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How Building Construction Affects the Environment

It’s not just the methods and materials used to construct a building that affects the
environment. How it’s built to operate has a huge impact as well.
For example, using non-sustainable materials in the construction of the building has a
temporary negative effect. The use of a non-efficient HVAC system will have
a negative effect on the environment that’s long-term. The following are some of the
major ways that building construction can hurt the environment, both in the short- and
long-term:

Energy Use
Believe it or not, according to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), buildings
account for an average of 41% of the world’s energy use. The two other biggest energy
consumers don’t even come close. The industrial sector accounts for 30% while
transportation accounts for 29%. Part of this is due to the huge amount of electricity that
buildings tend to use. In the United States, buildings are responsible for 73% of the
country’s electricity consumption.
So what is it that’s taking up so much energy? Well, it’s many things. A building’s lighting
system, heating and cooling system and outlet use all contribute.
Water Use
Buildings are responsible for not just a large percentage of the world’s water use, but a large
percentage of wasted water as well. It’s estimated that buildings use 13.6% of all potable water, which
is roughly 15 trillion gallons of water per year.

Construction Materials
The materials used in building construction also have a serious impact on the environment. First of all,
many of the materials used in the construction of buildings are produced in a non-sustainable way. The
factories that make the materials produce damaging CO2 emissions.
Then there’s the issue of transportation. Materials that are not produced locally are often shipped from
across the country or even from overseas. The transportation required for shipping these materials has
a considerable impact on air quality.
There is a huge environmental impact associated with the extraction and consumption of raw materials
for the use of building materials. Not to mention the actual production of those materials in their final
form. According to the USGBC, 40% of the world’s raw materials are used in the construction of
buildings.
Waste From Building Construction and Demolition
The destruction and renovation of buildings result in a large amount of waste.
Building waste often includes concrete, metals, glass, plastics, wood, asphalt, bricks and more.
This waste is often disposed of in either landfills or incinerators. Not only does this pollute the
land and the air, but the transportation required to remove such waste has a major impact on the
environment as well.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there were already over 170 million tons of
debris generated in the construction and demolition of buildings in the U.S. alone in 2003. 61
percent of which were produced by non-residential buildings.

Impact on the Air


American building construction is responsible for a huge percentage of the greenhouse gas
emissions that have been affecting climate change. In fact, the buildings are responsible for 38%
of all CO2 emissions.
Measures which can be taken
With buildings contributing close to half of the energy use, and energy use being the number one contributor to global warming, an obvious way to mitigate
climate change is to design low or no-energy use buildings. To do so means going back to basics and looking carefully at how the design of a building is
optimized to the particular features of a specific site in order to minimize the potential of extreme energy use.
Climate responsive architecture takes into consideration seasonality, the direction of the sun (sun path and solar position), natural shade provided by the
surrounding topography, environmental factors (such as wind, rainfall, humidity) and climate data (temperature, historical weather patterns, etc.) to design
comfortable and energy efficient homes.
In a nutshell, architects will need to consider the following before ever starting the design and architecture of a building:
• Perform a site analysis. Determine the weather patterns, climate, soil types, wind speed and direction, heating degree days and path of the sun. Look at
the water flows, habitat and geology of the site. Document each with a qualified team of professionals to understand the ramifications of building in that
specific place.
• Layout the building on the site. Using an integrative design process, use a basic massing of the building layout to determine specifically on site the
most optimal location for the building to be situated. Factors to consider here are access to infrastructure, staying at least 100 feet clear of any watershed,
not building within a floodplain and/or in a habitat with endangered species. Asking what trees and other existing geological features should be avoided
or how water flows across the site can dictate the location of the building.
• It’s all about the sun, so orient the building based upon cardinal directions. The goal here is to maximize the amount of sun that heats the space in
the winter (hence using less energy to mechanically heat) and decrease the amount of sun that cooks the building in the summer (hence using less energy
to mechanically cool).
• Select the appropriate window areas and glazing types based on orientation. South facing facades should utilize a window area appropriate to its
orientation and glazing should utilize a double or triple paned glass with a low-e coating to minimize the amount of heat transmitted into the space in
the hottest months while keeping heat inside during the cooler winter months. For example, a south facing glass window wall will cook the occupants
inside during the hot summer months if care is not taken to provide shade on the façade.
• Building envelope design varies greatly by geographic area. When designing the envelope of the building, factors such as insulation, vapor barriers,
and air barriers will vary radically depending on whether the project is in the cold, snowy north, the hot and humid south or the arid desert.
• Minimize the building footprint. Question the true needs of the program — do you really need that much space? Are there ways that spaces can
become multi-functional? Do we really need that many private offices if some staff can telecommute occasionally and share offices? Once your team is
set on the minimization program, take a look at the size of your footprint. Is it possible to add extra stories to make the footprint smaller? That way, the
building will have less excavation cost, and more wall area that can benefit from the warming effects of the sun and an increase in natural daylighting.
• Design for natural ventilation. Since warm air rises, a building can be cooled by designing for stack ventilation by drawing cooler air from openings
low in the building, while carrying heat away through openings in the top of the space. The rate at which the air moves is a function of the vertical
distance between the inlets and outlets, their size and the difference in temperature over the height of the room.
• Relax the occupants comfort standards. Most buildings in this day and age are designed to keep occupants fairly comfortable, at around 78 degrees
Fahrenheit. However, with climate responsive design, reducing the amount of energy used to cool and heat the building can result in using natural
systems, meaning the sun and the wind. With these, if building occupants are open to adding or removing layers during the seasons, it’s amazing how
much energy can be saved. Adding a sweater in the winter or relaxing the company dress code to shorts in the summer can be enough to eliminate
mechanical heating and cooling altogether, saving a bundle of money and the environment.
• Conduct modelling and analysis. Energy modelling, lighting models, daylighting studies, computational fluid dynamics are all tools that designers can
and should use to understand how the design best integrates with the local climate and micro-climate features specific to the site. Again, having the right
team members with modelling expertise and software is the trick to keeping costs down while exploring the best options for the design.
• Perform multiple iterations. If at first, you don’t succeed, try again! It will take the design team multiple passes of just these basic layouts in your pre-
design or schematic design phase to hone in the lowest energy use possible, optimized for your specific site. However, it’s better to spend more time in
the early phases of design to model the project which is far less costly than making changes in the field or later on in the design process. Keep at the trials
and eventually, your building will be responding directly to the climate specific to the project site.

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