CMGT 630 - LEED
Ecological design
➢ Any type of design that reduces environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.
Benefits of Sustainable Design (Water Efficiency)
➢ Economic ❖Lower first costs ❖Reduce annual water and wastewater costs ➢ Societal ❖Preservation of water resources for future generations ❖Fewer wastewater treatment plants ➢ Environmental ❖Lower potable water use and reduced discharge to waterways ❖Less strain on aquatic ecosystems ❖Preservation of water resources for wildlife and agriculture
Designers, Ecologists and Contractors
➢ Must choose alternatives which minimize the direct impact of the project due to ❖Construction footprint ❖Construction operations ❖Landscaping modifications ➢ Must Select approaches that maximize passive energy (heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilating) ➢ Consider the best choice of materials and products.
ustainable Landscapes, Cont. 3
➢ Principle 1: Keep sites healthy. ➢ Principle 2: Heal injured sites. Using grayfields, brownfields, etc. ➢ Principle 3: Favor living, flexible materials. Artificial physical structure to control slope erosion. ➢ Principle 4: Respect the waters of life. Water bodies, including wetlands should be restored ➢ Principle 5: Pave less. Use of porous concrete per example to control stormwater. ➢ Principle 6: Consider the origin and fate of materials. ➢ Principle 7: Know the cost of energy over time. ➢ Principle 8: Celebrate light, respect darkness.
Sustainable development
"meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". This implies intergenerational justice; highlights the responsibility of the current population for the welfare of millions of yet unborn. It also implies that we are borrowing the planet, its resources, and its environmental functions and quality from future generations. By the way, how far in the future we should consider the new generations; 100 year? 200 year? How long our buildings will last will they be able to dispose it?
Benefits of Sustainable Design 2
1. Siting 2. Water Efficiency 3. Energy Efficiency 4. Materials & Resources 5. Indoor Env. Quality 6. Commissioning, operations, and maintenance
History of Green Building Movement 2
1980 - Although many energy-efficient buildings emerged after the oil crises of the 1970s, the first US buildings that considered a wider range of environmental and resource issues did not emerge until 1980. 1985 -William McDonough was hired by EDF to design its New York offices. The design featured natural materials, daylighting, and excellent indoor air quality. 1990 - A renewed interest in energy and resource conservation as human began to seriously consider more complex global environmental issues, such as ozone depletion, global climate change and destruction of major fisheries.
History of Green Building Movement 3
1992 - Renovation of Audubon House, also in New York City, was a significant early effort in the contemporary green building movement. • 1992 - The British green building rating system, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) was developed in 1992. • 1993 - The first highly publicized green building project in the United States, the " Greening of the White House", was initiated in 1993 and included renovation of the Old Executive Office Building, 600,000-square-foot structure across from the White House. T his drew national attention and resulted in dramatic energy cost savings (about $300,000 per year).
History of Green Building Movement 4
1993 - Establishment of US Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1993. It took four years to present the first version of LEED V-1.0. • 1998 -Test version known as LEED 1.0. it was enormously successful and Federal Energy Management Program sponsored a pilot effort to test its assumptions. • 2000 -A greatly improved LEED 2.0 was launched and provided for a maximum of 69 credits and four levels building certification: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. • 2003 -A further refined version of LEED was established in 2003. and labeled LEED for New Construction (NC) version 2.1. The name of the lowest levels of certification, "Bronze" was changed to "certified". • 2005 LEED version 2.2 (LEED NC-2.2), major improvements such as moving the rating system online. • 2009 - Major revision and launching LEED v-3.0 • 2013 - LEED - v-4.0 • 2018 - LEED v-4.1
Role of the Charrette in the Design Process, Summary
4 Steps: 1) First step: Effort to educate all participants on the owner's requirements 2) Second step: Review the building program, previously generated. 3) Third step: Lay out the goals of the project with respect to its green high-performance aspect. The team should keep a running scorecard on how the decisions made during the process are affecting the building assessment score. 4) Fourth step: Review, revise, and finalize. After the charrette is complete, the design team reviews the results with the owner, makes any appropriate adjustments and changes, and then produce a report of the charrette.
Low-Impact Development, Cont. 2
5. Permeable pavements ❖ These materials allow water to permeate the surface to an underlying stone or sand bed. 6. Buffers and filter strips ❖ Contains trees, bushes, wild grasses, etc. 7. Rain gardens ❖ Shallow depression planted with trees, flowers, etc. 8. Soil quality management ❖ Prevents soil from being overly compacted 9. Green roofs ❖ Provides insulation, natural habitat, and reduce heat-island effect. 10. Rain barrels and rainwater harvesting systems ❖ Helps capture and store stormwater
Green Globes Verification and Certification
A Green Globes Assessor (GGA) conducts extensive thirdparty assessment of the project by reviewing construction documents and conducting a site visit. • The GGA is an experienced building design and construction professional who has been trained to Green Globes protocol and the rating system. • The Green Globes system requires a GGA to actually visit the project, interact with the project team, and physically examine the project ➢ Unlike LEED where documentation is submitted online.
Exceeding LEED and Green Globes requirements are the next step of sustainable construction
A built environment fully adopt closed-loop material practices. ❖Entire structure composed of products easily disassembled ready to be recycled. ❖Material with future value Buildings would have a synergistic relationship with their natural environment The built environment would incorporate natural systems at various scales. Energy in building would be reduced by factor 10 or more below that of conventional buildings.
Green, or Living, Roofs
A green, or living, roof is an updated version of the ancient sod roof used in Europe that is making a comeback in today's green building movement. • The city of Portland (Oregon) provides tax breaks to motivate the creation of eco-roofs. ➢They have been found to reduce building energy cost by 10% and reduce indoor temperature. ➢They can also reduce runoff by 90%. ➢Living roofs can also filter pollution and heavy metals from rainwater.
xenobiotic
A key issue is that, when it comes to nature, much of what we do is fundamentally unnatural and has no precedent in nature. Ecologists call these new aspects of our environment xenobiotic as in "not known in nature" to contrast with the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) natural components of our world. Thinking through the effects of such decisions falls under this umbrella issue of ethics.
Sustainable Landscapes, Cont. 2
A regenerative landscaping system has the following characteristics ➢ Operational integration with natural processes and social processes ➢Minimum use of fossil fuels and man-made chemicals ❖Expect for backup solutions ➢Minimum use of nonrenewable resources ➢Use of renewable resources within their capacities for renewal ➢Composition and volume of wastes within the capacity of the environment to reassimilate them without damage.
Global Warming Potential, Cont.
According to the IPCC, the best estimate range projected temperature increase is 3.1-7.2°F (1.8-4.0°C) by the end of the century. • Tropical cyclones are likely to become more intense ➢ Higher peak wind speeds ➢ Heavier precipitations ➢ More extreme droughts • Certain chemicals used in building construction and facility operations have been depleted the ozone layer. ➢ Ozone depletion is caused by the interaction of halogens-chlorine and bromine-containing gases such as CFCs
Green, or Living, Roofs, Cont.
An eco-roof can: ➢ Serves as an aesthetic feature, helps the building blend to the environment, and supports climate stabilization • It must be built on strong frame with carefully applied waterproofing • Disadvantages: ➢ Living roofs requires care ➢ Living roofs can be a fire hazard in hot and dry climates • Extensive landscape roofs are defined as low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, self-seeding vegetated roof, etc. • Intensive eco-roof systems: may include lawns, meadows, bushes, trees, ponds. They are far more complex and heavier than extensive eco-roof systems.
Biological Materials, Biomaterials, and other Nature-Based Materials 2
Biological materials are natural products such as wood, hemp, bamboo, while biomaterials with novel chemical, physical, mechanical, or intelligent properties produced through processes that employ or mimic biological phenomena. Biomaterials include: biopolymers, polylactic acid. Long chain molecules synthesized by living organisms, such as proteins, cellulose and starch are natural biopolymers. Since biological resources are renewable, there is a tendency to think of them as unlimited. But it is not true. People think if the land is cultivated carefully, crops can be planted in perpetuity. Is this sounds right? If the land is pushed past its carrying capacity or otherwise abused, permanent damage can be done. A widespread shift to biological materials for both energy and materials has other implications because large quantities of land may be required. This would increase food prices and impacting poor and hungry of the world. Finally, there is a little evidence that biologically-based materials can replace the synthetic materials that have become common in construction , especially structural materials such as steel and concrete, not to mention copper and aluminum wiring, glass, and wide variety of polymers used in myriad applications.
Biomimicry
Biomimicry ➢ Concept that demonstrates direct application of ecology to the production of industrial objects Benyurs suggests that most of what we need to know about energy and materials has been developed by natural systems over almost 4 billion years. • Biomimicry suggests the creation of strong, tough, and intelligent materials with no waste and using the sunlight, natural materials under ambient temperature during the manufacturing process; for instance, creation of seashell vs. ceramic clay tiles.
Greenfields, Brownfields, Grayfields, and Blackfields, Cont. 3
Both grayfields and brownfields are becoming valuable properties. • Grayfields are not explicitly addressed in either LEEDNC or Green Globes. • Blackfields are abandoned coal mines. They are found in coal-mining areas such as eastern Pennsylvania. ➢Can be considered as an expanded definition of brownfields.
Toxic Substances and Endocrine Disruptions
Chemical compounds created by humans often affect biological systems toxically. ➢Leading to death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, etc. • Toxic substances can be carcinogenic or mutagenic. • More than 6000 new chemical compounds are developed every year in the United States ➢12 pounds of toxic waste per capita are produced each year.
