Empirical Study on Green Design Transformation of the Old Industrial Buildings

Abstract

With the development of China’s social and economic, as well as in a high speed urbanization and rapid city stages of development, the construction industry have become an important pillar industry in China, and the existence of the old building intensive, through green design standards in order to achieve sustainable development. In this paper, we take office building of Suzhou Institute of Architectural Design as the case, to explore the green design transformation of old industrial buildings. Significance of the Green Transformation of Old Industrial Buildings For the old industrial buildings of a long service life, its transformation must take the resource conservation development model. The transformation process of old industrial buildings requires a combination of ecological philosophy, so as to realize resource saving, environment protecting and cultural heritage. (1) Social resources saving If demolish the old industrial buildings that still have use value, it will inevitably result in a waste of resources. Similarly, irrational transformation will also result in a waste of social resources. Energy saving design of external maintenance structure, natural daylight, and natural ventilation should be considered in transformation process. Any ecological improvement measures would can reduce or avoid the emergence of energy waste and environmental pollution problems brought about by traditional transformation. (2) Environment protection In the demolition process of old buildings, it would consume considerable human, financial and material resources, and meanwhile generate a lot of construction debris and dust, leading environmental pollution. Reconstruction would also occupy a large number of new resources, and cause secondary pollution. If designers do not consider environmental factors inside and outside the building at planning, design, construction, and operation phases, the surrounding environments is possible to be polluted. For green design transformation, it not only needs to focus on the overall objectives that inside and outside environment of the entire building become healthy and sustainable, but also should pay more attention to the ecological environment of the entire building life cycle, rather than one aspect or one period. (3) Historical culture heritage Since old industrial buildings had been some time in the region, and formed relatively mature social resources, so in order to avoid the loss of history and culture, people should not carry out large-scale demolition. After transformation with green ecological idea, inheritance of historical context is guaranteed, and is integrated into an organic and continuous development process. Case Study of Green Design Transformation Project Overview. Here we take office building of Suzhou Institute of Architectural Design as the case. This project is located in Suzhou Industrial Park, with total construction area of 12,673 square meters. Before transformation, it was America West Airlines Factory, but its functional orientation shifted into supporting business service area after removal. Demolition and reconstruction will International Conference on Economics, Social Science, Arts, Education and Management Engineering (ESSAEME 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 255 cause a huge waste, so government hope to transform the original building to extend its life and optimize the use of resources. Meanwhile, sustainable development of architecture should be considered in design, and integrate health humane green elements, to create ecologically sustainable and comfortable living environment, as shown in Fig. 1: Fig. 1. Transformation effect Targets. Every success project has a clear goal. For green transformation of old industrial buildings, should develop scientific and reasonable improvement goals combined with the actual situation. In the green transformation of office building of Suzhou Institute of Architectural Design, the design targets are as follow: a) Build new office space, and the working environment that can stimulate creative inspiration and adapt to design concept. b) Respect regional cultures, and based on current old industry architectural structure, combine local traditional elements and fashion elements. c) Apply green building technologies, and make efforts to build a successful sustainable green office building. Transformation Techniques. Under the idea of ecological green building design, this project fully combines the structure of old industrial architecture and the regional climate and conditions in Suzhou. According to the regional characteristics in Suzhou, designers worked out a suitable strategy for transformation, that is, on the basis of environment protecting, introduce natural ventilation and natural lighting into the building, so that reduce resource consumption with less economic investment. (1) Structural transformation Before transformation, the original workshop is single layer concrete frame structure. The transformation design retained 95% main structure of the old workshop, and through structure security detection, reinforced the original structure before use. (2) Functional transformation In transformation design, the original 8.4m single-level industrial plant was redesigned as a 14m multilayer office building. Its internal functions not only included offices, conference rooms, and studio, but also restaurant and entertainment function space provided for staff. Thus, the old factory with total construction area of 6800m has become a 12763m green ecological creative office space, as shown in Fig. 2: