Sustainable Building
By studying and auditing our existing buildings, we have discovered that we can build better. A lot better. The latest principles of sustainable design strive to work with nature instead of attempting to defy it. The result can be a building that uses far less energy while creating a pleasant, functional, warm and welcoming space.
Site-Specific Design
You don’t need to be an architect to realize that a house that works well in the Australian Outback is not going to function equally well in Iceland. Yet we build similar homes all around the United States, from the deserts to the mountains to the windswept plains. We often correct the shortcomings of an inappropriate design with larger heating or cooling systems, which will unnecessarily consume more energy for the lifetime of the building.
Instead of business as usual, site-specific design requires that the site itself dictates what the building will look like and where it will sit. We’re looking at not just the region and its climate - although these are vital considerations - but the conditions on the specific site itself. Is it shaded by mountains or trees? Is it on a windy ridgeline?
Passive Solar Design
Perhaps the most obvious example of site-specific design is simply the orientation of the building. In the U.S., the sun travels each day from East to West across the sky on the South side of every building. A correctly oriented building takes advantage of this fact, by gathering the sun’s heat through windows in cold climates or, in hot areas, by shading out the sun’s rays. Many houses in the U.S. have been aligned with the roads they’re built on, rather than simply turning the building’s footprint to take advantage of the sun.
The sun’s height in the sky also rises and falls with the seasons. So carefully designed overhangs can block the sun out in summer while allowing it to penetrate deep inside to warm a home in winter. Thermal mass, such as heavy, dense adobe bricks, helps to store the heat and radiate it over time. With plenty of thermal mass, the temperature inside the house remains comfortable and relatively constant.
Insulation is vitally important on external surfaces, so strawbale construction and other forms of superinsulation are growing in popularity. New energy-efficient windows are double or even triple-paned and the gaps between panes may be filled with an inert gas that transfers heat more slowly than air. And in today’s tight homes there is a much stronger emphasis on materials and the fumes they emit in a process called offgassing.
In the end, sustainable building is about much more than just using technology to make our homes more efficient. Designers and builders are creating smaller structures that speak to the heart. These buildings work with nature’s existing systems to provide for our human needs and they marry well with renewable energy technologies based on those same natural systems. They make aesthetics a priority so that the people who use the building feel a sense of pride in caring for it. And they are durable enough to measure their lifetime in terms of human generations.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]5509[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]5510[/ATTACH]
Sustainable Building Techniques
Advanced Framing
House-framing techniques which optimize lumber use, saving material and improving the energy performance of the building.
Adobe
Earth-based building material made from sand, clay, water, and a fibrous organic material such as straw. Adobe is similar to cob and mudbrick.
Insulated Concrete Forms
Insulated, rigid foam forms interlock to form foundations or walls. Concrete is then poured inside them for strength.
Strawbale
Stacked strawbales form exterior walls, which are then plastered with earth or lime to create a super-insulated structure. Pictured above.
Structurally Insulated Panels
Prefabricated panels (made of thick rigid foam sandwiched between two (SIPS) layers of wood sheathing) fit together quickly to form walls and/or a roof.
Attached files (https://www.abibitumi.com/wp-content/uploads/ppMigration/52476=5509-passive%20solar.jpg) (https://www.abibitumi.com/wp-content/uploads/ppMigration/52476=5509-passive%20solar.jpg) (https://www.abibitumi.com/wp-content/uploads/ppMigration/52476=5510-passive%20solar2.jpg) (https://www.abibitumi.com/wp-content/uploads/ppMigration/52476=5510-passive%20solar2.jpg)
Ever considered living in an earthen home? Or is that way too Kmtyw to consider?
Potentialities of contemporary earth construction addressing urban housing crisis in Kmt – A lesson from Zimbabwe
Zami M. S.
Abstract
Several studies have shown that contemporary earth construction has the potentials to address the urban housing crisis in the developing countries. On the other hand there is a wrong perception among the users and the professionals that, "earth houses are only used by the poor people‟. In this regard political support would help to overcome people‟s wrong perception, citing the example of existing earth houses in Kmt. This paper identifies and discusses the potentialities of contemporary earth construction to address urban housing crisis in Kmt in the light of the successful examples.