BREEAM (UK)
Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) was developed by UK in 1989. Currently there are over 200,000 BREEAM certified building much greater than LEED-certified buildings. This rating system is also utilized in Netherland, Norway, Sweden and Spain. There are 10 categories in BREEAM: 1)Management, 2) Health and Well Being, 3) Energy, 4) Transport, 5) Water, 6) Materials, 7) Waste, 8) Land Use and Ecology, 9) Pollution, 10) Innovation. BREEAM Rating Benchmarks are: Outstanding, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Pass, and Unclassified.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
Building assessment system which provides design guidance for green buildings. The value of buildings registered in LEED certification in 2010 was as much as 15% of the total value of commercial buildings in that year
Building assessment
Building assessment systems score or rate the effects of a building's design, construction, and operation ➢ Environmental impacts ❖Can be evaluated at local, regional, or global scales ➢ Resource impacts (consumption) ❖In terms of mass, energy, volume, parts per million (ppm), density, and area. ➢ Occupant health. ❖Absence or presence of biological or chemical substances circulating in the air. • The green building certification is a public statement of the building's performance
Landscape Design
Buildings can become a contributory part of the ecosystem and function synergistically with nature. ➢ The location of the site, the type and color of exterior finishes, and the materials all affect the thermal load • Landscaping can be a powerful adjunction with technical systems. ➢ The participation of key members is essential to make optimal use of the site and landscape. • Contemporary green building approaches call for... ➢ Reuse of the land, its cleanup, and increasing density. ➢ Minimization of the need for greenfield use. • The landscape design must integrate the ecology and nature within the built environment. ➢ Appropriate use of lands is a major issue in green building ➢ Site minimizing the construction footprint, the heat-island effect, etc
Role of the Charrette in the Design Process
Buildings → affect enormous number of people everyday. ➢ The design, materials, appearance, and other components of the building can positively or negatively affect passerby. • The charrette is the process of gathering users, customers, local government, and citizens to obtain the maximum input. ➢ Derived from the French term "little cart" • Today, this term is used to refer to an effort to create a plan. ➢ The National Charrette Institute (NCI). • The final version of the charrette report becomes one of the guiding documents for the launch of the schematic design phase.
Green Building Progress and Obstacles
Challenges abound when implementing sustainable practices within the well-entrenched traditional construction industry. ➢Procurement process very difficult to change on a large scale ➢Some jurisdictions not yet favorable to some green practices ➢Additional costs such as ❖ The use of low-emissivity (low-E) windows ❖ Sophisticated control systems.
Construction Delivery Systems: Integrated Project Delivery, Cont. 2
Charles Thomsen suggests that the following are the main ingredients of IPD: 1. A legal relationship 2. A management committee 3. An incentive pool 4. A no-fault working environment 5. Design assistance 6. Collaborative software 7. Green construction 8. Integrated leadership
Construction Delivery Systems: Integrated Project Delivery, Cont.
Charles Thomsen, suggested that the main ingredients of IPD are: ➢A legal relationship ➢A management committee ➢An Incentive pool ➢A no-fault working environment ➢Design assistance ➢Collaborative environment ➢Green construction ➢Integrated leadership
Climate Change
Climate change consists of long-term fluctuations in temperature, precipitation, wind, and all other aspects of the earth's climate. ➢ Definition of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). • Scientifics assert that there is strong evidence that the planet's average surface temp will increase 4 to 6°C in the 21st Century. ➢ Including rising sea level and more energetic hurricanes • The carbon dioxide and increasing concentrations of other gases are the primary causes of the global warming. ➢ [CO2 ] = 280 ppm: 225 years ago ➢ [CO2 ] = 412 ppm: today ➢ [CO2 ] = 450 ppm: considered as the boundary between an ice free planet and a planet with ice.
Green, or Living, Roofs, Cont. 2
Components of eco-roof systems ➢ Plants ➢ Soil mix ➢ Filter fabric ➢ Water retention layer ➢ Drainage layer ➢ Root barrier ➢ Waterproof membrane ➢ Insulation layer • An eco-roof is far more complex than a conventional roof and requires more research and planning. • The payback period due to energy savings can be fairly rapid.
CASBEE (JAPAN)
Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) is the Japanese building assessment system. CASBEE defines BEE as maximizing the ratio of building quality to environmental loadings. Building quality (Q) is defined as: Q= Q1 + Q2 + Q3, where Q1 = Indoor environment, Q2 = Quality of service and Q3 = Outdoor environment on-site, Q= total Quality
Conventional Building Delivery System Design-Bid-Build
Design-Bid-Build (Hard-Bid): Prime Reason is low cost delivery to the owner; The design team is selected by the owner to produce construction documents. General Contractors bid on the project, with lowest qualified bidder receiving the job This may cost a little less, however, the tension between design team and contractor is high and usually ends up to be costly due to the change orders and miscommunications and potential lawsuits.
Construction Ecology
Construction ecology is subset or subcategory of industrial ecology that applies specifically to the built environment. The applications of construction ecology principles should result in buildings with: ➢ Easy deconstruction at the end of their useful lives ➢ Components that are decoupled from the building for easy replacement ➢ Composed of recyclable products ➢ Built with recyclable and bulk materials ➢ Slow metabolisms (due to their durability and adaptability) ➢ Consideration of occupant's health
Conventional Versus Green Building Delivery System
Contemporary construction delivery system in US fall into 4 major categories: • DESIGN-BID-BUILD (HARD-BID) • Construction Management at Risk (Negotiated Work) • DESIGN-BUILD • INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY
Design Considerations for Sustainable Building
Design considerations and practices for sustainable building ➢Resources should be used only at the speed at which they naturally regenerate. ➢Site planning should incorporate resources naturally available on site ➢Resource-efficient materials should be used in the construction of the building ➢The design should maximize occupant health and productivity ➢ Operation and maintenance should support waste reduction and recycling.
Cradle-to-Cradle Design
Cradle to Cradle strategy is to remove the negative impacts of products by focusing on removing known problematic substances to replace them with benign materials: The cradle-to-cradle design describes approaches that contrast to designs that employ a cradle-to-grave approach. • Cradle-to-cradle ➢ Buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own wastewater. ➢ Factories that produce effluents that can be used as drinking water ➢ Products that, when their useful life is over, do not become useless waste but can be tossed on the ground to decompose and become food for plants, animals, for soil or alternatively, that can turn to industrial cycles to supply high quality raw materials for new products; ➢ Billions and trillions of dollars worth of materials accrued for human and natural purposes each year ➢ A world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution and waste.
Design for the Environment
Design for environment (DfE) or green design ➢Practice which integrates environmental considerations into product and process procedures and considers the entire product life-cycle. DfE concept invests a greater effort during design phase to ensure the recovery, reuse and/ or recycling of the product's components. Example: A window assembly designed using DfE strategies, would be easy to disassemble into its basic metal, glass and plastic components. As implied to built environment DfE implies that entire buildings should be designed to be taken apart, deconstructed to recover components for further disassembly, reuse and recycling.
Cradle to Cradle Cont. 2
Dave Pollard described C2C more elegantly: 1. Free ourselves from the need to use harmful substances (e.g., PVC, lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury); 2. Begin making informed design choices (materials and processes that are ecologically intelligent) 3. Introduce substance triage: phase out known and suspected toxins; 4. Begin comprehensive redesigns to use only "known positives" separate materials into biological and technical and ensure zero waste; 5. Reinvent entire process and industries to produce "net positives" to improve the environment. Cradle to Cradle design provides an interesting framework for designing materials and products and focuses attention on waste and on the proliferation of toxic substances used in the product. The Herman Miller Mirra Chair Which was certified by Cradle to Cradle Innovation Institute, is made With recycled content and 95% of Its components breakdown for easy Recycling.
The US Green Building Council
Defined parameters of non-residential green building in the US
Construction Delivery Systems: The High-Performance Green Building Delivery System
Delivery system similar to the negotiated work and design-build, but with additional responsibilities for the project team. 1. Requires much greater communication among the project members. 2. Everyone must clearly understand the project goals and committed to green building systems. 3. The team member should have experience with the charrette process ❖Including community members ❖Including local building officials
Construction Delivery Systems: Design-Build
Delivery system where a sole entity (the design-builder) forges a single contract with the owner to provide for architectural or engineering design and construction services. • Also known as design-construct, this system provides the owner with a single contractual relationship that combines both design and construction. • The design-build delivery system is very compatible with the green concept. Its high collaborative level reduce typical design-construction conflicts.
Water Issues
Development and construction opportunities in many areas are limited due to the availability of potable water. • The potable water is threatened by climate alterations and erratic weather patterns due to global warming. • It is difficult and expensive to treat a contaminated water. • Water conservation techniques include ➢ Low-flow plumbing fixtures ➢ Water recycling ➢ Rainwater harvesting and xeriscaping ➢ Resource-conserving landscaping techniques ❖Drought-resistant plants
Building in 100-Year-Flood Zones 2
Development may take place within the SFHA (Special Flood Hazard Area) provided that it complies with local floodplain management ordinances. ➢ 1 percent chance of flood occurring in any given year. ➢ The elevation of the site must be at least 5 feet above the 100- year floodplain to earn points with LEED and Green Globes.
Building Rating Systems
Different in all countires
Stormwater Management, Cont. 2
EBM Checklists for stormwater mgmt Managing stormwater ➢ Work only with reputable excavation contractors ➢ Minimize the impact area during construction ➢ Avoid soil compaction ➢ Stabilize disturbed areas as soon as possible ➢ Minimize slope modifications ➢ Construct temporary erosion barriers Permanent on-site facilities for stormwater control and treatment ➢ Rooftop water catchment systems ➢ Vegetated filter strips ➢ Vegetated swales for stormwater conveyance ➢ Check dams for vegetated swales ➢ Infiltration basins ➢ Infiltration trenches ➢ Etc.
Stormwater Management, Cont.
EBN Checklists for stormwater management Reduce the amount of stormwater created ➢ Minimize the impact area in a development ➢ Minimize directly connected impervious areas ➢ Do not install gutters ➢ Reduce paved areas ➢ Install porous paving ➢ Eliminate curbs where possible ➢ Plant trees, shrubs, and groundcovers to encourage infiltration Keep pollutants out of stormwater ➢ Design and lay out communities to reduce reliance on cars ➢ Provide green areas ➢ Incorporate low-maintenance landscaping ➢ Design and lay out streets ➢ Control high-pollution commercial and industrial sites ➢ Label storm drains to discourage dumping.
Green Globes Verification and Certification, Cont.
Each environmental assessment area of Green Globes may have criteria that a design and delivery team may deem to be inapplicable to the building. • The standard protocol may apply to a wide range of building types with different geographic climate zones.
