Synergistic Design of Sustainable Built Environments

Chitrarekha Kabre

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000216349
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Civil Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Synergistic Design of Sustainable Built Environments introduces and illustrates a novel systems approach that fosters both design excellence and a leap toward a more biocentric (ecologically sustainable) design paradigm. The book provides a deeper understanding of the theories and principles of biocentric design and offers detailed descriptions of the synergistic design process of integrating theories and principles into practice. It also presents extensive thermal and visual built environment design strategies, along with qualitative and quantitative information that designers can use to generate feasible solutions in response to varying climate and occupant comfort.

Features:

• Examines the principles and practices of the synergistic design (a fusion of anthropocentric and biocentric) of sustainable built environments and how they relate to practical applications.

• Presents climatic data and its analysis along with sun-path diagrams for numerous cities to aid in the design of sustainable built environments in multiple regional contexts.

• Includes numerous case studies of sustainable built environments in varying climatic zones.

• Explains how renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydro, fuel cells) can be successfully integrated in the built environment.

This forward-thinking and highly illustrated book will be an invaluable reference to all those concerned with sustainable built environments and related architectural issues.

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

The new millennium is now almost two decades old. That which began with great festive optimism was soon followed by the events of September 11, 2001; the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011; a spate of natural disasters; and the more recent unprecedented catastrophe of humanity, COVID-19, which has led to profound environmental, economic, social, and cultural effects on a global scale that are now being more and more dominated by an interconnected set of existential questions with far-reaching consequences for the future existence of mankind.

The global climate strike led by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and millions of school children from Sydney to Manila, Dhaka to London, and New York echoed the inconvenient truth that the fate of the planet is at stake (The Guardian, September 21, 2019). The Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched by the United Nations in early 2020 under the rallying cry ‘For People, For Planet’ urged the world to address the challenges of climate and nature, gender, and inequality.

As a result of this recent discussion, the issue of ecological balance and climate change has risen to prominence worldwide. Among the many problems humanity will have to address in the 21st century, three that ought to be accorded utmost priority, because of an increasing world population that should total 10 billion people by the end of the first century of the new millennium, are the following:

• Securing healthy and sufficient nutrition
• Providing access to clean drinking water
• Assuring disease control and adequate health care

The buildings and construction sector is a key player in the fight against climate change: it accounted for 36% of global final energy use and 39% of energy‐related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2017 (IEA 2018). In the United States, the construction sectors accounted for $840 billion, or 4.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP), more than many industries, including information, arts and entertainment, utilities, agriculture, and mining (BEA 2019). By 2060, the world is projected to add 230 billion m² (2.5 trillion ft²) of buildings or an area equal to the entire current global building stock (UN Environment and International Energy Agency 2017). This is the equivalent of adding an entire New York City to the planet every 34 days for the next 40 years. This trend points to the questions concerning the securing of a stable and sustainable built environment that is of great importance.

It is no longer just a question of following a particular architectural style or design philosophy; building professionals are urged to transform the global built environment from being a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to being environmentally sustainable and regenerative. Our best chance is to ensure that the architecture, planning, and development community, the primary agents shaping the built environment through design and construction, has access to the knowledge and tools necessary for the transition to a sustainable and regenerative world. The synergistic design of the sustainable built environment is a much-needed call for building professionals to redefine architecture to help this transition to an environmentally sustainable and regenerative built environment.

This chapter discusses the need for a sustainable built environment and the transition from the technological (high-performance) design paradigm to a biocentric (ecological) design paradigm. This chapter emphasizes the importance of the synergistic design of a sustainable built environment, an innovative systems framework, as the premise of the book.

The next section defines the built environment. The third section presents the climate-responsive architecture of yesteryears. The fourth section discusses sustainable development and sustainability and its relevance to sustainable architecture. Further, the fifth section presents a technological (high-performance) design paradigm, delineating the technical approach, regulatory approach, and rating system approach. The sixth section explains the biocentric design paradigm including ecological theories and life cycle assessment. Finally, the chapter delineates an innovative systems framework for the synergistic design of a sustainable built environment.

