Green Architecture are part of a global response to increasing awareness of
the role of human activity in causing global climate change. Buildings account
for more than 40% of all global carbon dioxide emissions, one of
the main culprits implicated in the phenomenon of global warming.
While the US andWestern Europe, Canada and Japan contribute the majority
of greenhouse gas emissions at the present time, this situation is
going to change dramatically in the near future. The projected rapid
growth of carbon dioxide emissions from China, India, the rest of Asia,
Brazil and Russia make it imperative that the entire world participate in
reducing the “carbon footprint” (the impact on the environment in terms
of the amount of greenhouse gases produced,measured in units of carbon
dioxide) of urban civilization over the next 30 years. Global temperature
increases are inevitable,with signiŠcant consequences for all of us.
Many observers predict that half the new building over the next three
decades will occur in China alone, some 220 billion square feet of new
space for residential, commercial and industrial uses.Without a focus on
energy-e‹cient and green buildings,we have no chance for tackling global
climate change. The US and other developed countries need to set a leadership
example in tackling their own contributions to carbon dioxide
emissions. There is every reason to believe that this is not only the socially
responsible thing to do, but that it will be good business as well, for the entire
world soon will be buying allmanner of “carbon reduction” technologies.
As the most inventive nation in the world, the US is poised to reap
enormous economic advantage from addressing climate change issues in
buildings with new technologies, processes and systems. By doing so, we
will not only grow our own economy but will alsomake amajor contribution
to the global problem.
There are other practical reasons for innovating with green buildings.
Consider for amoment themajor scarcities of clean potable water around
theworld, aswell asworsening long-termdrought conditions in theAmerican
Southwest and in places such as Australia. New water conservation,
wastewater treatment and water reuse technologies promise to cut building
water use in half, perhaps leading to a 5% to 10% reduction in total
water use. Learning how to cut energy use in buildings will also cut water
use from thermal power plants (coal and nuclear), estimated to use half
the water supply in the western US, directly or indirectly.
In many parts of the world, conšicts over energy and water resources
are becoming common. Global warming threatens the water supplies of
much of the world dependent on summer runoª from glaciers and highmountain
snowpacks for summer irrigation. Some predict that as the
Himalayas become more rainy and less snowy, and as water from their
snowpack runs oª faster in the spring, the entirety of Southeast Asia dependent
on the Mekong River, for example, will begin to experience
worsening drought conditions, along with the need to make vast infrastructure
investments in water desalination,water storage and water conservation
systems. Saving water in urban uses such as buildings is critical
for many urbanizing areas.Water may very well assume the economic and
strategic importance in the coming several decades that oil has had for
nearly 100 years.
Energy shortages are already a way of life in much of the world, but
more acutely so in the rapidly developing mega-cities around the globe.
In fact, most of the 40 largest cities in the world are not in the currently
developed world; they are places such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo,
Brazil; Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata, India;
Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan; Hong Kong, Beijing, Chonqing, Wuhan,
Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou and Shanghai, China. Of the top 40 cities
by population, there are only two in the US: NewYork and Los Angeles. In
Japan, only one: Tokyo; in Russia, only two: St. Petersburg andMoscow; in
Western Europe, only London; in developed East Asia, only Seoul and Singapore.
1 Clearly, we must introduce green buildings on a massive worldwide
scale to halt the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and avoid the
potential for major climate changes and severe economic and health disruptions
over the next 30 to 50 years.
Green buildings also present a way to attack the inequity of global resource
distribution by providing aªordable housing for the poor that is
healthier,more resource e‹cient and cheaper to own and operate.Already
many architects, engineers and planners have responded to the disaster of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 by developing innovative housing designs that allow poor and lower middle-class people to have a healthy, attractive
home,with lower utility costs andmore šood-prooŠng than conventional
housing. Renewable energy systems using the ubiquitous solar and wind
energy of the planet are powering many poor villages in the developing
world, helping to provide education and healthcare in resource-poor environments.
Finally, green buildings are good for the environment. Features such
as green roofs emphasize sensitivity to urban habitat preservation. Innovative
onsite stormwater management and the use of sustainably harvested
wood and recycled-content materials help reduce the environmental
and infrastructure eªects of our current buildingmethods. The essence
of good design is having one action carrymultiple beneŠts.
