mix your own cement

Cement is massively energy-hungry in its manufacture. And it also uses a lot of energy in transporting it from the factory to your building site. So here's a business, called Origami 4, that lets you order just the essential chemicals online, while you supply the bulky sand and materials that are costly to transport.

This is not just a case of buying a bag of cement and mixing with sand and stone as you might do normally to make concrete. You are actually mixing the cement itself in a special machine, BEFORE even making the concrete, and packing it in bags like the ones you would buy at the hardware store. So the transport saving is significant if you make a lot, and have sand available nearby. And if you use this method, you're going to want to make a lot, because the cement manufacture plant you'll need to buy won't be cheap, I'm guessing. But it doesn't take up much space.

Sounds great for community-based building projects.

building with rice

A green building material that's actually... white.

Sticky rice, a staple in many modern Asian dishes, was also the secret ingredient in super-strong mortar used in China some 1,500 years ago, a new study suggests.

Much less carbon emissions than cement, by a long shot. But everything has some impact - in this case, agricultural land and water, at the very least. Growing rice as a construction material would be a bit like using farms for producing corn-based ethanol, but I just love the low-tech aspect of it. [via kottke.org]

bathroom in a box

A competition design entry for the roca jump the gap contest is a cool-looking modular bathroom design. Each module is a "slice" containing elements such as a toilet, a shower or a basin. It includes storage for grey water that is used in the toilet. Interesting idea, though I really wonder about the usefulness of walls that essentially would be duplicating the walls in the house, unless this is meant to be freestanding within a larger room.

managing performance of buildings

With the growing imperative to reduce energy consumption in the built environment, operations and information management systems become more important. While tools like LEED help with initial building design, actual performance may not be quite what was expected. A big challenge with fine-tuning designs and specifications for mechanical and electrical systems is a lack of information about true performance. This means that learning from past successes and failures can be a slow process - particularly as building owners and managers often are reluctant to release performance statistics.

As energy management systems in big buildings become more hi-tech, their control moves into the IT arena, and a whole new range of possibilities open up for remote control and monitoring of systems; and information management also becomes easier. This can help improve the performance of the building that is being monitored, but does not necessarily result in wider dissemination of energy information. In fact, with more accurate assessment of system performance, it may become obvious that some aspects of building operations are not as efficient as previously thought, and the operators of "green" buildings may be even less enthusiastic about sharing knowledge.

How do we get around this reluctance? One impetus - at least in North America - may be the rollout of the smart grid, which brings electricity utilities and building managers closer together in managing energy supply and demand. Another could be  the emergence of open source software like OpenLynx, which has been implemented in a number of buildings in Washington D.C. According to a report in earth2tech, the open source approach can bring to the building industry the same ethic of collaboration and innovation that exists in the software industry. The building automation industry currently works with proprietary standards that are not compatible among suppliers, but the smart grid will necessitate development of common standards, and a platform like OpenLynx could provide the basis for these standards.

Peter Michalek, who has been working on OpenLynx for a few months, pointed out [at Connectivity Week] that open source can bring down the costs of the energy management systems dramatically and can make them more advanced, because they will be built on already-established basics. He said the licensing agreement of OpenLynx is “liberal,” explaining that a developer can do anything s/he wants with it, but has to publish the benefits created back into the system.

That last point is key: feedback is important in open systems, and maybe the open source ideology will begin to break open closed doors. [via WorldChanging]

Another interesting software tool for the building industry is the Environment Code from Investment Property Databank, which is not open source, but provides a free template for the collection of environmental performance data, and comparison against international indices. This is a global product that was recently launched in South Africa, and according to IPD South Africa MD Stan Garrun:

The IPD Code provides guidance on how to collect environmental data in a consistent way across properties and portfolios. It can be linked with other reporting methods, such as the Global Reporting Initiative.

The IPD Environment Code measures operational performance of a building, and data analysis can show where improvements could be made. As an environmental tool, it covers energy, CO2, water, waste, pollution, materials, health and well-being; and thus is useful in seeing the broader impact of a building's operation in relation to modelled performance, say, as part of a Green Star evaluation. [via Engineering News, 11 June 2009]

viva la difference

Taiwan's new solar-powered stadium

One of the things about green buildings, whether they are refurbishments or newly built from the ground up, is that it doesn't make sense to expect all of them to contribute in the same way to the improved sustainability performance of towns and cities. Context is key. Typical low-density suburbs have negative impacts for a number of reasons, but so do high-rise jungles.

For example, if an objective is to reduce dependence on private cars and to increase walking and the use of public transport, then we should work towards higher urban densities and mixed-use areas. But high-density urban cores will generally have to import their energy from other parts of the city or from surrounding areas, so they may not "pay their way" as far as fossil-fueled energy independence is concerned. (Although there is a Seattle proposal for downtown energy sources based on waste incineration.)

A few recently publicised buildings illustrate the point.

designing cities for people

Truckloads of words have been written about how the modern lifestyle has alienated us from Earth and each other, leaving us "ungrounded". There are many interpretations of what it is about our lives that creates this disconnect, but technology features as a strong theme. I tend to think of technology not only as high-tech things like computers, cell phones and iPods, but as everything around us that is planned, designed and built.

