Are we all Environmental Architects
when i visited
arizona in the united states a few years
ago i was immediately shocked by two
things
first i was one of the very few people
walking in the street and not using a
car
and second i had to carry a jacket with
me everywhere i went
even when it was 38 degrees celsius
outside
why did i need the jacket well despite
being so warm outside
most of the buildings were
air-conditioned to freezing point
something which i’m sure you’re all
familiar with to some degree
but the contrast in arizona was one that
i’ve never experienced before
i can recall one building in particular
where i even noticed that
some of the workers had heaters set on
full blast
under their desk to keep themselves warm
as they tapped away at their keyboards
despite it being sweltering outside
as an observer i was bemused by the
situation
hot weather outside an air conditioning
system indoors to cool you down
but so much so that you needed to use a
heater on a maximum setting to warm you
back up
how much energy was being unnecessarily
wasted here
you may or may not be surprised that the
major
areas of energy consumption in buildings
are heating ventilation and air
conditioning accounting for 35 percent
of total building energy use
lighting 11 major appliances
18 with the remaining 36 percent
in miscellaneous areas including
electronics
most of us are already familiar with the
impact of cars on co2 emissions
but how many of us are aware of exactly
how our seemingly innocent conscious
actions
as building occupants from our homes to
the office
the under desk heater at full blast
being a casing point
are unconsciously damaging our
environment
while there is an expectation that our
buildings should be designed in a way to
minimize
energy consumption the key factors that
influence these consumptions
are far more complex than we realize
and make us accountable especially when
one of this
is the human factor a term used to
describe how humans
interact with a particular environment
under
different conditions buildings are often
thought of
or described in a physical aesthetic and
emotional sense
how do they look how does the space
within the building
makes you feel but how often do you hear
someone say this building is an
architectural marvel
i wonder how much energy it consumes or
i just feel so connected with this
building i wonder how much co2 it emits
well here are some facts that may
interest you
buildings consume around one third of
the total primary energy resources
building energy consumption accounts for
30 percent of the global co2 emission
human behavior and by this i mean the
good kind of behavior
can potentially save up to 80 percent of
a building’s energy consumption
now that we know that modifying human
behavior can have such a positive
impact on energy consumption how do we
as a society and individually work
towards this saving of 80 percent
i’d like to focus your attention on
these women
walking across the desert so elegantly
in their colorful saris carving water
parts
they are screened from the sun by their
light clothing
permeable to the wind they have a fairly
open
posture which maximizes the evaporation
from their bodies
cooling it down and water pots that they
are carrying
also for an extra shield from the sun
and some evaporative cooling
this is an example of adaptive behavior
a behavior that refers to when a person
is able to successfully endure their
environment
through modifying their behavior
deployed by our early ancestors
to deal with habited change and
environmental diversity
it has been our strongest weapon to
survive the harshest climatic conditions
for millions of years while
walking across a hot desert with the sun
beating down on us may not be an
everyday pursuit for most of us
from making a conscious choice in the
selection of our clothing
to how much we move in our home and work
environment
there are plenty of adaptive behaviors
that can
that we can adopt to achieve comfort in
the environments that we inhabit
alongside adaptive behavior tapping into
behavioral
neuroscience may also offer a solution
in conserving the energy of buildings
reminding us that the greater motivator
to behavioral change
is pleasure more than fear in architect
lisa hessen’s book thermal delight in
architecture
she reminds us of the potential of using
thermal qualities
as an expressive element in building
design
and inspires us to consider a new
dimension to the architectural
experience
she argues that for many years building
technology and design
has favored methods of high energy
consumption
to neutralize the thermal environment
which has compromised our thermal coping
and sensing
mechanisms the various ways that people
use
remember and care about the thermal
environment
and how they associate the thermal sense
with their other senses
like visual acoustic or factory and
tactile
has been somewhat deprioritized and
replaced with central heating system
and air conditioning and hermetically
sealed buildings
providing a thermally monotonous
experience
for example think about how coming home
after a walk in the cold to an open fire
might spark feelings of joy even if the
air temperature of the space is much
lower
than what you might experience in coming
back to say
an overly heated office the visual
stimuli
and evocative power of the open fire
and not your computer screen as well as
the acclimatization from being outdoors
enhances our thermal experience which
can increase our feelings of comfort
and even improve our mood theories
in thermal comfort science have also
revealed that
what regulates our thermal experience is
not
just a single core thermal receptor as
previously thought
but a multitude of thermal receptors
found in our skin so if we harness
this new knowledge in the way that we
think about comfort
the way we choose to see comfort and the
way we design for
comfort we are more likely to find
opportunities for adaptation
and energy savings like enhancing
natural ventilation
and relaxing the dress code in an office
as alternatives to cranking up the air
conditioning
of course we must forget the more
practical
basic ways to reduce energy consumption
that
everyone can get involved in sometimes
it can be difficult to know where to
start
