’t necessary. With earth-sheltered homes, moisture penetration can be a problem, and the initial construction costs can be higher.

     Source: eHow Catherine Lugo, eHow Contributor updated: April 01, 2011

Robert Gluck | Advocates are challenging the global building sector to cut the carbon footprint of concrete and other products by 30% by 2014, and 50% by 2030. Edward Mazria, the American architect behind the influential 2030 Challenge to zero out fossil fuel use from all buildings, is turning to a new target: carbon-heavy construction materials. The “2030 Challenge for Products,” unveiled in February, challenges the global building community to cut the carbon footprint of concrete and other building materials by 50 percent by 2030, with an interim target of 30 percent beyond the average by 2014.

Executives eager to get their newly “green” products to market faster are embracing the effort.

“Moving these products into the marketplace has been difficult,” said Jeff Davis, an executive at  Houston, Texas-based U.S. Concrete, a maker of ready-mix concrete that has developed a product with a 30 percent lower carbon dioxide footprint. “Hopefully, the 2030 Challenge for Products will accelerate this process, challenging designers and specifiers to accept the advancements in concrete technology.”

Mazria, executive director of the nonprofit Architecture 2030, says the initiative builds on his 2030 Challenge, launched five years ago. That push was adopted by some of the sector’s biggest forces, including the American Institute of Architects and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and was endorsed by President Obama, the nation’s mayors and many governors.

So far, supporters of the new challenge include some obvious allies: The Green Standard, Southface Green Building Services, BuildingGreen and the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), a collaboration of construction and design firms.

Kathrina Simonen, an architect and structural engineer involved with CLF, told SolveClimate News that the effort will “leverage a significant established network to motivate action.”

The premise behind both 2030 challenges is that the world has just 20 years to cut energy consumption from the building sector to levels needed to avoid dangerous climate change.

Each year in the United States, buildings consume nearly 50 percent of total energy and contribute 47 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions. Most power use is in operations — lighting, heating and cooling. About 5 to 8 percent of yearly energy consumption comes from building materials and construction.

However, when the full lifecycle of the sector is considered — from manufacturing and transporting the products to constructing and operating the building for two decades — the percentages shift, says Mazria.

“About 60 percent of the total energy a new building would use over 20 years is for building operations,” he told SolveClimate News, “and about 40 percent is the materials in the building.”

Initiative to Impact All Product Manufacturing?

Experts say that cutting carbon emissions from building materials requires green improvements in three sectors: Factories must adopt more-efficient manufacturing processes and cleaner energy generation; transport must be cleaner-burning; and buildings must be built for low-carbon building products.The hope is that these changes could trickle across the entire manufacturing industry, said Francesca Desmarais, director of the 2030 Challenge for Products.

“That’s why we decided to look at taking on and addressing the building products, because it will also influence the entire product manufacturing sector,” she told SolveClimate News.

“Going forward [with the products challenge] will have a positive rippling effect,” Mazria said. “Once you start looking at this entire process, you begin to see things that you never even imagined.”

They also sought to speed and streamline efforts underway.

“Many people were doing good work in the product sector, but they were moving at a snail’s pace because of the complexity and variety,” Desmarais said. “We’re doing this to coalesce the movement and to get moving quicker.”

‘We’ll Know in 12 to 24 Months’ How Well It’s Working

Architecture 2030 set down benchmarks and developed protocols and standards to meet its carbon-reduction targets of 30 percent below each product’s average through 2014, increasing to 35 percent in 2015, 40 percent in 2020, 45 percent in 2025, and 50 percent by 2030.

But how exactly will the complex carbon footprints of building products be calculated? Mazria said it took a year to decide.

Initially, there were two options — “cradle-to-gate” impacts, from mining of the raw materials through transportation and manufacturing, and “cradle-to-grave,” which counts post-manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions, through installation of the product, covering all the energy used before it heads to the trash bin.

According to Mazria: “We had all sorts of discussions with industry experts on what this should be and decided on cradle-to-grave as the benchmark.”

“The industry is supportive now that they know what they’re counting,” Desmarais said. “Ours is a holistic approach, and as the entire sector coalesces around the benchmarks, we’ll know in 12 to 24 months how well everyone is moving in the same direction.”