In 2005 an innovative competition to design conventional housing
with zero or positive resource and environmental impacts drewmore than
600 entries from around the world. The winning team, a group of young
designers from Mithun Architects and Planners in Seattle, Washington,
designed a house that operates totally on renewable energy, but with a few
twists, as the design teamexplains their concept.
(The core of the house) extends vertically, clad with a super-conductive
photosynthetic plasma-cell skin that is able to generate
200%more electrical voltage per area than contemporary photovoltaics.
Building on current research involving extracted
spinach protein, this living skin is photosynthetic and phototropic;
it grows and follows the path of the sun, generating electricity
in excess of single family needs. Excess power is distributed
to neighboring homes and street lighting infrastructure.
This is an example of the type of out-of-the-box thinking that green buildings
are eliciting. The design also addresses water reuse, materials selection,
ventilation needs and community connectedness.2
New green buildingmaterials are showing how we can reduce the impact
on people and ecosystems from chemicals that contain persistent
bioaccumulative and toxic compounds. By applying the “precautionary
principle”— in essence, putting the burden of proof on industry to test
everything and know its eªects fully before releasing new chemicals into
the human and natural ecosystems — green building product selections
can help reduce the “chemical soup” that causes acute chemical sensitivities
in many people. At the larger ecosystem level, the precautionary principle
is an application of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors abide by:
“First, do no harm.”3 There are strong reasons to suspect that human ingenuity is not infallible and that natural systems that have evolved over
millions of years without having to deal with industrial chemicals are far
more fragile than we assume.
Some 40 years ago, the Whole Earth Catalog, a bible of sorts to many
Baby Boomers, coined the slogan“We are as gods and better get good at it.”
The essence of thatmessage is that if human beings are remaking the Earth
in their own image—a process well underway—we’d better start drawing
lessons fromnature about achieving long-termsustainability on a very
Šnite planet. Green buildings are a major priority for achieving sustainable
development without sacriŠcing quality of life for all Earth’s inhabitants,
human and otherwise. The Hannover Principles, Šrst enunciated in
1992 byAmerican architectWilliamMcDonough and German chemistDr.
Michael Braungart, give clear guidance for sustainable design. The Šrst
principle reads simply: “Insist on the rights of humanity and nature to coexist
in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.”4 Green
buildings are an organized approach to conforming to this attitude.
Resource Depletion and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
According to the US Green Building Council, the annual direct impacts of
all US residential and commercial buildings include 39% of total energy
use, 68% of electricity consumption and 30% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Add in the embodied energy in making building materials, getting
them to the job site, installing and servicing them, and total energy use is
closer to 48%. Buildings make a major impact on just about every aspect
of the world we live in; building design and construction can account for
up to 30% of raw materials use, 40% of non-industrial landŠll waste (including
31%of themercury inmunicipal waste); 12%of potable water use,
according to the US Green Building Council and the US Environmental
Protection Agency.5 Taking Šrm actions to reduce the environmental impacts
of buildings can have a number of beneŠcial eªects:
• Reduce ocean and river pollution fromstormwater runoª.
• Extend the life of municipal infrastructure by using less water and
contributing less stormwater, thereby allowing growth without infrastructure
expansion.
• Extend the life of landŠlls by reducing the disposal of construction
debris and buildingmaterials.
Most of the buildings in this country in the year 2035 (less than 30 years
from now) have yet to be built or renovated, so now’s the time to make
changes. Between tearing down many older buildings, renovating some
that are structurally sound or architecturally signiŠcant and building new
structures,most of our building stock can be inšuenced by actions we take
today to green the built environment. The green building movement will
serve tomake our stock of buildingsmore energy- and water-e‹cient and
less burdensome on the municipal infrastructure that we all pay for, one
way or another.According to one commentator, architect EdwardMazria:
In the year 2035, three-quarters of the built environment in the
US will be either new or renovated [representing more than 300
billion square feet of construction]. This transformation over the
next 30 years represents a historic opportunity for the architecture
and building community to reverse the most signiŠcant crisis
of modern time, climate change.
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