Ecological Economics
Ecological economics is a fundamental requirement of sustainable development that specifically addresses the relationship between human economies and natural ecosystems The ecological economics philosophy counters the human's tendency to ignorantly or deliberately degrading ecosystems by extracting useful, high-quality matter and energy which ultimately are transformed into useless, low-quality waste and heat. Example: fracking or hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction by Injecting fluids, sand and chemicals into the subsurface to open up fissures for gas/oil recovery
Benefits of Sustainable Design (Materials & Resources)
Economic ❖Decreased first costs for reused and recycled materials ❖Lower waste disposal costs and need for new landfills ❖Lower replacement costs for durable materials ➢ Societal ❖Fewer landfills, greater markets for environmentally preferable products ❖Decreased traffic due to the use of materials ➢ Environmental ❖Reduced strain on landfills and use of virgin resources ❖Better managed-forest, transportation, energy and pollution
Benefits of Sustainable Design (Commissioning, operations, and maintenance)
Economic ❖Lower energy costs, reduced occupant/owner complaints ❖Longer building and equipment lifetimes ➢Societal ❖Increased occupant productivity ❖Increased satisfaction/health ❖Increased safety ➢Environmental ❖Lower energy consumption ❖Reduced air pollution and other emissions
Benefits of Sustainable Design (Energy Efficiency)
Economic ❖Lower first costs, fuel and electricity costs ❖Reduced peak power demand, demand for new energy infrastructure ➢ Societal ❖Improved comfort conditions for occupants ❖Fewer new power plants and transmission lines ➢ Environmental ❖Lower electricity and fossil fuel use ❖Less air pollution and fewer carbon dioxide emissions ❖Lower impacts from fossil fuel production and distribution
Energy and Atmosphere
Energy conservation integrates the following approaches: ➢ Designing a green building envelope ❖Resistant to conductive, convective, and radioactive heat transfer. ➢ Employing renewable energy resources ➢ Implementing passive design ❖Considering the geometry, orientation, and mass of the building as well as climatological features (insulation). • In the United States, 40% of domestic primary energy is consumed by buildings.
Ethics and Sustainability
Ethics must address a wide range of concerns in the context of sustainable construction. Sustainable development requires a very extensive set of principles to guide behavior. It addresses relationships between generations >> Intergenerational and intertemporal justice It meets the needs of the present without compromising the right of future generation. • The intergenerational justice should not only be limited to humans Consideration of nonhuman systems capable of affecting the future generation's quality of living.
Eutrophication and Acidification
Eutrophication refers to the overenrichment of water bodies with nutrients from agriculture and landscape fertilizer. • Acidification is the process whereby air pollution into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is converted into acids. ➢Nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide. • Acidification and eutrophication are environmental conditions that frequently threaten water supplies
Green building
Facility designed, built, operated, and disposed in a resource manner with ecological approaches with human and ecosystem health goals.
Owner Issues in High-Performance Green Building Projects
Few questions must be answered to resolve some issues when deciding to produce high-performance green building ➢ Does the owner want the building to be certified green building? ❖High-performance green building may be required in some jurisdictions. ➢ If the building is to be certified, what level of certification is desired? ❖Cost/benefit issues must be addressed. ➢ If the building does not need to be certified, what design criteria should be followed by the design team?
The Green Building Initiative
GBI: Green Building Initiative • The GBI acquired the right to distribute Green Globes in the United States. • It is the first green building assessment organization to be accredited as a standards developer by the ANSI (American National Standards).
Key Differences with LEED
GG does not have any mandatory requirements for prerequisites whereas LEED has a wide range of prerequisites
DGNB/BNB (Germany)
Germany has a long history of designing high-performance buildings, but only recently (2007) has there been an effort to develop a green building rating certification program. There are two green building assessment systems in Germany. DGNB is for non-residential and commercial building, while BNB for assessing government buildings. DGNB allocates the points for three major areas of consideration for sustainability: Ecology, Economy, and Socioculture.
The Shifting Landscape for High-Performance Buildings
Global population: ➢ In 1990: 5.2 billion ❖ In 1990, the climate change was just entering the public consciousness ❖ Gas prices was $1.12 per gallon ❖ Us Became Sole superpower ➢ In 2012: About 7.4 billion ❖ Food prices rose at an annualized rate of 32% ❖ Gas prices doubled ❖ More risks for starvation, financial crises, climate changes, etc. ➢ On May 9, 2013: After 800,000 years,CO2 levels in atmosphere hit Climate Milestone of 400 ppm. In addition global temperature rising
Construction Delivery Systems: The High-Performance Green Building Delivery System, Cont
Hard-bid delivery system is exceptionally difficult to employ for a green building project. • Construction management at risk, reduces the tension between design team and construction team but still does not solve it or good. • The design-build is designed to minimize adversarial relationships and simplify transaction among parties. • IPD puts an emphasis on collaboration, as a result eliminates tension and reduces law-suites and animosity between stakeholders.
Greenfields, Brownfields, Grayfields, and Blackfields, Cont. 2
Grayfields can be defined as blighted or obsolete buildings siting on land that is not necessary contaminated. ➢Boarded-up housing can an indication of a grayfield. • The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) points out that former or declining malls can be classified as grayfields because they occupy impacted land ➢That can be returned to productive use. ➢Larger abandoned big stores are now refer as "Ghost boxes"
Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI)
Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) is a thirdparty certification responsible ➢ For managing all aspects of LEED professional credentialing ❖Including exam development, registration, delivery, and maintenance. ➢ For managing the LEED certification program by conducting reviews and analyses. • USGBC is responsible for implementing new versions of LEED building rating systems. • The GBCI is the arbiter of both building certification and LEED GA and AP accreditation.
Alternative to LEED
Green Globes
GG Building Rating Tools
Green Globes offers building assessment system consists of three major assessment tools: ➢Green Globes for New Construction (NC) ➢Green Globes for Existing Buildings (EB) ➢Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors (SI) Similar to the LEED building rating system. The Green Globes assessment tools contain categories that have points assigned to them. Green Globes has about10 times as many points assigned to issues compared to LEED; as a result, it is significantly more fine-grained compared to LEED.
Triple Bottom Line
Green building projects are reflective of the triple bottom line approach. • Buildings must be economically viable, socially equitable, and environmentally sound • Avoid/internalize externalities
Rationale for High-Performance Green Buildings
Green buildings are achieving rapid penetration in the US construction for the three main reasons: 1) Sustainable construction provides an ethical and practical response to issues of environmental impact and resource consumption. 2) Green buildings virtually always make economic sense on a life-cycle costing (LCC) basis. o They are often more expensive on first cost ▪ Additional piping ▪ Sophisticated lighting systems, etc. o The recovery period of the investment occurs in a relatively short period of time. 3) Sustainable design acknowledges the potential effects of the building on human health. o BRI: Building-related illness o SBS: Sick Building Syndrome o MCS: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
Land Resources
Greenfields - avoid/minimize ➢ Undeveloped, natural, or agricultural land. • Grayfields - preferred ➢ Disturbed land such as blighted urban areas. • Brownfields - preferred ➢ Disturbed land such as former industrial zones, contaminated areas, etc. • Blackfields - preferred ➢ Abandoned coal mines are found in eastern Pennsylvania, about 3 x size of Philadelphia.
Greenfields, Brownfields, Grayfields, and Blackfields
Greenfields are properties that have experienced little or no impact from human development activities. ➢ They can also include the agricultural lands that had no activity other than farming. • Land recycling ➢ LEED encourages Reusing land that has already been impacted by human activities, rather than using greenfields. • Brownfields can be defined as abandoned, idled, or underused industrial and commercial facilities where expansion and redevelopment is complicated by environmental contamination (US EPA).
Integrative Project Planning and Design
IP Credit: Integrative Process (1 point maximum) One of the peculiarities of the newest version of LEED is that the first credit listed in LEED v4, Integrative Process (IP), is not identified as being in a major category and stands alone. This credit addresses the issue of collaboration among the project team members to enhance the sustainability qualities of the project. The project team is required to collaborate in reducing energy and water consumption and to document efforts to improve the performance of the project compared to specific baseline cases.
Credit Interpretation Ruling
If a project team encounters difficulties applying a LEED prerequisite or credit to a specific project, the USGBC encourages the team is sort out the issue themselves first and contact the GBCI only as a last resort. The CIR system ensures that the rulings are consistent and available to other projects. If there is a gray area for which the project team requires clarification, the team can submit its query through LEED-online and receive a ruling from the USGBC on the official interpretation of the situation. This latter response is called CIR and remains in the database.
APPEALS
If the project team feels that significant grounds exist to appeal a credit denied in the Final LEED Review, it has the option to appeal. The credit fee is $500 per credit appealed. USGBC has 25 days to respond to the appealed credits. All appeals should be submitted to USGBC through the LEED-Online. If an appeal is pursued, a different review team will assess the appeal documentation.
Modern-Era Development
In 1981, a 240-unit Village Homes in Davis (California) was one of the first modernera developments to successfully create an environmentally sensitive.... ➢ Community-based scale. ➢ Reduction of stormwater runoffs. ➢ http://www.villagehomesdavis.o rg/public/about/history A 27 story-luxury residential tower, New York (2003). ➢Façade with photovoltaic cells ➢Uses 35% less energy than comparable buildings ❖More natural light and excellent indoor air quality ❖Other green features ❖http://www.thesolaire.co m/
The Integrated Design Process, Cont. 2
In addition to extensive definition of IDP, the main elements of the IDP are: 1. Interdisciplinary work between architects, engineers, costing specialists, and other relevant people from the beginning of the design process. 2. Discussion of the relative importance of various performance issues and establishment of a consensus between the client and designers 3. Addition of an energy specialist to test various design assumptions through the use of energy simulations throughout the process. 4. Addition of subject specialists for short consultations 5. Clear articulation of performance targets and strategies 6. A design facilitator may be added to the team to raise performance issues throughout the process.
Greenfields, Brownfields, Grayfields, and Blackfields, Cont.
In many US cities, brownfields are now valuable real estate properties because of their proximity to infrastructure and a potential workforce. • Industries formerly fleeing to greenfields outside urban areas are returning to former industrial sites because the economy dictates the return to the city. ➢ Bringing back jobs into the city • The LEED and Green Globes building assessment systems provide credit for the use of former brownfield as a building site.
Land Use Issues, Cont.
In the United States, farmland is being lost at the rate of 2 acres (0.8 hectares) per minute ➢..... the most fertile and productive land being lost.
