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Tag: architect

Biomimicry in Sustainable Designs

Posted on by dishanth
Biomimicry in Sustainable Designs

Biomimicry in Sustainable Design

The construction industry is very energy intensive. Steel and concrete, both popular materials in construction, are very carbon-intensive in their production. Many of the emissions from concrete production are attributed to burning fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, which heat up the limestone and clay that becomes Portland cement. There is an opportunity for the construction industry to shape a nature-positive economy from the city to the building design and material and component levels.

The Mobius Project, a greenhouse designed by Iguana Architects, uses biomimicry in sustainable design by drawing inspiration from how ecosystems in nature work. They are committed to revolutionizing food production by turning waste into locally grown, low-carbon nutritious food. The biological waste can also be turned into methane to generate electricity for the greenhouse. In their closed cycle with zero waste, one organism’s waste becomes the next’s input. The idea for the Mobius Project came from observing the oak tree, which has the potential to reuse its output resources, including materials, energy and water.

The Eden Project, designed by exploration architecture, uses biomimicry in sustainable design with a giant greenhouse inspired by the biblical Garden of Eden. It was designed to resemble soap bubbles, carbon molecules, and radiolaria. The idea was that the soap bubbles would be optimally positioned in the sun to allow for complete self-healing. They also took inspiration from dragonfly wings for the best way to assemble steel pieces, allowing for a lightweight structure that required fewer carbon emissions to transport from place to place.

Designers have also looked at lotus leaves to decrease the need for protective finishings, which are usually toxic. The lotus leaf has tiny hairs covered with a waxy coating that allows it to stay dry. Water that hits the leaf will roll off the waxy nonpolar coating. This has inspired a protective coating for external areas that will repel water and dirt, which reduces the need for maintenance. Moreover, reducing the water accumulation in buildings will reduce deterioration mechanisms in infrastructures, such as steel corrosion, sulphate attacks, freezing and thawing.

Limestone-producing bacteria can be used to extend a building’s lifespan. Certain bacteria can produce limestone, filling the gaps and cracks that affect concrete structures over time. This can reduce the need to use new concrete for repairs.

Learning from nature and imputing the way nature works into our designs and in the construction industry can make our built environments more sustainable. There’s so much we can learn from nature; the more we discover, the more we can work toward reducing our impact on the planet.

 

 

 

 

Source Happy Eco News

Sustainable Housing that can be Recycled

Posted on by dishanth
Sustainable Housing that can be Recycled

Building a house from the ground up can be environmentally damaging. Buildings have a significant carbon footprint, with over 41% of global energy consumption attributed to buildings and structures. Buildings and materials also produce dangerous emissions that pollute our air, and the construction industry alone generates more than 170 tons of debris annually. There is also the issue of landfill waste, excessive use of water and noise pollution caused by the construction of buildings and houses.

SPEE Architecten, an architecture firm in the Netherlands, may have found a sustainable solution for building houses. Their projects focus on innovation and sustainability and creating healthy elements for both the residents and the environment. The architects created their newest project Speehuis House to create a site that minimally impacts the surrounding trees and wetlands with a structure that could be dismantled and recycled.

The house was built in a wooded area adjacent to a wetland area. The house’s form, size and layout are tailored to the needs of a family with three and adjoins SPEE Architects’ office premises. Large, strategically-placed windows offer a lot of natural light to the inner spaces and views of the outdoors. The entire house is made of circular and biobased materials. For example, the exterior walls and sloping roofs are made from untreated, high-density, biobased bamboo slats.

The team used Bamboo X-treme beams which consist of more than 90% of thermally modified bamboo strips. Bamboo absorbs a lot of CO2 during its growth, which remains stored throughout the product’s lifespan. Bamboo X-treme is extremely durable, dimensionally stable, and harder than most types of wood. When the bamboo fibers and resin are compressed at high temperatures, the natural sugar in the bamboo caramelizes, rendering it rot-resistant. These materials can be conveniently dismantled, adapted and recycled as need be.

Most of the home’s shell, including the stairs, interior doors, desks and cabinets, is made from cross-laminated timber that was chosen to avoid using concrete. The entire shell was prefabricated in less than a week. The wood was sourced from responsibly managed forests and was selected to create a natural and healthy indoor environment and a carbon sink. The architecture team estimates that over 93 000 kg of CO2 is stored within the building. In comparison, the same building built in concrete would produce 46,694 kg of CO2.

The home that SPEE Architecten has built shows us a future of what the construction industry can look like and how we can live more sustainably. The design is spacious and tasteful and allows for comfortable living without causing harm to the environment. If more architecture firms transitioned to building homes like the Speehuis House, the environmental impact from the construction industry would decrease substantially.

 

 

 

 

Source Happy Eco News

India has a looming air con headache. Does antiquity hold the solution?

Posted on by dishanth
India has a looming air con headache. Does antiquity hold the solution?

As the climate crisis makes the world hotter, people are looking to stay cool. By 2050, there could be three times as many air conditioning units on the planet as there were in 2018. But are an estimated 5.6 billion units — and their accompanying energy demands — really the answer?

In India, for example, the International Energy Agency believes air conditioning could account for 45% of peak electricity demand by 2050 unless things change. The vast majority of India’s electricity supply still comes from coal (although heavy investment in renewables is underway). Pair dirty energy with hydrofluorocarbons, the highly-potent greenhouses gases used in air conditioning units, and you have a solution that’s compounding the problem in the long term.
Luckily there’s people like New Delhi architect and designer Monish Siripurapu. The founder of Ant Studio is looking at the issue of cooling and is looking back — way back — for answers.
India is no stranger to passive cooling systems: the famous stepwells of Rajasthan have used water evaporation to offer relief from the heat for over 1,500 years. Jaali, a type of latticed screen filtering sunlight indoors, are another centuries-old method of keeping cool. But for his solution Siripurapu turned to the Ancient Egyptians, who would fan a porous jar of water to produce cool air.
A beehive-like terracotta cooling structure being built in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Ant Studio

 

Dubbed the CoolAnt, Siripurapu’s system comprises a honeycomb-like network of terracotta tubes. Water is circulated by an electric pump over the surface of the structure, inspired by a beehive for maximum surface area, he explains. Water evaporates from the terracotta surface when air passes through the tubes, cooling the air.
The studio’s cooling system was first conceived for factories and places where machines throw out hot air. With temperatures in summer upward of 50 degrees Celsius near the air exhausts, the CoolAnt system can reduce the heat to the mid-30s Celsius, its creator claims.
Ant Studio’s first model in a factory in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, is topped up with 200 liters of water every week, recycled by the factory, and used 3-4 hours a day, six days a week, explains Siripurapu.
An example of the CoolAnt natural ventilation system using rectangular terracotta as the evaporation surface. Credit: Ant Studio

 

“We are trying to re-adapt this in multiple places for different needs,” says Siripurapu. “We have implemented (it) in a café, in a school, and we have done one in a residence.”
Ant Studio’s work is also providing custom for local potters, who Siripurapu says are losing out to advanced manufacturing techniques. Typically, one cooling system requires around 700 tubes. Siripurapu says the studio is looking to scale up, and is fundraising and consulting with organizations like the United Nations Environmental Programme.
There is growing interest in a return to vernacular architecture, using localized methods and materials, and bioclimatic architecture, designing to take account of the local climate without needing to use additional energy to cool or heat buildings.
A traditional wind tower, or “barjeel,” in Dubai. The structure is open-sided at the top, with an interior dividing panel encouraging a cooler breeze to divert down into the building while air pressure forces warmer air up and out of the other side. Credit: KARIM SAHIB/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

 

In South East Asia, T3 Architecture Asia has designed affordable apartments in Ho Chi Minh City, and hotels in Cambodia and Myanmar, that feature ventilated roofs, fiber-glass insulation and open-air corridors negating the need for air con. At Expo 2020 Dubai next year, national pavilions will use numerous zero-energy cooling methods, including one inspired by “barjeel” wind towers, a concept that dates back 5,000 years.

“Civilization,” Siripurapu says, “cannot continue to build the same way that we are doing.”
“Unfortunately, as an architect, we are used to looking at a single client … we don’t really look at the bigger picture,” he adds. “The motivation now, what we are trying to do, is (see) how our spaces, our interventions, can actually impact millions of people.”
“We can still be very sustainable and make something really good.”

 

Source: edition.cnn.com