SUSTAINABLE

DESIGN

Prepared By;
Ar. Asia Jabeem
Assistant Professor Architecture
 Architects educated in green design better serve
their clients by designing buildings that cost less
to occupy and maintain.
 Since most of the features that make a building
sustainable are incorporated in the design phase,
architects can play a pivotal role in determining
how green a building is.
 Factors that determine a building’s performance,
such as site selection; orientation; foundation,
walls, and roof; heating, cooling, and ventilation;
and lighting, are either directly or indirectly
influenced by the design decisions of the
architect.
Site Selection
Although site selection is usually based on price, a poor decision
can preclude several sustainable features.
Making the most out of what the site has to offer can be the
difference between a high performance building and a
traditional one.
Orientation
Proper orientation allows for passive solar gain and day lighting. In
the northern hemisphere, south-facing windows have the greatest
exposure to the sun. West-facing windows need to be carefully
designed, as the low
angle of the setting sun can cause overheating.
Foundation, Walls, and Roof
The envelope of the building is a significant determinant of how
much energy is required to heat and cool it.
The challenge in designing the foundation, walls, and roof is to minimize
conductive heat loss/gain while minimizing uncontrolled movement of air
into the building.
Heating, Air Conditioning, and Ventilation
Reducing the heat load of the structure allows for the
installation of a smaller heating and cooling system.
The importance of high quality ventilation systems is
often overlooked during the design phase, but is a
fundamental consideration in buildings.
 Lighting
U.S. Department of Energy research found that lighting
and appliances consume 14 percent of the energy used
in a residence. Occupants want living/working spaces
that are bright and inviting.
Energy-efficient buildings make use of natural daylight
in high traffic areas and are designed for individual,
local control to avoid wasting energy.
 According to the scientific community,
climate change is happening and its effects
will have severe consequences for our society
and environment. Reducing energy use in
buildings is one of the most important ways
to reduce humans’ overall environmental
impact.
The pollutants released into the atmosphere
cause local air pollution. However, they also
cause regional air pollution, as with huge
plumes of smoke covering a large area, and
acid rain.
Beyond that, we are emitting such a high level
of pollutants that they are causing serious
global environmental problems: climate change
and ozone depletion.
The human race has become capable of
affecting the atmosphere that encircles the
Earth, and the very planet itself.
 Processes such as fossil fuel burning in industry,
motor vehicles and buildings emit pollutants that
cause local and regional pollution. These
pollutants include particulate matter (PM) and
ground-level ozone (O3) — the key ingredients of
smog — along with nitrogen oxides (NOx),
sulphur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) and carbon monoxide (CO).
 The same processes also release greenhouse
gases, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), methane
(CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), which are linked to
global climate change.
 In some cases, air pollutants contribute to
climate change, and greenhouse gases contribute
to air pollution:
 Air pollutants such as ground-level ozone and
soot (a portion of particulate matter) contribute
directly to global warming, which is linked to
climate change.
 Methane, one of the most important greenhouse
gases, is a major cause of increased ground-level
ozone.
 Climate change itself may have a direct impact on
air quality. Air quality modeling studies show
that with warmer temperatures in the future,
higher levels of ozone will be produced in North
American cities.
 The rapidly growing world energy use has already
raised concerns over supply difficulties, exhaustion of
energy resources and heavy environmental impacts
(ozone layer depletion, global warming, climate
change, etc.).
 The global contribution from buildings towards
energy consumption, both residential and
commercial, has steadily increased reaching figures
between 20% and 40% in developed countries, and
has exceeded the other major sectors: industrial and
transportation.
 Growth in population, increasing demand for building
services and comfort levels, together with the rise in
time spent inside buildings, assure the upward trend
in energy demand will continue in the future.
 For this reason, energy efficiency in buildings is today
a prime objective for energy policy at regional,
national and international levels.
buildings come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes,
and purposes, and they have been built at different
times according to different standards.
Consequently, addressing energy use in any given
building requires a holistic approach to ensure the
best results.
In considering buildings generally, the following
elements play important roles in shaping energy
consumption and use.
Whole-building design standards include most or
all of these categories in order to maximize energy
savings, but frequently any adjustments in these
areas can be beneficial.
Embodied energy refers to the energy required
to extract, manufacture, transport, install, and
dispose of building materials.
The GHG emissions associated with the
embodied energy of a building are not
attributed to “buildings” in above values, but
efforts to reduce this energy use and
associated emissions, for example through the
substitution of bio-based products, can be
made as part of a larger effort to reduce
emissions from buildings.
Overall building design can help determine the
amount of lighting, heating, and cooling a building
will require.
Architects and engineers have developed
innovative new ways to improve overall building
design in order to maximize light and heat
efficiency.
Another important determinant of energy
consumption is size because larger buildings
generally require more energy for heating, cooling,
and lighting. The United States has seen a general
trend of increased building size among residential
buildings.