1.2 Built Environment

As the natural environment with varying climate is not suitable to the lifestyle of man, man is always trying for suitable transformation in the natural surroundings. This transformed environment is known as ‘Alan-made’ or ‘built environment.’

The built environment generally refers to the ‘manmade surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places’ (Moffatt and Kohler 2008). The built environment includes both urban and rural forms.

The built environment intends to provide a comfortable environment for humans to reside and work in and also delivers economic, social, and cultural benefits. The built environment also, however, has wide-ranging negative environmental aspects and impacts, including air quality, water and energy consumption, transport accessibility, materials use, and management of waste (Table 1.1).

TABLE 1.1
Impacts of the Built Environment

1.3 Climate-Responsive Architecture

Even before the first built shelters, humans utilized climate elements to improve thermal comfort. About 2500 years ago, Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, in his play Prometheus (the mythological fire stealer) observed that ignorant primitives and barbarians ‘lacked knowledge of houses built of bricks and turned to face the winter sun, dwelling beneath the ground like swarming ants in sunless caves.’

The evolution of the built environment, with responses to multiple and complex requirements, started by providing the shelter needed for protection from attack by human enemies and wild animals, as well as protection from hostile and unfavorable aspects of the physical environment. At later stages, durability, status, fashion, and improved environmental quality were the motors of development (Rapoport 1969). According to this sequence, the protection from climate was one of the initial factors that have remained a constant preoccupation and priority in the long process of the development of the built environment and the history of architecture (Oliver 1987). From the early huddle of buildings at Catalhöyük in Anatolia, 7000 BC, the indigenous building design demonstrated ingenuity for climate amelioration through a basic understanding of the thermal and structural behavior of natural materials. Native American traditional buildings and villages have also utilized passive solar principles for more than 2000 years. In Southern California, the Indians of the Yokut Tule Lodge (Figure 1.1) not only protected their huts but in a generous, direct manner provided for pleasant living and shaded communal areas.

FIGURE 1.1 Yokut Tule Lodge, Southern California. Source: https://missionscalifornia.com/sites/default/files/2019-11/16-Tule_lodges_0f_Yokuts.webp “Yo'-kuts Tule Lodges” from Contributions to North American Ethnology, Volume III. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877. California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library Collection, FN-32152.

From Aristotle to Montesquieu, many scholars believed that climate had pronounced effects on human physiology and temperament. In book III, Chapter VIII, of Xenophon’s Memorabilia of the Greek philosopher Socrates (470–399 BC), written a few decades after Aeschylus, and during the Greek wood fuel shortage, Socrates’ Megaron house (Figure 1.2) exemplifies the essential, timeless principles of sun-tempered architecture:

FIGURE 1.2 Socrates’ Megaron House (470-399 BC). Source: https://ednovak99.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/passive-solar-design-overview/ Credits: linework by Ar Shiva Bagga and Ar Kapil Grover

Now in houses with a south aspect, the sun’s rays penetrate the porticos in winter, but in the summer, the path of the sun is right over our heads and above the roof, so that there is shade. If then this is the best arrangement, we should build the south side loftier to get the winter sun and the north side lower to keep out the winter winds. To put it shortly, the house in which the owner can find a pleasant retreat at all seasons and can store his belongings safely is presumably at once the pleasantest and the most beautiful.

However, the first written documents to explain the functioning of the house in relation to climate impacts are those of the Greeks and Romans. The Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (Morgan 1960) wrote 2000 years ago:

If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built. One style of the house seems appropriate to build in Egypt, another in Spain, a different kind in Pontus, one still different in Rome, and so on with lands and countries of other characteristics. This is because one part the earth is directly ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Climate and Thermal Comfort
• Chapter 3 Thermal Environment Design Strategies
• Chapter 4 Luminous Environment Design Strategies
• Chapter 5 Renewable Energy
• Chapter 6 Design Case Studies
• Chapter 7 Climate Data and Sun-Path Diagrams
• Index