2020-06-12
78
Elena Rodina, Voronezh State Technical University, Chair of the Organization of Construction, Expertise, and Property Management, 20-letiya Oktyabrya 84, Voronezh, Russia
Introduction.
Dear students! Even though participating in design competitions shouldn’t be all about winning, but rather a safe way to express one’s original ideas with less responsibility and risks than doing practice in the real world, it is still important to know what are the main criteria for winning. This chapter will give you a checklist to follow that will guarantee you come out on top. As originality cannot conform to a set of guidelines, the quest for uniqueness when considering the international aspect of a competition may seem a daunting (scary) task however, if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your entry, it’s best to take a few pointers from entries which have… actually won (e.g. points of view of some students, professors-supervisors, and judgers involved in green design around the globe) [1]. Form the very beginning it is crucial to realize that to complete successful entries requires more than just hard work. The chapter begins with emphasis on the importance of the initial knowledge of past and present trends, along with the future forecasts, stating the 10 megatrends, which shape the future of the green building and drive sustainability through 2020 (based on Jerry Yudelson book from 2016 “Reinventing Green Building: Why Certification Systems Aren't Working and What We Can Do About It” [2]). It is also focusing on the proper goal determination and some important questions that you and your team need to ask yourselves before taking part in any green building competition. It advises on the balance between concept and practicality, depending on the type of the competition, along with the tips for good presentation in all the aspects of the submission materials required. Moreover, a bit of judgment criteria will be given, along with some additional tips for the success, such as talking with friends and others, sharing ideas, and self-promotion, along with slightly opening the veil about the work of the jury. In addition, some information of the green buildings competitions among professionals will be given, in order to a complete picture of what is going on in the green building industry today, in 2017.
|
|
|
At the end of this chapter you will find the alphabetical list of terms (Glossary) that are necessary for the orientation in the topics discussed, along with the bibliography of materials that were used.
7.2 Past+Present+Future (10 megatrends shaping the future of green building)
Sustainability, green building, and ecologicalrestoration are currently areas of interest and debate among designers. Reflecting broad environmental concerns, those topics are widely regarded as the foundation for responsible design practices, because they address problem surroundings the preservation and continuation of human habit. However, sustainable methods are predicated on confidence that these “reasonable” design operations contribute to a greater ecological and social good, neglecting to acknowledge in the meantime that we do not and cannot know how present actions will affect the future [3]. Therefore, from the futurist’s perspective, architecture, in essence, deals with concrete manifestation of the future; but to create the future, the past must be constructed and interpreted!
For example, passive solar design has been practiced for centuries by cultures seeking to utilize the insolation, or natural energy available from the sun, in order to keep their spaces comfortable. Principles such as shading, ventilation and daylighting were inherent aspects of design until the advent of the Industrial Revolution. The invention of the electric lighting and air conditioning has allowed humans to inhabit interior space without any connection to the exterior. “Over the last two centuries there have been a multitude of environment movements that have addressed this issue. The late twentieth century brought issues of the environment and climate change to the forefront of the world’s attention. The last significant environmental movement at this scale was solar architecture movement of the 1960s and 70s. However, the recent green design momentum is different from that of 1970s in many ways, but most of all by its widespread public acceptance. The solar architecture movement was short-lived for several reasons (including decreasing energy costs), however one clear reason for its shortened life span was the distinction made between energy performance and architecture. The architectural media ignored solar architecture, and the public response to this movement was predominantly negative. Solar architecture was quickly replaced in the media by other postmodern styles of the 1980s and ‘90s. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that environmentally responsive design began to receive positive public and media attention, due to the cultural and environmental changes, and media efforts. It is hard to believe now that the Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) [4], which persuasively illustrated how the actions of humans had transformed the natural word in ways they never anticipated, was considered radical thinking at one time. Many other influential books that followed continued to develop a larger understanding of the challenges designers and builders face in the world where resources are decreasing as energy demand grows. [5]