Effects of Changes
Increasing demand for buildings that are resource-efficient ➢ Buildings that use minimal energy and water ❖Today's high-performance can reduce the energy consumption from 300 KWh/m2/yr (average in 2000) to 100 KWh/m2/yr. ❖The water consumption can be reduced up to 50% by opting for: - The most water-efficient fixtures - High-efficient toilets (HETs) - High-efficient urinals (HEUs) ❖The use of an alternative source of water (rainwater and graywater) can reduce the potable water consumption by another 50% >>> Factor 4 reduction
Industrial Ecology
Industrial ecology refers to the study of the physical, chemical, and biological interactions and interrelationships both within and among industrial and ecological systems. It is a complex of various industries operating in a symbiotic system where the waste of one industry is the resource of the other one. ➢Sharing of industrial complex among major partners
LEED: Major Categories
Integrative Process (IP - 1 Points) 2. Location and Transportation (LT - 16 Points) 3. Sustainable Sites (SS - 10 points) 4. Water Efficiency (WE -11) 5. Energy and Atmosphere (EA - 33 points) 6. Materials and Resources (MR - 13) 7. Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ - 16) 8. Innovation (IN - 6 points) 9. Regional Priorities (RP - 4 points) It appears that LEED 4, has 2 categories more than LEED 3, and the scoring points has been revised and redistributed, however, the total points (110) is the same as LEED 3.
Life Cycle Costing
LCC considers the building's financial performance over its life cycle. ➢ This determines if a greater initial capital investment may be required. ➢ A cost/benefit analysis is performed each year. ➢ Net benefits of each year are tabulated to calculate the total present worth of a particular project. • We must also consider and determine the cost equivalent of its environmental performance, etc.
LEED GA
LEED GA ➢Fundamental credential with basic knowledge of LEED ➢Can be pursued by anyone employed in a building or environmental field Requirements ➢There are no eligibility requirements for the LEED Green Associate exam. ➢ GBCI recommends that candidates have exposure to LEED and green building concepts through educational courses, volunteering, or work experience prior to testing.
Assessment of Sustainable Sites: The Sustainable Site Initiative
LEED and Green Globes assessments focus on the building as an object of the assessment • There are a wide range of projects that are not considered in this process ➢ Parking lots, athletic fields, plazas, streetscapes, etc. • The Sustainability Site Initiative (SITES) was developed to promote sustainable land development and management practices that can apply to sites. ➢ With and without building • The USGBC is also now an active stakeholder in the development of the SITES
US Green Building and LEED
LEED ➢ Rating system launched by the USGBC in 1998. ➢ Identified criteria to used in their rating system. • Five different versions of LEED are available: ➢ BD+C ➢ ID+C ➢ O+M ➢ ND ➢ Homes ➢ Schools • Rating ➢ Platinum, gold, silver, or certified.
The LEED Process
LEED- v3 ➢ The old USGBC rating system with ❖7 minimum requirements (MPR) 8 prerequisites, and a maximum of 110 points divided into 7 major categories. • LEED v4: ➢ The most recent USGBC rating system with ❖3 minimum requirements (MPR) 13 prerequisites, and a maximum of 110 points divided into 9 major categories. • NOTE: The category structure and point allocation differ substantially between LEED-NC 3.0 and the LEED-NC v4. • The number of points was established by developers to indicate the weight placed on the various major categories
Rating Systems
LEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ➢Rating system developed by the (US Green Building Council (USGBC) and launched in 2000 (fully tested). ➢Third-party green building certification • The green building movement is generally considered as one of the most successful of all American environmental movements
Location and Transportation (LT), Cont. 3
LT Credit: Bicycle Facilities (1 point maximum). If the project facilitates bicycle use, credit can be earned for this measure. Bicycle storage or a functional entry to the project must be within 200-yard walking or bicycling distance from the bicycle network with connections to diverse uses, schools or employment centers, or mass transit. • LT Credit: Reduced Parking Footprint (1 point maximum) Minimizing the consumption of resources and land for parking is the target of this credit. Projects cannot provide excess parking beyond local code requirements. If there is no local requirement, specific targets are provided for this purpose. • LT Credit: Green Vehicles (1 point maximum) By designating a minimum 5 percent of parking spaces as a preferred parking for green vehicles, the project can earn points for encouraging the use of green vehicles. Green vehicles are defined as those earning a minimum score of 45 in the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy automobiles
Location and Transportation (LT), Cont.
LT Credit: Sensitive Land Protection (2 points maximum) ➢ Requires the projects that are not located on sensitive land earn points for avoiding impacts that otherwise would occur such as: ❖Prime farmland; ❖Floodplains ❖Habitat for endangered and threatened species in close proximity of wetlands and water bodies • LT Credit: High Priority Sites (3 points maximum) ➢ Option 1, (Historic District). This option addresses infill location in historic districts. ➢ Option 2, (Priority Designation) This option includes a range of additional possibilities , such as Federal Empowerment Zones, Low income areas, etc. ➢ Option 3, (Brownfield Remediation). This option earns points for locating the project on a brownfield site.
Location and Transportation (LT), Cont. 2
LT Credit: Surrounding Density and Diverse use (6 point maximum). Locating a project in a dense urban environment can earn points. ➢ Option 1, (Surrounding Density), the points earned increase as the average density with ¼ mile of the project increases ➢ Option 2, (Diverse Uses), a project located near publicly diverse uses, such as: ❖Schools; ❖Restaurants ❖Dry Cleaners and other services Can earn points under this options • LT Credit: Access to Quality Transit (6 point maximum) ➢ Projects located within ¼ mile of bus, streetcar, or rideshare stops or ➢ Within ½ mile of rail stations or bus rapid transit stops Can earn credit if they meet specific daily levels of service requirements. School projects have an option if specified percentage of students live within ¾ mile walking distance with pedestrian access.
Sustainable Landscapes
Landscape design has typically been an afterthought in the conventional building delivery system. ➢ The landscape design is given short shrift, treated apart from the building. • Today, the role of landscape design in high-performance green building is a state of transition ➢ Integral to the building ❖Helps in the control of stormwater ❖Treats waste and provides food ❖Contributes to biodiversity ❖Earn Credits for High Performance Green building
Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method for determining the environmental and resource impacts of a material, product, or even a building over its entire life. All energy, water, and materials resources as well as all emissions to air water and land are tabulated over the entity's life cycle. The life cycle can span the extraction of resources, transportation, manufacturing, installation in a building, and item's ultimate disposal.
Light Trespass and Pollution Reduction, Cont.
Light pollution ➢ Prevents views of the sky by the general population and astronomers ❖The solution is to design a proper lighting system • To prevent light pollution ➢ Parking area and street should be designated to minimize upward transmission of light ➢ Exterior building and sign lighting should be reduced or turned off when not needed ➢ Computer modeling of exterior lighting systems should be used.
Light Trespass and Pollution Reduction
Light trespass usually defines unwanted light from a neighbor property. ➢It can blind pedestrians and automobile drivers ➢It can have negative impacts to wildlife, as well as human health ❖Interruption of the normal daily light cycles
Low-Impact Development
Low-Impact Development (LID) is a new strategy that integrates ecological systems with landscape design to effectively manage stormwater runoff. ➢ Prevents pollutants from adversely impacts. ➢ Can be applied to new development and redevelopment. • Applied on an urban scale, LID can maintain or restore the watershed's hydrologic and ecological functions. • The LID approach to stormwater management is an enormous change from conventional practices.
Building assessment, Cont.
Major choices when rating a building ➢Single number to describe the overall performance ❖Easy to understand ❖Converts multiple units (environment, resources, etc.) ❖LEED standards provide a single number ➢Array of numbers or graphs for the same purpose ❖Very complex ❖e.g. SBTool (Sustainable Building Tool) - Used to compare with a wide range of factors.
Major Environmental and Resource Concerns
Major environmental issues connected to built environment design and construction ➢ Climate change ➢ Ozone depletion ➢ Soil erosion ➢ Desertification ➢ Deforestation ➢ Eutrophication ➢ Acidification ➢ Loss of biodiversity ➢ Land, water, and air pollution ➢ Dispersion of toxic substances ➢ Depletion of fisheries
LEED v4 Structure & Process
Minimum Prerequisite for v4: (Table 5.5) ➢Must be in permanent location on existing land; ➢Must use reasonable LEED boundaries; ➢Must Comply with project size requirements. • 110 points in 9 categories can be achieved by employing measures that make the sustainability become a reality in high performance green buildings. • The LEED-NC 4.0 Reference Manual can be consulted for all information regarding credits for each category.
Recyclable and Downcyclable materials
Most construction materials are not completely recyclable ➢Downcyclable for lower-value reuse ❖Fill ❖Road subbase • Aggregates, concrete, fill, dirt, block, brick, and similar materials usually have low-ecology toxicity.
Net Zero Energy
NZE (Net Zero Energy) buildings - generate as much energy from renewables as they consume on an annual basis. • An NZE building cannot affect climate change due to its operational energy. ➢ A comprehensive approach is needed
The Natural Step
Natural Step: Provides a framework for considering the effects of material selection on human health. It has been proven that many human health problems are related to different materials used in our daily lives. Natural step provides the following four principles that should be followed to eliminate the effects of materials: ➢ In a sustainable society, nature is not responsible for presence of elevated levels of substances extracted from Earth's crust. ➢ In a sustainable society, nature's functions are not subject to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society ➢ Nature should not be impoverished by overharvesting ➢ Resources must be used fairly and efficiently
Deforestation, Desertification, and Soil Erosion
Natural forests contain almost half of the world's total biological diversity. • Worldwide deforestation ➢2 acres of rainforest are disappearing every second. ➢ In the United States, only 1%-2% of the original forest still remains. • Deforestation defeats the capability of forests to lockup large amount of CO2 stored in tree mass ➢Gaseous compounds are released in the atmosphere instead.
Summary and Conclusion (The sustainable site and landscape)
Natural systems are the most underutilized resources for cooling and heating conventional buildings. • The ultimate green building will undoubtedly feature a deeper integration of ecosystems. • Natural systems can shade and cool buildings ➢ They can also provide calories and take up large quantities of stormwater • A future of high cost will inevitably force changes that decentralize many of the waste-processing functions currently performed at distant wastewater treatment plants. • In the future, green building designers will have to make much more effort to adequately integrate the ecological knowledge in the development of the green design.