As an engineer, I am at least partly responsible for shaping people's lives through design decisions that alter the built form. This influence can have a positive impact on quality of life, but I would hazard a guess that it is more often negative. The way a building is designed, where it is located in relation to other structures and spaces, how transport systems connect people with their destinations, what forms of energy are supplied - these all play an active role in determining the choices people have in going about their lives. There is nothing neutral about engineering, architecture or urban design; these disciplines come laden with the value systems of the people who apply them.

Trouble is, the application of design processes very rarely recognises the prejudices of their practitioners. If I don't understand the community that I am designing for, I can increase alienation, community dysfunction and poverty in its broadest sense. It's easy: as a professional, I know what's best for society as a whole. For one thing, we need more public transport and fewer cars - for a number of very good reasons. And we need more houses, because globally, there simply aren't enough. Oh yes, and we should have solar panels on the roof of every house, because distributed power systems are more effective and great for creating jobs.

changing the world, one switch at a time

Most technological innovations that aim to reduce carbon emissions do it either by switching to renewable energy sources (Strategy One), or by increasing the energy efficiency of the technology (Strategy Two). A third strategy is to eliminate or reduce the use of the technology altogether.

So, for example: to reduce emissions from lighting, you could install photovoltaic panels (Strategy One), switch to LED lights (Strategy Two), or design a house to provide more natural light (Strategy Three). Or for transport: switch to an electric motor and charge the batteries using green energy (Strategy One), reduce the weight of the car and use a more efficient propulsion system (Strategy Two), or make it easier to walk or cycle by providing safe and convenient routes for pedestrians and cyclists (Strategy Three).

In most cases, the third strategy is the most effective at reducing emissions, but also the most difficult to achieve. This is partly because it often requires coordinated planning on a level that is rarely achieved. In the transport case, urban planners, transport engineers and others need to put their heads together, and in the lighting case architects and building engineers need to do the same. Just as difficult is the behaviour change that is required by the users - people who need to travel, or people who buy and occupy buildings. There is immense resistance to change, and some would argue that inducing change in a certain direction can have unintended consequences, or not be effective at all. (Think of ethanol from corn, encouraged by subsidies in the US.)

Here's an idea for Strategy Three that, for all I know, could have some unintended consequence; but what I like about it is its simplicity and ease of implementation. The SmartSwitch is like having someone tell you not to turn on the lights unneccessarily:

SmartSwitch doesn't restrict the user from turning on a light, but rather it passively encourages behavior change. SmartSwitches can be programmed to respond to either personal or communal electrical usage. In a home wired with SmartSwitches, lights can become harder to turn on during hours of peak demand. The switches can also be customized to reflect household-specific energy conservation goals.

surplus containers

It may be time to go out and buy a shipping container for conversion into a dwelling or office. Something I've thought would be a nice project, if I had the time, and not terribly expensive. They are used all over South Africa as instant shops and offices, most commonly in informal settlements and construction sites, but what about taking your house with you any time you moved? Even across the ocean, since the containers are made for shipping.

top ten reasons why we need green buildings

Buildings have a huge role to play in addressing environmental concerns. They contribute around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the same proportion of waste; and since South Africa is in the top 20 list of worst offenders, the building industry in this country has a lot to be accountable for. [Update on 10 Nov 2008: The GBCSA informs me that the correct figures for buildings are 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 40% of electricity use, 40% of waste production and 15% of water use.] The conference held in Cape Town by the Green Building Council of South Africa earlier this week also demonstrated that changing the environmental impact of buildings is relatively easy compared with some other sectors. Many of the appropriate technologies are proven and available.

Green buildings can influence impacts - positively or negatively - in a number of sectors, not only in the operation of the building itself. The technologies for reducing dependence on water, energy and other resources are ready and waiting; but it's not only about what goes on inside the building. By locating offices where more people can walk to do their errands, transport impacts are reduced. By collecting and using rainwater and greywater, downstream problems are reduced and upstream water is available for others. By designing for healthy indoor air quality, loads on the health care system are reduced.

The point is, there's lots that can be done and lots that already is being done - in isolated islands of change. The challenge lies in turning those islands into vast oceans, but the tide is turning. The business case for building green has already been made, and in countries where green building rating systems have been around for a few years, developers now understand the financial benefits.

Here are ten things (in no particular order) that green buildings are already doing in different parts of the world, as reported by the various speakers at this week's GBCSA conference.

material improvements in design

An interesting website called materia reports on innovations in the development and use of materials, in order to stimulate and inspire architects, designers and producers to apply these materials to their designs. One example is the discovery that concrete in which sand and gravel have been replaced with the mineral olivine, seems capable of absorbing, in the course of its life, ten times more CO2 from the air than the amount of CO2 that is emitted in concrete production. Another example is the construction of structures by reusing materials that are capable of being recycled or reused again at the end of the structures' usefulness.