|
|
|
Since the turn to mobile computing after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010, we live in the fast changing technological environment with such issues as: population growth, entropy, globalization, climate change, environment pollution, along with the general acceptance of the evidence that there is a connection between the greenhouse gases released during the production of energy and rapid, permanent increases in the Earth’s temperature. As well, the larger public has been aware that buildings play an important part in contributing to these – all these point out that “globally, green building will likely continue its worldwide growth, especially in most countries of Europe and North America, as well as in fast-growing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, South America, and the Middle East. Each year, more government agencies, universities, property developers, and corporate real estate managers incorporate green design ideas and measures into their buildings and facilities. There is nothing on the horizon that will stop this megatrend” [6]. All in all, 10 trends that shape the future of the green building are revolving around ENERGY: energyefficiency, zero-net-energy, cloud-based (and data-driven) energy management, energy performancedisclosure,and solar power. [2,7] These are largely impelled by two practical considerations: first, for most buildings, energy is the largest uncontrollable operating cost; second, the growing understanding of a connection between building energy use and global climate change means that corporate social responsibility and government action will result in rising demand for building energy efficiency. Yudelson’s research forecast stated that up to the 2020 green building design will be shaped by the following phenomena:
1. GROWTH RATE OF GREEN BUILDING CERTIFICATION IS SLOWING DOWN.
(e.g. green building project registrations accounted for about 20% of total new construction project area in the U.S. during 2014 (but only about 15% of actual certification); at the end of 2014, the total for LEED certifications remained abysmally low - about 3.6% of the 85 billion total area of existing commercial buildings. However, slower growth of green building certification in new construction doesn’t mean that important elements of sustainable design are being ignored. The point is that certification as a practice is increasingly falling by the wayside. This has implications for both certification organizations and sustainability in the built environment.
2. ENERGY EFFICIENCY LEADS THE WAY.
In The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise vs. Performance in Sustainable Design. The case is that absolute building performance, with resultant lower operating costs (vs. the currently more common “relative improvement” approach) is going to be an increasing focus for green building.
3. ZERO-NET-ENERGY (ZNE) BUILDINGS10 ARE ON THE RISE.
If a project wants to be newsworthy, it needs to incorporate something NEW. Developers of speculative commercial buildings (and, in some places, new home developments) have begun to showcase ZNE designs to differentiate their projects. This trend has been developing slowly since about 2011 and now seems ready for takeoff.
4. COMPETITION AMONG GREEN BUILDING RATING SYSTEMS WILL STEP UP.
In the U.S., LEED may see heightened competition in new construction ratings from the Green Globes rating system and possibly from new entrants in specialized niches, such as retail or office interiors. In Asia-Pacific, the likely scenario is for country-specific rating systems to dominate, especially in more established markets such as Australia, Singapore, Japan, India, and China.
5. LOOK FOR A SHARPER FOCUS ON EXISTING BUILDINGS.
Starting with the global financial crisis of 2008-2010, the green building industry began to switch from evaluating new building projects to assessing existing buildings and tenant spaces.
6. CLOUDCOMPUTING /BIG DATA WILL PROVIDE MUCH-NEEDED DIRECTION.
Building owners and third-party service companies increasingly manage larger buildings remotely, using software platforms that provide performance monitoring, data analytics, visualization, fault detection and diagnostics, portfolio energy management, and text messaging, all using the cloud. This trend is reflected in the large number of new offerings in building automation, facility management, wireless controls, and building services information management in the last few years, as well as the spread of energy dashboards, cheap sensors, a greater awareness of the business case for energy upgrades, and more government regulation and actions for cutting energy use.