Low-Impact Development, Cont.4
One form of LID is rainwater harvesting - the capturing of onsite, usually rooftop, rainwater runoff and its use as a substitute for potable water. Rainwater systems can be economical if built into the original design but are often not if they are retrofitted after the fact. They key is how big the storage has to be and this is a function of a few different variables. For outdoor use, more important than how much rain falls, is the length of the dry period when rain doesn't fall. The longer the dry period, generally the less able a rainwater system is to meet the site needs. California has 7 months without rain so it makes it hard for rainwater systems to be economical. Also very important is the cost of potable water.
Distributional Equity
One of the challenges of sustainability is increasing prosperity for the billions who are barely able to survive on a day-to-day basis. The principal of distributional equity requires that Earth's resources be more fairly allocated so that everyone has at least a decent quality of life
LEED-Online
Over time, the LEED building rating system has shifted from requiring hardcopy documentation to an Internetbased system known as LEED-Online. ➢Documentation can be submitted online on an easy-to-use format. • All LEED information, resources, and support can be found in LEED-Online stores. ➢It enables to download/upload templates and track Credit Interpretation Rulings (CIRs), etc.
Construction Delivery Systems: Construction Management-at-Risk, Cont
Owner contracts separately with the design team and a construction manager who will work on behalf of the owner. • The construction manager provides preconstruction services, such as 1) cost analysis, 2) constructability analysis, 3) value engineering and 4) project scheduling in order to create a conflict-free construction phase. • Construction manager selects subcontractors based on their capabilities and quality of their work, not merely the lowest bid. • Construction manager assures the owner that cost will not exceed without a solid reason. • The level of conflicts in this case which is also called "negotiated work" is much lower because of the closer working relationships among the parties to the contract
List of four tenets of the precautionary principle:
People have a duty to take anticipatory actions to prevent harm. Burden of proof of harmlessness of a new technology, process, activity, or chemical lies with proponents not the general public. Before using the new technology, process or chemical or starting a new activity, people have an obligation to examine a full range of alternatives including the alternative of not doing it. Decisions applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed, and democratic and must include the affected parties.
The Golden Rules for Eco-design
Potential impacts to the environment should be considered on a life cycle basis ( from cradle to cradle) • The intensity use of processes, products, and services should be maximized, • The intensity of resource use (material, energy and land) should be minimized ➢ Factor 4 or factor 10 for materials requirements • Hazardous materials should be eliminated ➢ Elimination of hazardous substances • Resource input shifted toward renewables. ➢ Restatement of a key concept of ecological economics
Green Building Movement
Primary goal: ➢Consistently improve the efficiency, health and performance of the built environment. • This movement provides a model to other sectors of economic endeavor ➢Requires engagement of all professionals - design, construction, operations, financing, insurance, planning, policy
Soil Erosion and Sediment Control, Cont.
Principles and best practices for sedimentation and erosion control ➢ Design project to fit the site's context ❖Topography, soils, drainage patterns, and natural vegetation ➢ Minimize the area of construction disturbance and limit removal of vegetative cover ➢ Remove viable topsoil for temporary stockpiling and reuse when landscape is installed. ➢ Reduce duration of bare-area exposure ➢ Use silt fences, fiber wattles, and logs for sedimentation control ➢ Use native soil when restoring and replacing soil, etc.
Why Bother to Rate a Building?
Rating of a building will: 1. Promote high-performance building 2. Increase market demand for sustainable construction 3. To increase market value of the building 4. Lower the operating cost and increase rental value 5. Promote positive health and productivity of occupants 6. Reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Green Building Assessment
Rating systems allow a project team to use a simple checklist to verify if green building practices and requirements are met. ➢Great advantage to use them as a guidance ➢A deeper thinking may be needed to understand concepts • Rating systems ➢LEED (US) ➢Green Globes (US) ➢Living Building Challenge (US)
Construction Delivery Systems: Integrated Project Delivery, Cont. 4
Relational contracts in the IPD process have incentive clauses such that any potential savings are shared among the IPD teams and with the owner. ➢ Created and put at risk depending on the collaboration of the team. • IPD → tied with the leading edge of high-performance green building. • IPD allows to deliver high-performance buildings at the same or lower cost compared to conventional systems ➢ BIM and lean construction can be merged in IPD.
The Reversibility Principle
Reversibility Principal is: Making decision that can be undone by future generations. Basic Idea Is: "Do not Commit the Irreversible" Example: Can we use nuclear energy to substitute nonrenewable energy to prevent climate change? Question: Is it a reversible alternative? Answer: Yes, see Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi incident. Question: How the future generation will deal with waste disposal? Answer: If storage of radioactive waste in a container for a long period of time (10,000 years) becomes feasible without a significant leak, our options will be: 1. Deposit the waste deep in a stable rock formation where it can be recovered by future generation for possible disposal. 2. Deposit the waste in inaccessible location, for example by placing the waste deep in the ocean where sliding continental plates would gradually cover it.
SBTooL
SBTooL is a comprehensive and sophisticated building assessment tool developed for the biannual international Green Building Challenge. SBTool provides a standard basis of comparisons for the wide range of buildings being evaluated in the Green Building Challenge. It needs a great deal of data compare the building performance with the benchmark values. It has 7 different categories ; 1) Resource Consumption, 2) Environmental Loadings, 3) Indoor Environmental Quality, 4) Service Quality, 5) Economics, 6) Management, and 7) Commuting Transport.
Soil Erosion and Sediment Control
Sediment is eroded soil that is suspended, transported, deposited by moving water or wind. • Erosion is the process of displacing and transporting soil particles by the action of gravity. • For high-performance green building, care must be taken to ensure that soil loss is minimized. ➢ Contemporary green building delivery system requires that measures be put in place to prevent sedimentation. • An erosion and sedimentation plan is a prerequisite for LEED-NC.
Eco-Efficiency 2
Seven elements of Eco-Efficiency 1. Reducing the material requirements of goods and services 2. Reducing the energy intensity of goods and services 3. Reducing toxic dispersion 4. Enhancing materials recyclability 5. Maximizing sustainable use of renewable resources 6. Extending product durability 7. Increasing the service intensity of goods and services
Biological Materials, Biomaterials, and other Nature-Based Materials
Shift from non-renewable to renewable resources is inevitable if we choose to adopt sustainability: • Natural Capitalism • Natural Step and • Cradle to Cradle and DfE. Are telling us the same thing. A shift to renewable sources implies a shift in the materials sector to: 1)Biological Materials, 2) Biomaterials, or other natural or nature-based materials. Biological materials are different than biomaterials.
US Green Buildings
Shift in the design building ➢In 2005: 5% of non-residential was green buildings ➢2008: 12% ➢2010: 28% ➢2017: 38% • Considering the rapid deterioration of the planet, any measures that help reduce the destruction of its ecological systems, minimize waste, and use resources more effectively are helpful.
CASBEE (JAPAN) 2
Similarly, there are several categories of environmental loadings (L) in CASBEE: L = L1 + L2 + L3 where L1 = Energy L2 = Resources L3 = Off-site environment L = Total Loading
Trends in High-Performance Buildings
Some "new" green building new concepts: ➢ The charrette ➢ Integrated design ➢ Building commissioning ➢ The design-build delivery system ➢ Performance-based fees. • New technologies/approaches developing to face the exponential increase rate of energy ➢ High-efficiency photovoltaic systems ➢ BIM (Building Integrated Modeling) ➢ Integrated LCA (Life cycle analysis) ➢ Accounting for impacts of building location
Loss of Prime Farmland, Cont.
Some observations about the impacts of development on the nation's farmland: ➢ Every single minute, America loses 2 acres of farmland from 1992 to 1997 (more than 6 million acres of agricultural land has been lost). ➢From 1992 to 1997, the prime farmland conversion rate was 30 percent faster than nonprime farmland. ➢ Food production is impacted by prime farmland conversion. ➢ US population grew by 17 percent from 1982 to 1997. ➢ Every state is loosing some of their best farmlands to urban development. • Redirecting the development away from prime farmland is addressed in the USGBC LEED-NC and Green Globes assessments.
Steel Structures
Steel is almost 100% recyclable. • Many concerns about the "green" side of virgin steel due to the amount of energy required for its extraction. So, part of the end-of-life deign approach is to plan for the inevitable deconstruction of a building and do everything at the front end to permit reuse and recycling with minimal additional resource and environmental costs at the back end
Basic Concepts and Vocabulary
Sustainable construction is only one part of a larger transformation taking place in numerous economic sectors. The most notable and important ideas include the following concepts: 1. Sustainable Development 2. Industrial Ecology 3. Construction Ecology 4. Biomimicry 5. Design for the environment 6. Ecological Economics 7. Carrying Capacity Ecological footprint • Ecological Rucksak • Embodied Energy • Biophilia Hypothesis • Eco-efficiency • Natural Steps • Life Cycle Assessment • Life Cycle Costing • Factor 4 and Factor 10
Benefits of Sustainable Design
Sustainable design for high-performance buildings are based on the following categories: • Location and Transportation (siting) • Water Efficiency • Energy Efficiency • Materials & Resources • Indoor Environmental Quality • Commissioning: Operational & Maintenance
Low-Impact Development, Cont.
Ten implementation measures listed by the Nature Conservancy to manage runoff while at the same time providing a landscape with natural amenities. 1 Impervious surface reduction ❖ Includes reducing number of parking spaces, etc. 2 Tree preservation ❖ Trees act as mini-reservoirs that absorb and store large quantities of water. 3 Reduce lawn area/increase planted areas. ❖ Increasing the size of planting areas can result in higher property value. 4 Bioswales and vegetated swales ❖ The preferred depth is 6 inches
BIM Benefits
The BIM modeling makes the handling of complex projects with enormous information easier. ➢ Especially in green projects: additional specifications, requirements, and many other aspects to consider. • It helps to track important aspects of the construction ➢ Waste management ➢ Indoor air quality (IAQ) ➢ Erosion and sedimentation control • It has the capability to perform energy modeling and can be used to potentially increase the uptake of green building (lowering costs).