in trying to address issues such as
climate change as the topic can seem so
vast
it can be difficult to visualize how our
small-scale
efforts will contribute towards
rectifying
these large-scale global issues
especially if there is no definitive
visible end goal in sight the solution
here is just to start
simple everyday energy saving techniques
in the long run can make all the
difference with the help of smart
metering and the internet of things
this will become increasingly easier to
implement
while climate change and energy
consumption are topics that are often
reported in the media with a plethora of
high-profile figures advocating
how our attitudes in climate change have
to change
many studies have shown that beyond the
use of transport
energy consumption and hence co2
emissions
and our contributions towards it is
poorly understood
amongst the general public so how do we
make people more aware
of the implications of energy using
buildings and what can we do
to change this how do we make this
discussion mainstream
and this is a challenge because let’s
face it the topic of energy consumption
in relation to building
isn’t sexy well we create a movement
currently we are not harnessing the
collective social and political
will to change in the right way and we
are losing a battle to achieve a better
future for subsequent generations
we need to make people more aware of how
their behavior
impacts the environment we need to
spotlight the simple
relatively effortless measures i’ve
already mentioned
in a way which is unequivocal achievable
and quantifiable and encourage people to
adapt their behavior
to do their part in reducing global
energy consumption
we need to drive people to take action
today in recent months
we have unwillingly signed up to the
biggest global experiment of our time
that may have restricted our movement
yet has clearly demonstrated
the power of our inadvertent collective
efforts
in making the air cleaner in our cities
and the water
clearer in our harbors and canals we
have given back to nature
because our choices have been restricted
through the forces of nature
yet the challenging experience of the
pandemic
has taught us as a very valuable lesson
that the possibility for change and a
better environment
is there if we want it the challenge is
how do we go about
engaging people and sustaining interest
which is no mean fit so how about if we
brought
the focus back to how the movement
benefit us in recent years
health and well-being has gradually
moved up to the top of the environmental
design
and sustainable agenda for buildings
environmental
design building experts have evolved
from documenting sick building syndrome
which is experienced when people
complain of symptoms associated with
acute discomfort
such as headaches eye nose and throat
irritation or fatigue for example
that are related to an experience in a
specific building
to developing new building standards
which focus on the health and well-being
of occupants
and give specific guidelines on the way
to design healthier buildings
these buildings are also defined as
those that require
a minimal amount of energy to run and
are based on natural
and climate responsive strategies to
maximize
daylight to ventilate cool and keep warm
with solar energy
these are the buildings where occupants
are encouraged to
adopt adaptive behavior and feel
motivated to do so
knowing that the building will have a
positive impact on their health and
well-being
these are the building of our future the
future we want to build
requires a positive vision of our world
inspiring the collective imagination
with this positive
outlook can be a valuable strategy to
motivate people
towards energy and environmentally
responsive behavior
not because it is a chore but because we
know it’s good for us
it makes us healthy and happy paula
allen an environmental expert in
professional speaker who has devoted his
career to the education of building
professionals planners and policy makers
on finding solutions for climate change
promotes a zero-carbon vision for
britain
which is based on a positive outlook of
the future
rather than the dystopian and
apocalyptic
narrative which has dominated much of
the last
40 years when it comes to climate change
the media often peddles notion of the
guilt and shame we should feel
and what we have done to our planet
accompanied by images of melting
glaciers
and ice caps and compromise wildlife
with constant reminders of the imminent
catastrophe that lies ahead
within a fragmented and divided
political scene
but it doesn’t have to be this way as a
society
we need to adopt the already existing
alternative frameworks for the
decarbonization of
transport food energy buildings and land
use
and approach climate change with
optimism
and hope originally derived from the
greek word
architecture meaning chief creator the
verb
architectare in italian which doesn’t
translate directly
in english means to conceive
and mastermind envision predict
and realize the end result we are all
capable
of becoming the chief architects of our
future
knowing that we can influence the
immediate environment around us
on a global scale the way we use our
buildings
and interact with our environment has
the potential to be much more efficient
powerful and meaningful than any other
design
object in any other time in history
with seemingly small decision that we
make
as occupants of those buildings from our
homes
to our offices can make a substantial
difference in the energy consumption of
a building
and hence our environment as evidenced
by those raging
under the desk heaters in arizona we all
share the responsibility for reducing
emissions
from the buildings that we occupy and
for improving the environment and its
performance
as we move towards the increasingly
interactive views
and complex co-production of buildings
we become
architects of our immediate environment
it is a simultaneous multiple ripple
effect
leading to something greater better and
more powerful
the british architect norman foster once
said
as an architect you design for the
present with an awareness of the past
for a future which is essentially
unknown
i now say let’s not let our future be
unknown
because we can all be environmental
architects of our future