The building envelope is the interface between
the interior of a building and the outdoor
environment.
Minimizing heat transfer through the building
envelope is crucial for reducing the need for
space heating or cooling.
Insulation, air sealing, and windows can each
play an important role in minimizing heat
transfer.
The terms “on-site generation” or “distributed
generation” refer to energy that is produced at
the point of use and encompass many different
options from both renewable and fossil fuel
sources, as well as small energy storage
systems.
Many buildings can integrate distributed
generation as either an alternative or
supplement to grid-supplied electricity.
Utilizing efficient technologies can reduce GHG
emissions by moderating energy use.
In both residential and commercial buildings,
energy consumption is dominated by space
heating, cooling, and air conditioning (HVAC)
and lighting.
In addition to reducing energy use and
associated GHG emissions, energy efficiency
improvements also yield a variety of co-
benefits, including lower monthly utility bills
and greater energy security
 Fossil fuels are very important to us today. Without fossil
fuels we wouldn't be able to do many of the things that we
need to or enjoy doing everyday.
 We use fossil fuels all the time doing almost everything
and almost every thitng we use is made of fossil fuels.
EVERYTHING we buy or get from a store is shipped, made
with, and may require the use of fossil fuels. Without fossil
fuels we wouldn't have cars, airplanes or even as much
energy as we do today.
 Lots of our energy is produced using fossil fuels. Almost
everything we use or need is supported by fossil fuels. We
NEED fossil fuels as of today. Everything we use is
supported by them and so if we don't find another method
before they run out prices of EVERYTHING will skyrocket
too high for anyone to live on todays income.
 The importance of fossil fuels is everything and anything
that we use.
 Can you imagine what life would be like without the use of
fossil fuels? Here is what they are used for and what we
would need to live without.
Fossil fuels are layers of plants and animals that died
millions of years ago and have got compressed and buried
deep into the earth. (like a pressure cooker) they form as
coal and liquid hydrocarbons (oil, gas).
Coal is one of the first fossil fuels known to us. It has been
used for a heating source for hundreds of years. We have
found many other uses as well such as: powering steam
driven locomotives(trains), and today is used in factories
to help produce steel, concrete, paper, plastics and most
importantly Electricity.
 Oil was said to be discovered by the native
Americans. This oil was found seeping to the
earth's surface and was used for medicinal
purposes at first. The first successful oil well was
drilled in Pennsylvania in the 1800s. many uses
are, the lamp oil, lubricants, and would later be
used to power automobiles, trains, planes and is
still used to this day.
Natural gas was discovered in the same way as
oil. Seeping up through the earth's surface
and producing the same foul smell. This
resource was used for lighting, cooking and
heating. Today it has globally become one of our
main sources of heat.
 We need fossil fuels for our food, water,
electricity, plastics, supply's, transportation,
and even our food. Without fossil fuels we
would need different methods to get these
which would cost more spiking the cost of
everything we buy and use, as of recently gas
has spiked up to 1.40 a gallon because the
lack of oil left in the earth.
These developments have led invariably to an assumption that
we are “done” with fossil fuels across the energy system, that
there is no need for further development of new resources, and
that we have to stop using them as soon as possible. This
assumption has also led to a perception of “good” renewables-
based technologies in global energy systems today, on the one
hand, and “bad” fossil fuels-based technologies, on the other.
The reality is that this debate is much more nuanced and
requires more thorough investigation. Carbon capture and
storage (CCS) technology and managing methane emissions
throughout the fossil energy value chain can help meet
ambitious CO2 emission reduction targets, while fossil fuels
remain part of the energy system. This will thereby allow fossil
fuels to become "part of the solution", rather than remain "part
of the problem". All technologies have a role to play in an
energy system guided by rational economics.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our
time. Equally important, however, is the need to ensure
access to energy for quality of life and for economic
development. It is therefore critically important to
address climate change as part of the sustainable
development agenda. Ongoing progress in the
development of new technologies has brought
confidence and hope that these objectives will be met
in the energy system. Dramatic price reductions and
technological advancement of wind generators and
solar photovoltaic have shown that these renewable
energy resources can be important players in global
electricity systems, and that the long-anticipated
breakthrough in cost-effective storage technology
would shift primary energy mixes substantially.
Renewables cannot be used uniformly across the
energy system to replace the use of fossil fuels
today, mostly because of the variance in the ability
of different energy subsectors to switch from fossil
fuels to renewables. For example, in some
industrial applications such as cement and steel
production, emissions come from both the energy
use and the production process. Alternative
technologies that can replace current production
techniques are not yet available at the scale
needed, so it is expected that these techniques will
persist in the short to medium term. In these
cases, CCS can provide a solution consistent with
current demands and give the time needed to
develop future alternative approaches.