End-of-Life Directives
The European legislation requires manufacturers to accept the returned ELV at the end of their life with no charge to consumers (note that this cost is not included in the sticker price). ➢Green building movement: Reuse and recycle.
GG Building Rating Credentials
The Green Design Facilitator (GDF) must be appointed once the project has been registered to the certification. • The Green Globe Assessor (GGA) is assigned to the project performs an inspection of the project and verifies the measures • Green Globes Professionals (GGPs) are individuals who receive training at the Green Globes user level. They are qualified to offer project management and technical supports. • The Green Globes Construction Documents Questionnaire is the foundation of the rating process.
The Integrated Design Process, Cont. 4
The IDP intends to optimize the entire building project. The requirements for communication are intense, from design through construction and commissioning. • Typical sequence of events that are indicative of integrated design: ➢ The project team establishes performance targets for a broad range of parameters (energy, water, wastewater, landscape, etc.) ❖Development of preliminary strategies to achieve them ❖Engineering skills needed ➢ The team should minimize heating and cooling loads and maximize daylighting potential through orientation, building configuration, and efficient building envelope. ❖IEQ and IAQ issues should also be addressed.
Construction Delivery Systems: Integrated Project Delivery
The Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) system originated in the mid-1990s when a group of companies in Orlando (FL) were attempting to increase the speed of productivity and project delivery without typical conflicts. • The IPD Definition Task Group is composed of a variety of stakeholders ➢ Owners, architects, contractors, engineers, and lawyers. • It takes advantage of new concepts ➢ Integrated design process, lean design, BIM, etc.
Life Cycle Assessment
The LCA allows the quantification of environmental impacts of design decisions which can span to the entire life of the structure. ➢The global warming and ozone depletion potentials for various alternative surfaces can be compared. ➢It is likely that LCA will become a mandatory area of evaluation of building design. • The LEED system includes LCA as a pilot credit ➢The State of California included LCA as a voluntary measure in its code.
Registration
The LEED project has 30 days to accept or appeal the awarded certification level (Platinum, gold, silver, or certified). ➢An award letter and certificate are sent to specify the LEED certification level. • Appeals ➢If the project team feels that insufficient grounds exist to appeal a credit denied in the final LEED Review ➢The appeal fee is $500/credit appealed ➢All appeals are submitted online and the review occurs within 25 business days.
Location and Transport in LEED v4
The Location and Transport (LT) is a new category that first appeared in LEED v4. It focuses on the issue of building location relative to ecologically sensitive land and access to transportation. This credit addresses the issue of collaboration among the project team members to enhance the sustainability qualities of the project. If a project team attempts this credit, the project is not eligible to earn points for other LT credits. In another words, this is an alternative path for the rest of the LT category.
High-Performance Buildings, Systems Thinking, and Whole-Building Design
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) of the US Department of Energy defines a highperformance building as a whole-building design to achieve energy, economic, and environmental performance. ➢Integrated-design ❖Full collaboration of the design team from the project's inception. ❖Consideration of site, energy, materials indoor-air quality, acoustics, natural resources, and interrelation with one another.
Gases in Building Functions
The UN Montreal Protocol (1987) produced an international agreement to eventually halt the production of ozone depleting chemicals. ➢The ozone layer is projected to be fully restored in 2050.
The Biophilia Hypothesis
The biophilia hypothesis suggests that humans have an affinity for nature and that they "tend to focus on life and lifelike processes". Various studies showed that more connection with nature may have healing effects on the human body, and increase productivity. Consequently, facilitating the ability of human to interact with nature, even at a distance, from inside the building, is emerging as an issue for consideration in the creation of high performance green buildings.
Factor 4, Factor 5, and Factor 10
The concepts of Factors provide a set of guidelines for comparing design options and for evaluating the performance of the buildings. • Factor 4 ➢ Suggests a resource consumption reduction to one-quarter of its current level for humanity to live sustainability. ➢ Rather than oversizing equipment, it ensures they are sized correctly. • Factor 10 ➢ Suggests a resource consumption reduction to 10% of its current level for humanity to live sustainability
The Integrated Design Process, Cont.
The cost of changes are much lower earlier in the project. It gets more expensive further into the project. The later, the more it will cost. So savings are greater if you avoid problems that occur later on. If there is a good teamwork early on, money can be saved. Changes in the design will save millions. Any examples? Bay bridge? Brittle bolts - super expensive fix. Could have been avoided and thus those costs avoided. Builders can have tremendous influence - can save a lot of money by pointing out the problems with designs - difficult to build - architects and engineers can cause major problems by not factoring in the practical problems of a building e.g. not providing enough space to get air conditioning in.
Intergenerational Justice and the Chain of Obligation
The current generations can affect the health and quality of life of remote future generation. This choice of today's generation will directly affect the quality and quantity of resources remaining for future inhabitants of Earth. This concept of obligation that crosses temporal boundaries is referred to as intergenerational justice. It implies a chain of obligation between generations. For example, depletion of Ozone layer by current generation may cause catastrophic mutation in the future generation due to excessive radiation of ultra-violet light and depriving them having the same quality of life as the current generation.
Depletion of Metal Stocks
The depletion of key resources needed to support energy and material requirements of today's society. ➢ Including metals • A study concluded that supplying copper, zinc, and other metals may fail to meet the needs of the global population (even if recycled). • Some researchers estimated that ➢ 26% of extractable copper is now lost in nonrecycled wastes. ➢ Metals, such as platinum, are at risk of depletion this century. ❖No suitable substitutes.
Synthesis
The development and deployment of new materials must consider the following factors: ethics, risks, and economics • Changing the decision system is badly needed to ensure that the risks to nature and humans are minimized • A LCA must be applied and the disassembling of materials from buildings is necessary to close loops • Ethics will have to govern the decision systems, in part by reshaping the economics/laws of the market place.
Ecological Rucksack
The ecological rucksack applies to destruction of natural resources by human through excavation, mining, channeling rivers and lakes, and processing gigantic amount (billions of tons) of material to extract dilute resources. Example: For extraction of 10 grams of gold contained in a wedding band, 300 tons of material must be moved. The higher the mass moved, higher the environmental impact. • Rucksack ➢Attempt to quantify the mass of materials that must be moved in order to extract a specific source. See page 60.
Executing the Green Building Project, Cont.
The execution of a high-performance building project has the following phases (Cont.): 5. Executing the design process ❖Advanced schematic design, design development, construction documents, and documentation on green building measures -All conducted using IDP 6. Constructing the building ❖Implementing green building measures, which begins by addressing, ESA, SWPPP (soil and erosion control), minimizing site disturbance, ecological construction, etc. 7. Final commissioning and handover to the owner.
Executing the Green Building Project
The execution of a high-performance building project has the following phases: 1. Selecting the project team 2. Setting priorities for the green building project by the owner in collaboration with the project team 3. Implementing an integrated design process (IDP) by orienting the project team to the concept of IDP. ❖IDP is different from IPD. 4. Conducting a charrette to obtain input for the project from a wide varieties of parties ❖Including the project team, the owner and users, the community, and other stakeholders.
Ethical Challenges
The fact that human is capable of thinking and reacting to new changes in its environment is far more in control of the undesirable conditions, but animals and ecosystems are in the mercy of mankind for their survival. As such, there is a greater responsibility on human shoulders to act ethically and does not hurt the environment and living creatures. Therefore, the decision how to move forward must be based on: 1) an ethical framework, 2) an understanding and willingness to accept risk, and 3) the economic cost of implementation and resulting impacts.
History of Green Building Movement
The green building movement has a long history in the United States, with its philosophical roots traceable to the late 19th century. Notable dates include: 1970 - The year first Earth Day was celebrated and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) was founded. Concern over resource availability, particularly reliance on fossil fuels, was magnified by the oil shocks of the early 1970s, which resulted from the Arab-Israeli conflict. This further focused public interest to search other forms of energy sources such as solar, retrofitting homes and commercial buildings with insulation and energy recovery systems.
Sustainable Landscapes, Cont.
The five characteristics of a sustainable landscape 1. Sustainable landscape use primarily renewable energy at rates that can be regenerated without ecological destabilization. 2. Sustainable landscapes maximize the recycling of resources, nutrients, and by-products, and produce minimum waste 3. Sustainable landscapes maintain local structure and function and do not reduce the diversity of ecosystems 4. Sustainable landscapes preserve and serve local human communities 5. Sustainable landscapes incorporate technologies that support these goals.
Major Building Rating Systems
The following Rating System will be discussed: 1. LEED (US) Chapter 5 2. Green Globes (US) Chapter 6 3. Living Building Challenge (US) 4. BREEAM (UK) 5. CASBEE (Japan) 6. Green Star (Australia) 7. DGNB (Germany) 8. SBTooL
Role of the Charrette in the Design Process, Cont
The four guiding principles for a built environment charrette 1. Involve everyone from the start o Identification and solicitation of stakeholders to provide input to a project is the most important element of charrette 2. Work concurrently and cross-functionally o All disciplines engaged should work together at the same time during the charrette to generate alternative designs 3. Work in short feedback loops o Proposed solutions and measures are laid out in a brainstorming session during which the participants are guided by facilitator. 4. Work in detail o The more detail in a charrette the better. Larger scales issues must be addressed.
Role of the Charrette in the Design Process, Cont. 2
The four steps for a built environment charrette 1. Start-up o It involves determining who the stakeholders are. 2. Research, education, and concept o The charrette facilitator and design team should discuss the information needs for the charrette ❑ Building directions, program, sites details, etc. 3. The charrette o The charrette should be conducted by a facilitator familiar with the green building process. o A typical building charrette might occur over several days and continue in phases until complete. 4. Review, revise, and finalize. After charrette is complete, the design team reviews the results with the owner and produce report.
Respect for Nature and the Land Ethic
The fourth principle of the ethics of respect for nature says that "human are not superior to other species". ➢ Shifted from a human-centered to a biocentric outlook. • Same biological laws that govern other species also apply to humans. • The human-induced extinction is causing disruption, destruction, and alteration at a high rate level. • The respect of nature ethics also involves the adoption of behaviors that respect nonhuman species.
