Benefits of Green Architecture

Aside from contributing to big humanistic endeavours, there are benefits to green architecture for everyday life:

1. Comfort

Because a well-designed building puts a great deal of thinking into providing comfort without harming the environment, the green building architecture is very pleasant to live in. Besides, there is a naturalness to these buildings, making them calm and cheerful places.

2. Economy

Utilizing passive systems, and self-sufficiency in producing required energy in green buildings decrease the rising costs of living while conserving natural resources. Utilizing these passive design systems more efficiently provides added benefits towards comfort.

3. Fresh Aesthetics

The lush and full appearance of green architecture changes the grey and dull tones of most modern cities. The dull cities can be turned into man-made forests with walls made of plants and dropping vines over the edges. Even if they don’t employ greeneries, their alignment with natural elements like wind and sun provides a very attuned life with natural rhythms, making the space, and life, more bright and enjoyable.

Reference: https://www.novatr.com/blog/green-architecture

Webmastermaster: Peerawat Naradamrongrat M.5/1 No.40

What is Green Architecture?

According to the UN, “The world’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from 7.7 billion currently to 9.7 billion in 2050.” As the population grows, they must transform natural lands into cities and other human habitats.

Additionally, the World Bank Urban Development report also states, “Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities. This trend is expected to continue. By 2050, with the urban population more than doubling its current size, nearly 7 of 10 people in the world will live in cities.” What is the effect of a growing urban population? As natural land turns into the urban environment, the natural filters of greenhouse gases like CO2 are destroyed.

Development requires energy, which is mostly produced by burning fossil fuels emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, resulting in global warming. “CO2 reached its highest ever average annual concentration in the atmosphere of 412.5 parts per million in 2020 – around 50% higher than when the Industrial Revolution began.”, according to a report by the International Energy Agency. UN Environment also reports “Buildings and construction account for more than 35% of global final energy use and nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions” in 2017.

As international coalitions across industries are trying to decrease these emissions, construction is no exception. Reducing carbon emissions is one of the main purposes of green architecture and architects are already taking these trends into consideration in their design philosophies.

Is green architecture entirely new?

A building working harmoniously with nature is not an entirely new idea; in fact, it is very ancient. In most traditional and vernacular architecture, different strategies and techniques are used to live with the rhythms of nature. For example, in many cultures across the Middle-east, Mediterranean, Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula, employing courtyards created a microclimate which was more controllable. Green architecture is essentially a continuation of the same tradition.

Another example of ancient green architecture is the Yakhchal (or ice pit) which took advantage of temperature fluctuations between night and day in a desert to produce ice. Deserts are extremely hot during the day but the temperatures drop rapidly as the sun goes down due to low humidity. The Yakhchal consists of a storage pit inside a dome and a shallow trench. In the evening, the shallow trench is filled with water so that it would freeze during the cold night. In the morning, broken pieces of ice are dropped into the pit.

The pit is always shaded by a dome and is deeper in the ground which makes it cool while the ice further cools down the air inside the dome. The hot air rises to the top of the dome, pushing the cold air down and acting as an insulator. This way, the ice is preserved most of the year round. It was widely used until the arrival of electric fridges. It is still in use in some places.

As the above examples show, before the convenience of modern facilities, our ancestors used their ingenuity and knowledge and devised technologies to live comfortably with nature and not against it. Green architecture in today’s more technologically-advanced and knowledgeable civilizations should be able to do the same, if not even better.