In building design, there are very many aspects that have to be considered when coming up with an appropriate structure that follows all the basic rules of design (Allen & Iano, 2008). A perfect example of one aspect that many architects, engineers, and designers think about when designing buildings is saving power.
There are several devices that can be used for the purpose of saving power and energy. However, for the purpose of this paper, I introduce a natural way with which power and energy can indeed be saved. This paper discusses the use and design of the green building as the best aspect with which energy and power can be efficiently sustained.
The green building is technically referred to as green construction in building design. Other people call it a sustainable building. It essentially revolves around construction and utilization of procedures which are environmentally conscious and use of resources effectively in all the stages of construction.
This starts from the selection of a proper site, the architectural design, building, tasks, care, repairs, and even flattening down of a structure. These procedures require the collaboration of the team of designers and architects as well as the owner of the building at all the phases of the project. This practice of green building enhances and supplements the classical processes of building design relative to factors such as the economy, use, resilience, and coziness.
In as much as emerging technologies are continually being created to supplement the existing trends in developing greener buildings, the mutual goals is that such structures are designed to decrease the general effect of the built atmosphere on the occupant’s health and the natural surrounding through:
- Effectively utilizing available energy and other resources such as water
- Safeguarding the health of the people and enhancing worker’s performance
- Decreasing the amount of waste, effects of pollution, and the general degradation of the environment
The model of ecological development finds its way back to the fossil oil and pollution of the environment crises in the 1970s. The green building caucus in the United States of America arose from the massive call for more energy efficient and building practices that were also environmentally conscious.
There are several reasons for having green structures. These include environmental, economic as well as social considerations. Nevertheless, contemporary sustainability practices require cohesive and synergistic structural designs. This is in relation to new buildings as well as repair of old structures. This model combines the building phases with every green exercise used with a design goal to develop a synergy in all the processes used (Yan & Stellios, 2006).
Choosing to build green combines an array of procedures, styles, and skills to eradicate and eventually finish the effects of building structures on the environment as well as the well-being of the people. It normally puts an emphasis on making good use of the opportunities offered by renewable sources such as utilizing energy from the sun through techniques like passive solar.
Other ways are using the active solar as well as photovoltaic methods to save power. Compared to modern power saving devices, it is important to observe that natural energy can indeed be saved through power saving devices such as solar panels for later use. This is a green way to save power.
The design of green buildings normally incorporates efforts to minimize the use of energy. This includes the embodied energy needed to remove, progress, carry, and fix building tools as well as the operating energy needed to offer services like heating and powering of the building equipment.
Since most high performance structures make use of little operating energy, embodied energy has become more significant and important for use. This energy could sum up to 30% of the total energy used in a single life cycle. In fact, several studies have proven that buildings constructed basically with wood materials possess lesser embodied energy compared to those constructed basically with brick or materials that are concrete in nature. This also includes steel.
To minimize the use of operating energy, building designers make use of specific details which decrease the release of air through an element known as the building envelope. The envelope refers to a hurdle found between the conditioned and the unconditioned area.
They also advice that high-performance windows be used in addition to more insulating materials in wall areas, ceiling boards, as well as floors of the buildings. The passive solar building design is an approach which is often executed in homes with low energy levels. Building designers position the windows and building walls and place sunshades, verandahs, and tree coverings to cover windows and the roofs when it is summer season.
The aim is to maximize the capturing of solar energy in the winter season which is saved in summer. Moreover, efficient positioning of the window helps give more natural lighting into a building and reduce the need to have electric lighting in the daytime. Costs associated with energy use can also be minimized through heating water by solar (Kats, 2003).
References
Allen, E & Iano, J 2008, Fundamentals of building construction: materials and methods. John Wiley & Sons Inc, New Jersey.
Kats, G 2003, The cost and financial benefits of green buildings, McGraw Hills, New York.
Yan, J & Stellios, P 2006, Design for sustainability, China Architecture and Building Press, Beijing.