Loss of Prime Farmland
The green building effort considers the loss of agricultural land ➢Impacted by human activities • The US Department of Agriculture defines a farmland as follows: ➢Land on which crops can be produced for the least cost and with the least damage to the resource base. ➢Prime farmland has an adequate and dependable supply of moisture (from precipitation or irrigation), nutrients and with an appropriate length of growing season (temperature).
Heat-Island Mitigation, Cont. 2
The heat island effects can be reduced by several measures ➢ Installing highly reflective (or high-albedo) roofs. ➢ Planting shade trees near homes and buildings ➢ Using light-colored construction materials where possible
Heat-Island Mitigation, Cont.
The heat islands also have the following negative impacts ➢ Heat island contributes to global warming ➢ Heat island increases groundlevel ozone pollution ❖VOCs ➢ Heat islands affect human health ❖especially children and older people.
Heat-Island Mitigation
The heat-island effect is not necessary considered in side and landscaping design, but matters in high-performance green buildings. ➢ Increase of temperatures usually from 2 to 10°F. ❖The result is that cooling requirements for buildings in urban areas. -Air pollution, greater resources extraction impacts, and higher costs. • Heat-island effects are cause by the removal of vegetation and its replacement with concrete roads, buildings, etc.
Ecosystems: The Forgotten Resource
The integration of ecosystems with the built environment can play a key role in resourceconscious design. • This can include ➢ Control of external building loads ➢ Processing waste ➢ Absorption of stormwater ➢ Growing food ➢ Providing natural beauty
Carbon Accounting
The level of CO2 is rapidly increasing in the atmosphere with many secondary effects and accelerators ➢ e.g. drought causing death of rainforest trees causing reduced CO2 fixing • The United States is the second world's largest CO2 producer behind China (but historically, cumulatively the biggest). ➢ Especially caused by fossil fuels. • In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100 but updated that prediction to a rise of up to 5.2 feet by the end of the century. ➢ Major implications for coastal communities, planning, building • The seriousness of climate change forecasts has pushed governments around the world to elaborate plans to reduce carbon emissions. ➢ i.e. carbon accounting and taxing
Relation Between the USGBC and the GBCI
The many rating systems have to develop all of the references, materials, etc. GBCI does the testing whereas USGBC does the education. USGBC does the criteria, GBCI the certification.
The Living Building Challenge
The most demanding of all the North American building assessment systems. It was used since 2005. • The Living Building Challenge is based on ➢ A few simple but very powerful concepts ➢ Seven performance areas: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. ➢ Must produce own energy, provide all required water, process own sewage ➢ Uses SBTool, a complex assessment system • The LBC is awarded only after 12 months of continuous operation that are meant to demonstrate that the building has achieved its performance goals.
Oil Rollover Point, Cont.
The net energy: ➢ In 1970: over 25 to 1. ➢ Today: 7 to 1 • Once the net energy will fall under 3 to 1, ➢ It will no longer be economically feasible to extract oil in significant quantities. The price of gasoline and other fossil fuel-derived energy sources will likely increase rapidly. • There is no technology able to quickly, effectively substitute the world's rapidly depleting oil supplies. • Alternative sources of energy: Hydrogen, fuels derived from coal and tar. ➢ They will be very expensive • A shift toward hyper-efficient buildings and transportation cannot begin soon enough.
Setting Priorities and Making Other Key Initial Decisions
The owner must decide on the priorities and decide what kind of certification he/she is willing to get. • Many state governments are forced by law to operate within strict square footage cost guidelines. ➢ Very simple and cost-effective measures must be considered. • The federal government required LCC to be employed to justify building investment decisions. ➢ Favorable to high-performance building. • Private owners have considerably more leeway
Selecting a Green Building Team, Cont.
The owner will select the firm based on: ➢ Experience, qualifications, previous work, and demonstrated understanding of owner's program and requirements. ➢ The architect or construction manager or design-build firm should be selected prior to the start of the design. • Many design professionals have already engaged in the design of one or more green buildings. • The construction manager should be familiar with LEED or Green Globes assessment systems if the building is to be certified.
Sustainable Movement
The sustainable construction movement has gained significant strength and momentum. • By 2015 over 69,000 buildings have been registered with the US Green Building Council (USGBC). ➢ e.g. Harvard U - has 1.5 m sq ft at platinum rating, 3 m sq ft pursuing recognition as green building projects. • The Area of LEED certified buildings increased from few thousand sf in 1999 to 3.6 billion sf in year 2015 for commercial building alone. • Despite the success of LEED there are challenges when implementing sustainability principals within traditional construction industry.
The Polluter Pays Principle and Producer Responsibility
The polluter pays principle addresses existing technologies that have not been subject to other principles and places the onus for mitigating damage and consequences on the individuals causing the impacts. Historically, the polluters pays principle has focused on retrospective liability for pollution; for example an industry causing pollution would pay for cleanup costs arising from it. The polluter pays principle has recently shifted to the avoidance of polluting and addressing wider environmental impacts through producer responsibility. It is an extended version of the polluter pays principle. The producer responsibility principle address the whole life-cycle environmental problems of the production process from initial minimization of resource use, through extended product life span.
The precautionary principle
The precautionary principle requires the exercise of caution when making decisions that may have adverse affect nature, natural ecosystems and global biochemical cycles. When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and affect relationship are not fully established scientifically
Summary and Conclusions (Green building design process)
The process of green building is unique and provides not only improved buildings but also an improved process. • Several key elements have been developed in a short period of time ➢ Charrette, better teamwork, etc. • IPD is a much newer construction delivery system with many attributes that make it highly compatible with the green building delivery process.
The Reversibility Principle 2
The reversibility principle is somehow related to the precautionary principle because it lays out criteria that must be observed prior to adoption of new technology. It is less stringent than the precautionary principle in some respects, because it suggests reversibility as the primary criterion for making a decision to employ the technology; the precautionary principle, in contrast requires that a technology not be implemented if its effects are not fully understood and if the risks are unacceptable
The Integrated Design Process, Cont. 3
The traditional design: ➢ Step 1 ❖The client and architect agree to the design concept ➢ Step 2 ❖The mechanical and electrical engineers are engaged to the design concept agreed to in step 1. ➢ Step 3 ❖Each phase of design is carried out employing the same pattern, with minimal interaction between parties. • This result to a linear, noncollaborative process with little attempt to set goals beyond meeting the owner's basic needs.
Vertical Landscaping
The vertical landscape creates a microclimate at the façade on each floor. ➢ Can be used as a windbreak ➢ Absorbs CO2 and generates O2. ➢ Improves well-being of occupants. • 10 percent increase in vegetated area can produce annual cooling load savings of 8 percent. • This strategy counterbalance the enormous mass of concrete, glass, and steel with plants.
DGNB/BNB (Germany 2
These are the issues: 1. What are the sustainability issues relevant to construction? 2. What needs to be protected? 3. How does this protection occur? The three major areas of sustainability were used as the basis organizing the DGNB/BNB building assessment system, and three other issues were also considered: Technical Quality, Process Quality, and the project's location Profile. The three major areas of sustainability were determined to be equally important and each of these was allocated 22.5 percent of the available points, a total of 90 points. The final 10 points was allocated to Process Quality, issues such as Integrated Design, commissioning and Quality Assurance.
Pervious Concrete
This an kind of affordable pavement idea that allows the rainwater seeps into ground and recharge groundwater rather than create a run-off.
Green Star (Australia)
This rating system is similar to BREEAM and LEED in its approach and structure. It was developed in 2002. Green Star was also adopted by New Zealand and South Africa as well. The Green Star building assessment system awards from one to six stars, but only those buildings from four to six stars have significance with respect to being considered high-performance buildings. The three highest achievements are: 4 Star Green Certified (Score 45-59) 5 Star Green Certified (Score 60-74) 6 Star Green Certified (Score 75-100)
Documentation and Certification
To earn LEED certification, project must meet 1) MPRs, 2) satisfies all prerequisites, and 3) earn the minimum number of points to at least attain the LEED-certified level. For LEED BD + C projects, the project team has the options to divide their review process into two separate reviews, design review and construction review and also known as split review. The benefit of a split review is that it helps the project team gauge whether the project is on track for achieving the anticipated LEED certification level. LEED-Online specifies which points are either design-phase credit or construction phase credits. Any comment given by GBCI must be responded by project team within 25 days.
Natural Capitalism
Ways to reduce resource extraction ➢Dematerialization of products ➢Increasing recycling rate of products ➢Increasing durability of products
Stormwater Management
Transforming the natural environment by development dramatically affects the quantity and flows of stormwater across the surface of the earth. • Covering landscapes with buildings and infrastructure replaces largely pervious surfaces with impervious materials. ➢ Increasing the volume and velocity of horizontal water flows. • Green building addresses the issue of stormwater management by protecting ecosystems and the pervious character of landscapes.
Deforestation
Trees are necessary to prevent erosion, landslides, and avalanches. • Large scale deforestation also affects the albedo and may lead to desertification (arid regions)
The Integrated Design Process, Cont. 5
Typical sequence of events that are indicative of integrated design, (cont'd...). ➢ The team should maximize the use of solar and other renewable forms of energy ❖Use of efficient ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). ➢ The result of the process should be several concepts design alternatives ❖Employing energy, daylighting, and other simulations. • If IDP is instituted earlier, a greater saving will be realized. • IDP should be full understanding of the potential design synergies and the connection of the project goals to the resulting building design. • IDP can also be expressed by "whole-building design". ➢ Adopted by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Design Vs. Ecological Design
Usually human-designed and engineered landscape often replaces the natural landscape with unrecyclable and toxic products manufactured by a wasteful industrial processes that were implemented with little regard for the consequences for human or ecological systems. • Failure in design resulted in climate change, and biodiversity loss. • The high-performance green building, through the application of ecological design is seeking to resolve the disconnection of human design from nature. CMGT 630 - Environmental Issues & Green Building Manso
Owner Issues in High-Performance Green Building Projects, Cont.
What is the desired qualifications of the design team and construction manager with respect to the high-performance building? ❖What background and training should the designers and construction professional have? ❖Significant documentation of numerous aspects of the project will be required. ➢What level of capital investment will be needed for construction of a high-performance green building? ❖LCC analysis will provide a breakdown of costs versus savings on an annual basis.
