Understanding sustainable architecture – building timeless designs

green building

When thinking of sustainability, you easily think of go-green, eco-friendly, and environmental health. But what is sustainable architecture, and how can this help us create a functional built environment while minimising our carbon footprint?

Sustainable architecture refers to a design that creates healthy living environments. They do this while minimising harmful effects on the ecosystem and communities. On a micro scale, it’s about a home or building using fewer resources, such as electricity or water. On a macro scale, it’s about establishing and making the built environment function well into the future. Here we share key aspects incorporated in sustainable architecture.

Environmental impact of sustainable architecture

The world is in the midst of a climate change emergency. Many of the environmental laws that were passed in the last 50 years have been rolled back. This makes it crucial for designers, architects, builders, and consumers to demand better green building practices.

Incorporating green building principles means using ethical supply chains, sustainable building practices, and ensuring your building stands the test of time.

In the design stage of the project, we look at ways to incorporate the existing environment into the design needs. In this approach, we consider using recycled, sustainably sourced, or eco-friendly materials. As a result, we minimise the carbon footprint while making it more efficient for saving money in the long term.

Design flexibility

Design flexibility allows for a building to evolve over time as the user’s needs change. The flexibility of a building or elements of its design can allow it to be used efficiently despite changes in operational requirements. Flexibility can be defined within three broad types: adaptability, transformability, and convertibility.

Adaptability is the capacity of a building to accommodate multiple functions without any changes to the architecture itself. Transformability allows for the interior or exterior space to be changed in response to certain stimuli without the need for new construction. Convertibility involves changing the function of a building through a certain amount of construction work. By planning for convertibility during the design stage, potential future needs can be assessed, and the time and cost required can be reduced.

Regenerative architecture

The term “regenerative” describes processes that restore, renew or revitalize their own sources of energy and materials. Regenerative architecture is the practice of engaging the natural world as the medium, and generator of the architecture. Regenerative architecture focuses on conservation and performance. It does this through a focused reduction of the environmental impacts of a building.

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