The idea of green architecture may be getting a lot of press lately, but it’s really not a new idea. Green architecture has been around about as long as, well, architecture. That’s because some of the core tenants of the green architecture movement, using local and energy-efficient materials, conserving space and taking into consideration things like local climate have always been important to architects.
The number of sustainable buildings keeps growing every year. And so has the green building industry. As a $5 billion industry in 2005, green architecture revenues this year are expected to pass $12 billion.
And if Edward Mazria has his way, the green architecture will only continue to expand. Mazria has initiated the 2030 Challenge, a project that seeks to eliminate the fossil-fuel-based energy use in all U.S. buildings by 2030. That sounds like a pretty tall order, even for the booming green architecture industry. But Mazria says that the goal can be reached by building smaller houses that use less energy.
Of the entire greenhouse gases consumed by the house building process, 25% are produced by furnaces and water heaters. The rest is produced by local utility companies which generate utilities such as electricity.
According to Mazria, we could reduce 50 percent of greenhouse emissions by implementing green architecture that focuses on reducing heating requirements for houses. The easiest way to do this is to reduce the house size. Then, greenhouse emissions can be reduced by modifying old houses and buildings to be more energy-efficient. Also, and perhaps the most simple green architecture technique, Mazria suggests that houses orient their main living quarters southward, so sunlight can be tapped during the day.
The last step for better green architecture, and the one that will probably require the most work, is to switch from old heating, cooling and hot water equipment to energy equipment fueled by renewable resources.
Mazria sees this green architecture challenge as potentially successful because it takes a mixed approach to building greener homes. There’s no single solution. It won’t be easy for green architecture to reduce greenhouse emissions, but most agree that multi-pronged approaches like Mazria’s are the best shot.
Tags: fair green trade, Green Architects, Green Architecture
December 16, 2008 at 1:44 am
Almost every building built before the industrial revolution was considered “green” architecture since they essentially relied on passive means to heat and cool the spaces. The mixed approach being discussed by Mazria is a shift to the original strategy of human habitation where in order to live in certain locales people had to adapt and develop technologies that reflected the climate and their culture.
A great example of this is when white settlers first inhabited the Sonoran Desert in Arizona (Phoenix, Tucson). The original structures included large verandas that wrapped around most of the building, and people would hang large sheets that had been soaked in water. The location of the verandas allowed multiple entry points for cross ventilation and the wet sheets would essentially cool the air. The buildings were also constructed with high ceilings which allowed the warmer air to escape the space, thus bringing in the more cooler air. When air conditioning was invented all of the buildings started to be built similarly to how they were built in other parts of the country. The total dependence on technology produced a design that did not respond to the local climatic conditions, thus needed more energy to cool and light the buildings.
Our society has made the mistake of relying too dependently on technology and not using it to supplement passive strategies.
Eric McNeal
bluearchitecture.wordpress.com