The need for sustainable building design

The proposed UN Global Compact Centre

The chemical, transport and even food industries are all criticised for their impact on the environment, but construction and building operation is often overlooked. Sure, we all think about switching off the office lights and finding more energy efficient servers, but the amount of resources that actually go into a construction project can drastically impact upon the environment. As such, sustainable building design is becoming more and more important, with designers and construction firms finding the most eco-friendly ways to get buildings made.

General construction work uses an inordinate amount of energy, water and raw materials and more often than not, generate large amounts of waste and potentially harmful atmospheric emissions. As a result, companies are facing demands to make environmentally friendly and eco-efficient buildings, whilst at the same time minimising their actual impact on the environment.

Eco-ideas

Lessening the impact on the environment can range from deciding to retrofit a building instead of building a new one to actually coming up with a way of making more environmentally friendly bricks. There is also an interest in taking a 'synergistic approach' to building design, ensuring that the scheme "supports an increased commitment to environmental stewardship and conservation, and results in an optimal balance of cost, environmental, societal, and human benefits while meeting the mission and function of the intended facility or infrastructure."

Recent examples of such projects include the new UN Global Compact Centre, which is being constructed in one of the most polluted areas in North America, San Francisco's Hunter's Point Shipyard; a former shipyard filled with radiation and industrial toxins. The proposed centre would be part of the United Nations "Global Compact" and would be focused on promoting sustainable and clean technologies, but it would also serve as an example of how toxic sites can be transformed into centres of innovation and inspiration.

Cutting resource usage

As you'd expect, one of the main purposes of sustainable design is to avoid the deletion of natural resources like water. As such, more and more buildings are being designed to recycle their water and well as other resources. The recently opened Environmental Agency in Bristol for example, has been designed using the latest technologies, innovative design and stringent site management to "ensure a high level of environmental performance in both the construction and use of the building".

Chief amongst its design highlights is the building's ability to harvest rainwater to cut water consumption, intelligent lighting systems to cut electricity use, natural ventilation and a ground source heat pump that reduces heating and cooling costs.

Such measures, it is estimated, will cut the building's costs by an estimated 10 percent or £180,000 per year.

It is easy to see why sustainable design is becoming more and more a point of interest for both constructor and client.

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