Industry Not Keeping Up with Advancements

Some experts say that just making environmental impacts of building materials known is a fundamental first step in stoking demand for climate-friendly products.

Without that demand, “manufacturers will not even invest in the research required, nor publish the results” on the CO2 associated with their products, said Simonen of the Carbon Leadership Forum.

Simonen says her research is focused on the carbon accounting of concrete. She develops models that help ready-mix plants to compute and report the footprints of their different mixes. “Concrete is a unique material,” she said. “Its composition is to a great degree specified by structural engineers, and thus the design team can directly impact the manufacturing processes.”

Producing cement, the main ingredient of concrete, accounts for as much as 5 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide.

Davis of U.S. Concrete said some of his firm’s recent projects have been manufactured using new technology that can cut the product’s carbon footprint in half by adding fly ash, slag and natural pozzolans into the mix, among other changes.

So far, though, industry hasn’t been able “to modify or change specifications at the same rate of technology advancements,” Davis said, though he’s hopeful Mazria’s challenge will change this.

Project to Generate ‘Transparent Carbon Info’

Also on board is the Healthy Building Network (HBN), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that tracks health impacts of the country’s buildings.

The network’s Pharos Project provides environmental information on a range of materials such as paint, carpet, flooring, acoustic ceilings and insulation.

Tom Lent, policy director for the organization, told SolveClimate News that the 2030 Challenge will expand HBN’s work as evaluator of building products.

“HBN has long been concerned about the significance of climate change emissions in the building product manufacturing sector,” Lent said. “But a lack of useful data and consistent guidelines for carbon calculations has hampered efforts to assess [products’] carbon footprints.

“This initiative has the potential to generate the type of credible and transparent carbon information needed to fill an important gap in our understanding.”

However, he warned: “[It] will be critical to make sure that carbon improvements do not come through the use of toxic materials at the cost of human health.”

By Guest Writer at SolveClimate Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:30pm EDT

With the advent of increasingly innovative green technologies, architects are now more than ever able to fully maximize their sophisticated artistic visions, while simultaneously minimizing the negative environmental effects of their structures. As climates and resources shift, environmentally-conscious architecture is beginning to produce more and more complex, sustainable, and awe-inspiring buildings, signifying that green architecture is the wave of the future from both a creativity standpoint, as well as out of ecological necessity. In fact, in the most extreme and inventive cases, architects are now not only working to preserve the natural environment, but actually to positively affect, alter and improve it.

In its most basic form, green architecture signifies building designs and practices which predominantly utilize recyclable and renewable materials to create structures that operate on a minimal amount of energy. Efficient building models are able to run off of solar, wind, and sometimes water-powered energy generation and take up as little land as possible in order to preserve or encourage green space.

If you’re interested in more architecture inspiration, these posts will amaze you:

30 Incredibly Realistic Interior and Exterior CG Environments
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30 Striking Architectural Photographs

A massive and trendsetting example of green architecture is the Hearst Tower in New York City, which in 2006 was the first building to become certified with an LEED Gold rating.

The towering skyscraper, which is built on top of the 1928 Hearst International Magazine Building, can boast that it was constructed out of 90% recycled materials and currently uses 26% less energy than is required by today’s standard building codes.

An even more space-age like recent example – one which dominates another skyline – is the Bahrain World Trade Center.

The complex’s two towers are connected by giant wind turbines, which are capable of providing up to 15% of the buildings’ total energy consumption.

And it’s not just about the skyscrapers. While plenty of private clients now choose to construct homes, offices, and schools out of recyclable materials, outfitting them with solar panels and energy-saving appliances, some properties go one step further, opting to adopt “green roofs.” This design choice is exactly what it sounds like: soil and grass-covered roofs that provide insulation for the home, give back the green space claimed by the building itself and, in the most sophisticated of cases, help to maintain the ecology for surrounding wildlife.

A stunningly simple residential example of this can be seen in the OS house built in Spain by NOLASTER Architects.

The art department at Nanyang Technological University offers an even more whimsical model.