7. CITIES AND STATES WILL DEMAND BUILDING PERFORMANCE DISCLOSURE.
Since the 2007 adoption of the Architecture 2030 (http://architecture2030.org) standard-which encourages all existing buildings to cut energy use 50% compared with 2005 levels, and all new buildings to be net zero by 2030—and the introduction of the first “2030 District” [8] in Seattle in 2010, group efforts to cut carbon emissions and encourage voluntary performance disclosure has emerged as a major trend in the U.S. Currently 2030 Districts are established in the following North America and Canada cities: Albuquerque, Austin, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Grand Rapids, Ithaca, Los Angeles, Pittsburg, Portland (Maine), San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, Stamford, Toronto; and emerging in: Ann Arbor, Burlington, Detroit, New York City, Philadelphia, and Tucson [9]. This trend will spread rapidly as the easiest way to monitor reductions in carbon emissions from commercial and government-owned buildings. It will put pressure on owners to invest in energy-efficiency retrofits and renovations. In the European Union, some form of performance disclosure for both new and existing buildings has been mandatory since 2010. Under the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (initially developed in 2003 but not fully implemented until about 2010), a buyer, lessee, or renter gets the disclosure form as part of a transaction. The Energy Performance Certificate is often shown as a relative scale (similar to Energy Star in the U.S.), so full disclosure of actual performance still lags (in terms of Energy Use Intensity [EUI], either Btu/sf or kwh/sm). There are also Display Energy Certificates for existing buildings, but they have not been widely adopted. In Australia, the NABERS energy rating system has seen mandatory disclosure in commercial real estate transactions since 2010.
|
|
|
8. THE DEBATE OVER HEALTHY MATERIALS WILL BECOME EVEN MORE VEXATIOUS.
There is little doubt that the debate about healthy building products, the value of environmental product declarations and health product declarations, and the composition of various “red lists” of chemicals of concern that designers should avoid in building products will expand and grow more contentious. Thus, it’s easy to predict that building product manufacturers will try harder and harder to compete for market share based on disclosure of various chemicals of concern. This could lead to massive market confusion for product specifies, who must choose between proven products that they know from experience are appropriate for a given use, and newer products that claim to be healthier because they meet certain criteria from one or more rating organizations.
9. SOLAR POWER WILL BREAK THROUGH.
Solar power has one advantage over other forms of energy efficiency. It is highly visible. Photovoltaics (PVs) on the roof of a building demonstrate to employees, customers, and the public that a firm or institution is committed to renewable energy and a greener future.
Solar electricity is likely to reach grid parity in the U.S. within the next five or six years, by 2020 or 2021.
Of the 10 megatrends discussed here, solar power growth is the only one that is truly revolutionary and likely to radically alter how buildings are designed, built, and operated in the next 10 years!!!
10. EXPECT HEIGHTENED EMPHASIS ON WATER CONSERVATION.
Awareness of the coming crisis in fresh water supply in many regions of the world will increase as climate change continues to affect rainfall and water supply systems worldwide. Heightened concern about the impact of future droughts on water supply and cost is prompting many building designers, owners, and managers to consider ways to further reduce water consumption in buildings by using more water-conserving fixtures, installing rainwater and graywater recovery systems, planting native and adapted vegetation in place of lawns or ornamentals, investing in more efficient cooling towers, and other innovative approaches to reducing on-site water use.
Finally, it is worth to point out that certain of the above listed megatrends – a strong focus on energy efficiency, greater use of renewable energy (mostly solar power for buildings), and improved water conservation – should be included in the formation of the essential architectural concepts and conditions such as form, function, time, space, typology, programming, accessibility, continuity, repetition, symmetry, structure, material effects, lighting effects, and inhabitation.
“A partial list of things designers might consider when doing a sustainable building includes decreasing resource consumption during construction and operation, the source and composition of the building’s materials, and sitting a building to minimize environmental damage and soil erosion.” [5]
|
|
|
It is crucial remembering that in today’s scenario, the design industry has “embraced a concept of collaboration that has come to be known as “integrated design”, where architects and engineers are working together with all the building consulates (telecommunication consultant, façade consultant, acousticians, lighting designers, energy modelers, fire engineers, vertical transportation consultants, and environmental consultants, to name a few). Whereas previous design models had architects develop a scheme that was then passed onto building services consultants.
“When properly designed, sustainable building can produce many benefits: Operating costs are lower than those of similar buildings, and occupants often report that they are more comfortable and productive in them.” [5]