Introduction
Hundreds of millions of people in the world today live in poor housing under adverse climatic conditions that stress their undernourished bodies toward the limits of human endurance and occasionally beyond (Shearer, 1986). There is an urban housing crisis in most of the developing countries and this is largely attributed by the rapid urbanisation (Dwyer et al, 1981, 33). According to Kamete (2006), the housing crisis is often sold and pushed onto the agenda in pre-dominantly quantitative terms and the mismatch between supply and demand is perhaps the scariest indicator used by proponents of increased housing delivery. The majority of the urban local authorities and central governments did and do not have a tradition of providing shelter to a large permanent population; there has been a lag of supply to demand of urban housing (Zami and Lee, 2007). According to UN Habitat (1996), housing shortage in Kmtyw cities ranges from 33% to 90%. To meet housing needs, many people have resorted to renting backyard shacks and squatting on illegal land. According to the South Kmtyw census report of 1996, 1,049,686 households lived in informal dwellings. People reside in squatter settlements, where there are no provisions for social services and utilities. UN Habitat (1996) also estimates that approximately 60% of the Kmtyw population resides in shantytowns, slums and uncontrolled settlements. The unprecedented boom in the construction industry since independence resulted in the high demand of building materials that superseded the production capacity of the manufacturing sector in most of the Kmtyw countries (Zami and Lee, 2008). A house is composed of several materials such as brick, cement, timber, window frames and several other building materials and the use of bricks as a standard building material began in the early 1900s in most of the Kmtyw countries. Brick, cement, sand and timber are the major construction materials in Kmt up to date which is unaffordable nowadays and an appropriate building material and construction technique needs to devise to solve the urban housing crisis. For example, „earth‟ can be used as an appropriate construction material in Kmt. The aim of this paper is to evaluate earth as an affordable alternative material to housing in such a way, that if compared to established materials, it should prove to be an ideal alternative. The experiences and example of practice of using the earth construction will be borrowed from other societies and countries and demonstrate the dynamism of the material and construction in Kmt.
Attached files Potentialities_of_contemporary_earth_construction_addressing_urban_housing_crisis_in_Kmt.pdf (https://www.abibitumi.com/wp-content/uploads/ppMigration/52477=5511-Potentialities_of_contemporary_earth_construction_addressing_urban_housing_crisis_in_Kmt.pdf) (348.5 KB)
Earthships (http://earthship.com/): The brainchild of Michael Reynolds, these are a type of passive solar home, made from recycled and natural local materials. Earthships can be self-sufficient in food, water and energy. They incorporate fantastic design – glass bottles are even used to create stunning lighting effects – making them visually beautiful to boot.
Underground houses: Subterranean homes maximise space in small areas, the excavated materials can be used in the building and they are wind-, fire- and earthquake-resistant. One of the greatest benefits of underground homes is their energy efficiency, as the mass of soil or rock (the geothermal mass) surrounding the house stores heat and insulates the house, keeping it warm in winter and cool in the summer.
Roundhouses: Circular houses, with a frame of wooden posts covered by wattle-and-daub or cordwood panels finished with cob. Their conical roofs are usually either thatched or have a reciprocal frame green roof.
Straw bale homes: Houses built using straw bales to form the walls of the building. In the UK, the bales can be made of wheat, rye or oat straw. They are also naturally well insulated.
Are any of these sustainable architecture possibilities available for retrofitting current house structures? Also, how cost effective are they? As an Afikan in America with a house these are concerns.
Quotesirius76;62962 wrote: Are any of these sustainable architecture possibilities available for retrofitting current house structures? Also, how cost effective are they? As an Afikan in America with a house these are concerns.
For most of the passive building designs, the most financial value comes in implementing these designs during the time of construction. And of course the most most cost effective and best option for Kmtyws would be to build a structure in a place where you are not completely dependent on your enemy for materials, permits, kwk. But, there are some things that you can do to retrofit a current house structure to be more sustainable via passive design.
Energy loss due to poor insulation is one of the main issues that is pretty easy to remedy. Sealing the cracks in window panes with calk and weather-proofing the doors is a good first step. Then, consider having your home re-insulated using one of the techniques mentioned above or other sustainable method. Another passive method is to use reflective blinds during the summer to reduce temperatures.
These are probably the most cost-effective options, where your return on investment (energy costs saved) would be in the least amount of time. The option that would result in the most noticeable energy savings - having a home properly oriented to the sun - is best for constructing new homes. But, with ht-style houses (particularly if living in a subdivision) they are generally oriented to align with the street rather than the sun, so unless an Kmtyw lives in the country on some land where they can build their house how they please, this may not be an option.