Green Building Documentation
the project will choose: LEED, Living Building Challenge or Green Globe? LEED Rating System: ❖LEED Online templates must be filled out for each credit. • The documentation may be submitted in two batches: ➢ Design phase ❖The project team can claim some of the credits which was decided in design period, for instance: - Preparation of USEPA Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan - Implementation of Phase I ESA for School projects or - MR Category, show a drawing that indicates building is replacing a registered historical site and will be completely remodeled rather than demolished. ➢ Construction phase
Sustainable Construction is...
the response of construction industry to the rapid negative changes in earth's environment and its ecosystem. Three major changes are motivating construction industry to develop an ethical response: Accelerated destruction of planetary ecosystem including massive destruction of life and biodiversity and fear of GW. Enormous increase in population and demand for natural resources by both developed and developing countries such as BRIC. Green Building movement is coinciding with similar transformation in manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, medicine, which adopted various approaches toward greening their activities.
Low-Impact Development, Cont. 3
water drains into a small buffer area
The Integrated Design Process
• A high level of communication and interaction is needed in order to ensure the success of a green building project. ➢ During the design stage a high level of collaboration is essential. • Integrated building design or integrated design is the name given to a high level of collaboration and teamwork that helps differentiate green building from the conventional system. • According to the US Department of Energy, integrated design is: ➢ A process in which multiple disciplines and aspects of design are integrated in a manner that permits synergistic benefits to be realized. ➢ The key success of integrated building design is the participation of people from different specialties of design.
Heat-Island Mitigation, Cont. 3
• The EPA launched the Urban Heat Island Pilot Project in 1998. For the city of Sacramento (California), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study showed that: ➢ Citywide energy bill reduction of $26.1 billion/yr ➢ Savings of 468 million watts of peak power and reducing 92,000 tons of carbon in form of CO2 annually ➢ An improvement in air quality caused by a decrease in ozone of 10 parts per billion ➢ Cooling-energy savings of 46% • The LEED rating system gives points for mitigating heat islands in Sustainable Sites category. • For non-roof, LEED gives credit for creating shades.
Fossil Fuel Dependency
• Both climate change and rapid depletion of world's reserves are connected to our dependence on fossil fuels. • Global temperature increases must be considered ➢Affect assumptions about passive design, building envelope, materials used, and types of equipment needed to deal with higher atmospheric energy levels. • The oil rollover point refers to the time when peak worldwide production of oil will occur ➢When approximately 50% of world's oil will be depleted ➢Value of oil is less than the energy needed to extract it.
Land and Landscape Approaches for Green Buildings
• Buildings require multiple category of resources for their creation and operation ➢ Energy, materials, water, and land. • Some approaches of land use to fit with the concept of highperformance green building 1. Building on land that has been previously utilized 2. Protecting and preserving wetlands 3. Using native, adapted, and drought-tolerant plants 4. Developing brownfields and grayfields 5. Reusing existing buildings 6. Protecting key natural features
Building in 100-Year-Flood Zones
• Buildings should not be constructed in flood-prone areas ➢ High potential for disasters • The FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has undertaken a massive program of flood hazard identification and mapping ➢ To produce Flood Hazards Boundary Maps ➢ Flood Insurance rate Maps ➢ Flood Boundary and Flood Maps
Carrying Capacity
• Carrying capacity ➢Limits of a specific land's capability to support people and their activities. ➢Number of people who can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits without degrading environmental aspects of future generations. • Carrying capacity is concentrated on the relationship between the population growth and land area. ➢This concept is linked to the precautionary principle.
Embodied Energy
• Embodied energy refers to the total energy consumed in the acquisition and processing of raw materials ➢Including manufacturing, transportation, installation, and disposal • Products with greater embodied energy → Higher environmental impacts. • The division of embodied energy by product's time in use gives an accurate indication of environmental impacts.
Protecting the Vulnerable
• Environment and animals/biota are vulnerable to some actions of humans ➢Destruction of ecosystems ➢Introduction of new technologies • People essentially powerless due to governing and economic structure can also be vulnerable. • The protecting vulnerable principle implies the protection of all vulnerable species and humans
Summary and Conclusions (Green Globes)
• Green Globes is an alternative building assessment system for use in the United States for new and existing buildings. • It differs in many important ways from LEED. ➢Project management ❖Credit for integrated design and environmental purchasing. ❖Credit for conducting life-cycle assessments ❖1000 points with NA points Green Globes Assessor visits the project at the end of construction to review all the credit claimed by the project team. • The Assessor also serves as a resource in resolving gray areas that are not directly covered by the Green Globes questionnaire and support systems. • The ANSI/GBI 01-2010 standard will serve as the template for the Green Globes assessment process.
Construction Delivery Systems: Integrated Project Delivery, Cont. 3
• IPD process is designated to produce shorter delivery times than other construction delivery systems. • The emergence of collaborative software provides opportunities to improve the flow of documentation. • Relational contracts (single contract) are the key documents in IPD ➢They define relationships between all the parties
Net Zero Buildings
• New concepts emerging to begin coping with huge quantities of CO2 emissions ➢ Low-carbon buildings ➢ Carbon neutral buildings ➢ Zero-carbon buildings • Net Zero Energy (NZE) buildings ➢ Grid-interconnected buildings that can export excess energy produced during the day and import in the evenings. ❖Energy balance over course of year • The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) concluded that NZE could easily be achieved on one-story buildings if their roofs are equipped with PV systems. The implementation of NZE is now a national policy • The US Department of Energy has programs in place with specific objectives regarding NZE by 2050. • The ASHRAE proposed energy label - Energy Quotient. Reserves the highest rating for NZE.
Green Building Movement
• Significant impact - US construction industry 8% GDP, 40% of extracted material use. ➢5-10 lbs waste/ft2 new construction ➢70-100 lbs waste/ft2 renovation • GBM is response of construction industry to environmental challenges • Multiple actors/stakeholders - from USGBC to DOE, EPA, etc. - increasingly = mainstream
Land and Landscape Approaches for Green Buildings 2
• Some approaches of land use to fit with the concept of highperformance green building: 1. Minimizing the impacts of construction on the site 2. Minimizing earth moving and compaction of soil during construction 3. Fully using the sun, prevailing winds, and passive solar energy 4. Maintaining as much as possible natural hydroperiod of the site 5. Using alternative stormwater management technologies - Green roofs, pervious pavement, bioretention, etc. 6. Minimizing heat-island effect 7. Using natural wetlands to the maximum extent possible in the stormwater management scheme.
Eco-Efficiency
• The Eco-efficiency concept was developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), in 1992. It includes environmental impacts and costs as a factor in calculating business efficiency. It describes the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfies human needs and enhances the quality of life while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the products life cycles to a level commensurate with Earth's estimated carrying capacity. Four principles of Eco-efficiency: 1) Dematerialization: substituting knowledge flows for material flow 2) Closing production loops, biomimicry 3) Service extension 4) Functional extension, DfE concept
Green Globes - Origin and Definition
• The Green Globes is a revolutionary green management tool that includes a rating system, an assessment protocol, and a guide for integrating environmental friendly design into commercial buildings. • It is building assessment system with roots in UK and Canada. In 2004 GBI acquired the rights to promote GGBAS in US. In 2005 adopted by American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ➢ Progressively presented as an alternative to LEED in the US • It provides a rating of one to four green globes for building projects depending on the percentage of the maximum points that the project actually achieves.
Sustainable, Ecological, and Green Design
• The concept of "resource-conscious" design is crucial to sustainable construction ➢It aims to minimize natural resource consumption and resulting ecological impacts. ➢It allows to close materials loops by eliminating solid, liquid, and gaseous emissions. ❖Reuse or recycle materials instead of disposing of them. - Recycled materials must be nontoxic to biological systems. - Dissipation of residue to the atmosphere is inevitable = avoidance
Ecological Footprint
• The ecological footprint is the inverse of the carrying capacity. ➢Represents the land area needed to support a given population. ❖i.e.: London requires a land area 125 times greater than its physical footprint. ❖ The entire planet cannot live with the North-American style. • The ultimate problem must be resolved through sustainable development.
Location of the Building
• The location of the building is a key factor in reducing energy consumption ➢Transportation energy can amount to two times the operational energy of the building. ➢Selecting locations that facilitate mass transit, alternative transportation, etc. offers huge savings • Lowering the energy consumption of the building → less significant when greater proportion used in commuting, • Land recycling as much as possible, avoid converting farmlands to residential/commercial sites.
Sustainable Construction
• The outcome of applying sustainable construction approaches to creating a responsible built environment is commonly referred to as: ➢High-performance buildings or ➢Green buildings • Building assessment or building rating systems provide all criteria and a grading system to determine if requirements are met to certify as a green building. ➢e.g. LEED
LEED Documentation, Cont.
• The project team must decide at the start of the project how information will flow among the various parties and who will compile and produce the information for the appropriate LEED Online Template. • Calculations must be provided to show that the requirements are met for some credits • Additional information may be required by the USGBC audits.
Land Use Issues
• The selection of a building site is generally the purview of the building owner, but often may be affected by input from members of the project team. • One of the most important green measures in siting a new building is to locate it where the need for automobiles is minimized ➢While conserving open spaces and amenities ➢Urban locations next to mass transit are the most desirable
Selecting a Green Building Team
• When an owner decides to produce high-performance green building, the next order of business is to select the appropriate design and construction teams. • The selection process proceeds with the issuance of RFQ and RFP. ➢ With specifications of additional criteria regarding highperformance green building. ➢ RFP should specify that architects, engineers, and other members must understand the owner's green goals. ❖See the AIA guide "Write the green RFP"
Benefits of Sustainable Design (Indoor Env. Quality)
➢Economic ❖Higher productivity, lower incidence ❖Reduced staff turnover, litigation, and insurance ➢Societal ❖Reduced adverse health impacts of absenteeism ❖Improved occupant comfort and satisfaction ➢Environmental ❖Better indoor air quality (including reduced emissions of volatile compounds, CO2, CO).
Benefits of Sustainable Design (siting)
➢Economic ❖Reduce costs for site preparation, parking lots, roads, etc. ➢Societal ❖Improve aesthetics ❖More transportation options for employees ➢Environmental ❖Land preservation and less air pollution ❖Reduce resource use and energy use ❖Protection of ecological resources ❖Soil and water conservation