This, however, is only the beginning. As green technology advances, so too do architects’ visions for its usage. Some, like Vincent Callebaut Architects’ “Lilypad Project”, which proposes ocean-based eco-city islands that run on collected rainwater, will most likely remain pure fantasy.

Others, like Sheila Kennedy’s “Soft House”, that makes use of solar-harvesting textiles, may simply be too costly to ever be put into mass production.

The ideas come in all shapes and sizes, from skyscrapers filled with agricultural farmland to single-family homes that run off of energy produced by the household’s own inhabitants and objects.

CK Designworks in Nanjing, China, has recently unveiled their design plans for a remarkably large eco-city development slated to begin construction shortly. And while some projects are focused on preserving natural resources and finding alternative energy sources, others like the Living Mountain, dream up the creation of entirely new micro-environments.

In this particular proposal, inhabitants will survive the growing desert landscape by building cities inside of massive, mountainous skyscrapers. While creating protection from the uninhabitable outside, the structure will also work to pull water from the region, cycling it inside to produce an entirely new climate and ecology.

One thing clear in all these plans, visions, proposals and dreams is that green architecture provides not only new challenges, but new opportunities for designers. It is an inspiring and growing field full of imagination and innovation, one which puts firmly in the architect’s hands the exciting responsibility of envisioning and constructing a new look for the future.

Source:  Creativefan.com by Maria Nemenman

From www.building-products.com

At Trilogy we make every effort, within the confines of our clients wishes, to design sustainably. This is not new theory or practice to us, but something we have been doing for 13 years. In fact, our first home built more than a decade ago, would still rank even today as one of the most energy efficient in all of Summit County, Colorado.

The intention of sustainable design is to reduce the impact of design and that which results from it, on the planet and or environment. From Wikipedia comes the following list of sustainable design principles:

• Low-impact materials: choose non-toxic, sustainably produced or recycled materials which require little energy to process
• Energy efficiency: use manufacturing processes and produce products which require less energy
• Quality and durability: longer-lasting and better-functioning products will have to be replaced less frequently, reducing the impacts of producing replacements
• Design for reuse and recycling: “Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial ‘afterlife’.”^[3]
• Design Impact Measures for total carbon footprint and life-cycle assessment for any resource used are increasingly required and available. Many are complex, but some give quick and accurate whole-earth estimates of impacts. One measure estimates any spending as consuming an average economic share of global energy use of 8,000btu per dollar and producing CO2 at the average rate of 0.57 kg of CO2 per dollar (1995 dollars US) from DOE figures.^[4]
• Sustainable Design Standards and project design guides are also increasingly available and are vigorously being developed by a wide array of private organizations and individuals. There is also a large body of new methods emerging from the rapid development of what has become known as ‘sustainability science’ promoted by a wide variety of educational and governmental institutions.
• Biomimicry: “redesigning industrial systems on biological lines … enabling the constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles…”^[5]
• Service substitution: shifting the mode of consumption from personal ownership of products to provision of services which provide similar functions, e.g., from a private automobile to a carsharing service. Such a system promotes minimal resource use per unit of consumption (e.g., per trip driven).^[6]
• Renewability: materials should come from nearby (local or bioregional), sustainably managed renewable sources that can be composted when their usefulness has been exhausted.
• Robust eco-design: robust design principles are applied to the design of a pollution sources).^[7]

Ways that we at Trilogy Design sustainably would include

• Use of reclaimed and recycled materials
• Use of robust, long lasting materials such as timber frame and engineered structural materials
• Sourcing of materials: If at all possible we choose materials that are manufactured in a geographical radius of no more than 500 miles
• Energy Efficiency : We produce highly energy efficient dwellings through the use of technologies such as Structural Insulating Panels and cold roof systems.
• We encourage the use of passive and active energy reduction technologies and systems. Many if not most of our current builds incorporate passive solar, geothermal, and/or solar panel systems.
• We ask our clients to think carefully about their space requirements so we are building dwellings properly sized for function.

Here’s a question we ask all of our clients. Would you be willing to pay 5-10% more to build a home that was 50% less impactful on the environment? How would you answer that question?