Green Building - Supportive Framework and General Conditions

Owing to rising public interest in sustainable and ecological solutions, the last few years have resulted in the establishment of numerous framework conditions that facilitate the use of energy-saving technologies, energy sources that are easy on resources and sustainable products for the property sector. The base of a sustainable energy policy can be found in various national, European and International laws, standards, norms and stipulations that specify measurable standards of energy efficiency for buildings and facilities. Further, the norms define the minimum standard for energy efficiency of buildings and facilities. The norms also set minimum standards for thermal comfort, air quality and visual comfort. Across Europe, there is currently a drive to unify these standards. On an international level, however, the different nations are setting their own guidelines and these cannot necessarily be directly compared to each other. The standards are being supported by a variety of available and targeted grants for promising technologies that are currently not yet economical on a regenerative level. Examples for this in Germany would be the field of photovoltaics, for instance, or of near-surface geothermics, solar thermics, biogas plants or energy-conserving measures for the renovation of old buildings. In the currently available laws, standards and stipulations, however, not all the essential building and facility areas are being considered. This means that many of these areas are unable to fulfil their true potential when it comes to the possibility of optimisation on an energy level. Further, legally defined critical values for energy consumption are generally below those required for Green Buildings. These critical values are usually set in a manner that allows for marketable products to be used. Laws and stipulations will, therefore, always be backward when compared to the actual market possibilities for obtaining maximum energy efficiency. This gap can be bridged by the use of Green Building labels, guidelines and quality certificates, since these can at least recommend adherence to more stringent guidelines. The higher demands placed on true energy efficiency can also be justified by the fact that the technology in buildings and facility has a great lifespan. This means that a CO2 emission limit specified today will have long-ranging effects into the future. Today’s decisions, therefore, are essential aspects in determining future emission levels.

ARCHITECTURE DEFINED

Architecture

1. The art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.

2. The style in which a building is designed and constructed.

Architecture is a language that we understand because we inhabit buildings, they surround us and create our world. To achieve a piece of architecture requires engaging with a process of thinking, drawing and designing, a process that ultimately produces a building. This process begins with an idea or ‘concept’ that relates to a particular site or context. It further develops (through a ‘brief ’) into a ‘form’, which will have functions or activities associated with it. This form is then further developed structurally (as a frame or system), and materially (with a ‘skin’ or ‘wrapping’). It is finally realised, framing experiences of light, sound, space. The etymology of the word ‘architecture’ can be defined as arkhi meaning chief and tekton meaning builder or  SECC Conference Centre, Glasgow, Scotland carpenter. This definition demonstrates the fundamental basis of architecture. As chief builder an architect needs to have an overview of building, both as an object produced and as an activity of construction. This overview requires an understanding of the context of buildings (which can be a landscape or the city, or somewhere in between), and an understanding of the building itself, in terms of its underlying concept or idea, its functions or uses and its materiality and structure. This overview, however, exists at many levels and the next stage of understanding of building is as a series of rooms, connected spaces that lead from the outside in. Further consideration is the control of light and sound in those rooms and the furniture that inhabits the spaces. The architect is a designer whose remit ranges from the large scale of designing a city to the smaller scale of designing a chair.

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