Thinking of Passive Solar First: The Foundation of Sustainable Design
When you think of what is required for a building to be considered sustainable, what comes to mind first? Solar panels? Graywater systems or rainwater collection? Maybe you’ve already decided that green roofs, xeriscaping, reclaimed woods, and low/no VOC products are necessary for the complete “sustainable” package.
What about the orientation of the building on its lot?
Vertical fins and Greenscreens are effective for retrofitting an existing building in order reduce the energy demands of operation. However, skyscrapers and small houses alike would demand significantly less artificial lighting, heating, and air conditioning if the first step in their design recognized the impact of seasonal solar gain and shading.
The building sector is the portion of the US economy that consumes approximately 75% of all electricity and produces almost half of the nation’s carbon emissions. Ed Mazria, architect, pragmatic sustainable building champion, and creator of The 2030 Challenge, claims that cities investing in sustainable methods of construction will not only turn the recession-hit building sector around, but significantly affect country’s energy consumption as well. In doing so, the building sector will be transformed into something far more sustainable.
Passive Solar Tree House by L.A. Architects Standard
Any architect can throw a digital model into Ecotect to quickly produce a whole-building energy analysis of their final product before it’s built. More importantly, such environmental analysis programs can be easily integrated as part of each stage of creating a new project to provide instant feedback for decisions made throughout the design and construction process. Intelligent placement in the landscape should be the initial move.
Most agree that in order to tackle the very real energy problems that face every nation and every individual consumer, conventional means of building need to be transformed. Happily, the first step to designing sustainable environments is very basic one.
[...] article on The Urban Times: Click HERE Passive Solar Tree House by L.A. Architects Standard Share [...]
[...] 20/20 green design vision, a scheme that will see more Burger King restaurants incorporate renewable energy in its daily operations. The restaurant boasts an impressive array of energy conserving features [...]