Turning totally green through “green building”
Everything’s turning “green” these days – from diet to clothing. It seems like the massive campaigns and the increasing awareness for the environment have drastically affected the way we live our lives. Even architecture has an answer to this new fad – a new way of building that is earth and human friendly, and they call it “Green Building”.
The term green building is not meant to be interpreted literally. Green building, as a practice in architecture, is designed to reduce the overall impact of the built environment (from the building itself to its landscape) on human health and the natural environment. This will be done by efficiently using energy, water and other resources during the building’s construction; protecting occupant health and improving productivity and reducing waste, pollution and other factors that could lead to environmental degradation. It is also important to note that green building is different from natural building, as these two concepts are often mistaken to be the same. Natural building also embraces the same aims as green building, but it is on a smaller scale and tends to focus more on the use of natural materials that are locally available. Other terms used to refer to green building include “sustainable design” and “green architecture”.
Here in the United States, many organizations have been established to provide information on and promote the practice of green building. The most popular among all of these organizations is the US Green Building Council (USGBC). USGBC is a non-profit trade organization, best known for the development of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system and Greenbuild, a green building conference that advocates the green building industry.
What are the factors in green building that make it different from the usual method of construction? There are a lot and most of these are things that we typically ignore. Green building endorses the efficient use of water resources, so the toilets and dishwashers that’ll be used under it aren’t the typical 3.7-7 gallons per flush (in toilets) and 8-14 gallons per cycle (in dishwashers). Green building also doesn’t promote the use of top-loading washers, as these can use up to 45 gallons of water per load.
Green building also aims to provide quality indoor air for the built environment’s future occupants. By avoiding the use of too much dangerous lead dust or chippings (take note that 20% of the houses in US has these), a green building can, in time, protect the health of its occupants against kidney and red blood cell damage, impairs mental and physical development, and may even increase high blood pressure.
Since it essentially aims to protect the environment, green building, as much as possible, avoids the use of excessive wood. It takes note of the fact that the US is responsible for over 15% of the world’s consumption of wood (and yet only 4.5% of the global population actually lives here).
Other techniques used in green building include taking advantage of renewable resources like using plants and trees through green roofs for reduction of rainwater run-off. Another is using packed gravel for parking lots instead of concrete to enhance replenishment of ground water.
For more information on green building you can visit USGBC’s official site.