INTEGRATING THE VALUE OF ECO-BUILDING WITHIN THE DESIGN PROCESS: AN INTRODUCTION TO ASSESSING CRITERIA IN EGYPT

Abstract

High performance eco-building offer superior performance in a variety of areas, including functionality, energy and water efficiency, quality of the indoor environment (air quality, thermal comfort, lighting…etc.), waste management and other many areas without necessarily increasing in capital costs. Establishing challenging building performance objectives should be at very early in the design process, usually by referencing a recognized rating system. This rating system has been done and identified in Europe, United States of America and many other countries. This piece of work introduces the idea of constructing an eco-building assessing tool for Egypt by introducing a definition of ecobuilding issue and its components. It discusses the barriers that prevent qualifying the eco-building scheme. This paper illustrates two famous schemes that used in assessment the eco-scheme in buildings, the first one used in the United States of America called LEED and the second one used in New Zealand and Australia called BRANZ. The strategy of development and delivery of the Egyptian eco-assessing tools to be concluded. These tools are depending on the basic criteria of qualifying the eco-building. The quantity of the used data is depending on the awareness of the developers, decision makers, and the construction organizations and their understanding to the value of qualifying the eco-building in projects. According to this, more data can be used in the assessing tools which lead to a positive effect on the performance of the building