Energy Conscious Building

Tackling Climate Change

by Kevin Matthews

"Just about a year ago, Al Gore rocked the national AIA (American Building Designers Association) Convention in

San Antonio

with a climactic final keynote address, and received a prolonged standing ovation from thousands of building design professionals who had lined up for hours to get in. Gore expressed the compelling case on global climate change, anchoring the powerful presentation with this silver spur to action for design professionals:

Never before in the history of our species has the opportunity and responsibility to decisively affect the continuation of life as we know it lain in the hands of a single profession, as it does today with the Building Design profession.

The case for such drama is pretty simple. Around a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions currently come from the production, operation, and occupancy of the world's buildings. While much of society affects the location, development, and use of buildings in one way or another, no other professional is as central to these processes as Building Designers.

Building Design is Pivotal

When we also consider the share of local and regional transportation, and the share of natural carbon storage disruption, that are determined as well by the location, production, and use of buildings, then we reach half or more of greenhouse gas emissions as related to buildings.

If that half of our greenhouse gas emissions are not quickly controlled and dramatically reduced, then whatever happens with the other half, humankind will fail in protecting the climate in which we have evolved. Conversely, if the building-related half of emissions are controlled and drastically reduced, then we will be well on our way to a successful response to the crisis we unwittingly initiated."                  To read all of this article go to the following website.

http://www.architectureweek.com/2008/0423/index.html

The content of this piece is very compelling as is the movie made by Al Gore a year or so ago. This subject can become a bit of a religion like path for some who tend to want to preach at every dinner table of congregation they ever get to, and then of course there are the non believers & probably lots of normal people in between.

dermot meaney BUILDING DESIGN

As a local building designer I have to work with my clients, their aspirations, budgets, business requirements, amongst a whole host of other constraint's. But the bottom line for everyone is generally the bottom line, how much money the individual or organization has to spend.

I have worked & played (holidayed) on many parts of the globe & really do feel that the part of it that I live in is perhaps one of the best year round climates there are. I have worked outdoors in North America, Europe, Central Australia, Alpine Australia & coastal north/eastern Australia. These climates range between cold -10 & wet, hot +45 & dry to tropical +35 & 98% humidity. Here in the North East it gets to minus 2 occasionally on a winter morning, but that will usually result in glorious clear sunny days, then in the summer we will get a week of temperatures in the high 30's to low 40-41 Celsius. Mid Feb to mid May is usually perfect 10Cl to 35Cl, then mid Sept to mid Dec is the same. (post a reply if you want to know more about our typical weather patterns)

The bottom line with this story is that locally here in South East Australia, the North East region of Victoria, I think we have the easiest climate to reap good results from simple well designed buildings. This reasoning is not rocket science, it is achieved by the simple application of  3 elements of simple physics and of course the practical understanding & application of them. These three elements are the basic principles as to how the planet operates & applying them to our buildings reap very good results in our climate. It works in all climates, but ours is easier & cheaper to work with.

Have you guessed, these three principles are of course Radiation, Convection & Conduction.

We do not have to go to expensive solar, geothermal or whatever systems, simple orientation, shading & material selection will go along way to achieving a step in the right direction. Obviously the more one has traveled down the environmentally religious path, along with the amount of budget one has on hand, I think one should embrace more technology & design to help the cause. There is no doubt the planet does need our action.

This building was designed & built by us for us to a minimum 6 star standard 10 years ago. www.9cindycourt.com it is wonderful to live in at both ends of the year, warm & cosy in the winter, cool & airy in the summer.

This building was designed by me & built by me for a client to well beyond todays 5 star energy requirements to a very good (tight) budget, at a very reasonable cost at about the same time as the above building.The owners report similar levels of comfort & accomodation, well designed, well built equals comfort & value for longevity

Orientation & shading = Heat (sun) out in the summer & in during winter, results in efficient use of Radiation (free energy).

Well designed window & door placement in concert with more sympathetic heating & cooling systems  = efficient use of  Convection, (cheaper running costs)

Wise selection of materials & their placement = efficient management & distribution of Radiation & Convection results in less loss of energy through undesirable Conduction.

Thats enough of me preaching of the simple sermon, God bless, Inshalah, Shalom etc.

Cheers Dermot