Building Environmental Assessment Method Research Articles

Safety Performance Assessment Scheme for Low Cost Housing: A Comparative Study

The significance of having a safe performance in residential property is because it leads to the building sustainability. In relation to the safety aspects in the performance of low cost housing, many cases have shown that most are fail to meet their objectives right from the moment they were declared complete. This paper aims to compare the safety performance assessment schemes use for high rise dwellings or low cost housing, namely Building Quality Assessment (BQA), Building Safety and Condition Index (BSCI), Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM), Comprehensive Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme for Buildings (CEPAS), Standard of House Performance Appraisal (SHPA) and Housing Performance Evaluation Model (HPEM). The objective of reviewing safety performance assessments as highlighted in this paper is to indicate a construct validity whether safety issues are concern in the scheme. It can be concluded that majority of the aspects are relates to significant of safety towards occupants of low cost housing.

A regenerative design framework: setting new aspirations and initiating new discussions

Given the success of building environmental assessment methods in moving green performance criteria into mainstream practice, it is anticipated that similar support tools will be necessary to make regenerative design and development approaches more widespread. This paper describes the rationale, design and potential application of a framework developed to support regenerative design and development in practice and, in particular, the transition from current green practices and discussions to those shaped by regenerative principles. Rather than present sets of specific design strategies and directives that could inhibit creative solutions, the framework is populated with provocative questions. These are considered the most effective basis for initiating a different and expanded dialogue between the design team members and with the client and users and to engage a broader range of possibilities by moving beyond the immediate building and site boundaries. Moreover, while the framework has a consistent structure, the questions change and can be adapted to different situations – from community engagement, design charrettes and team meetings to detailed design explorations. Etant donné le succès des méthodes d'évaluation environnementale des bâtiments pour faire passer les critères de performance verte dans la pratique courante, l'on prévoit que des outils d'assistance similaires seront nécessaires pour que les approches de conception et de développement régénératrices se généralisent davantage. Cet article décrit la logique, la conception et l'application potentielle d'un cadre développé pour appuyer dans la pratique une conception et un développement régénérateurs et, en particulier, le passage des pratiques et des débats verts actuels à des pratiques et des débats façonnés par les principes régénérateurs. Plutôt que les ensembles actuels de stratégies et de directives conceptuelles spécifiques qui pourraient inhiber des solutions créatives, le cadre est rempli par des questions provocatrices. Celles-ci sont considérées comme la base la plus efficace pour initier un dialogue différent et élargi entre les membres de l'équipe de conception, ainsi qu'avec le client et les utilisateurs, et pour susciter un éventail plus étendu de possibilités en allant au-delà du bâtiment et des limites du site directement concernés. En outre, alors que le cadre possède une structure constante, les questions changent et peuvent être adaptées aux différentes situations – allant d'un engagement communautaire, d'ateliers collaboratifs de conception et de réunions d'équipe à des explorations conceptuelles détaillées. Mots clés: bâtiments cadre de conception écosphère lieu conception régénératrice flux de ressources conception durable

Ningbo City’s Residential Building Energy Efficiency Evaluation Index System

According to the actual situation in Ningbo, combined with both relevant information from both China's current building energy efficiency standards and that of foreign building's energy efficiency and environmental assessment methods, together established the Ningbo City residential building energy efficiency evaluation index system. Using the AHP application to evaluate, analyze and calculate to determine the weight of the evaluation index.

Building Environmental Assessment in a Global Market

The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of building environmental assessment methods by countries worldwide for application within their respective domestic markets. However, the demand for “brand recognition” in a global market, the desire for international standards, the emergence of the World Green Building Council and other organizational alliances, and the motivation of the organizations to expand the adoption of their respective systems abroad, are among many of the forces driving toward the increased international use of the two most established methods — LEED® and BREEAM. This paper examines the development of this phenomenon of the expanding the international use and adoption of the BREEAM and LEED®.

The Role of Colour in ‘Health and Wellbeing’ of the Built Environment

I was invited recently to give a keynote lecture on the role of colour in the built environment, at the Spring Academic Conference of the Korea Society of Colour Studies held on 29 May 2010, in Korea. This was a surprise as well as an honour for me, your editor, because colour is indeed an important component of our built environment, and without the presence of colour, our environment would be dull and depressing. There should be more research done to study the role of colour in our built environment, especially in relation to the partially blind, infants, hospital patients and people who are for some reason or the other feel trapped and unhappy with their way of life. Colour should be included in the consideration of sustainable development of buildings as an important social and environmental factor. A built environment that is attractive and contributes to the ‘feel good’ experience of people should also be an important economic consideration for sustainable development. The built environment – both indoor and outdoor of buildings in any community, school, place of work, sport arena, transport and in urban and rural areas are very important factors, contributing to how people feel about their health and wellbeing in their workplace or at home. Health and wellbeing is recognized as an important mark of quality in the Code for Sustainable Homes in the UK. The US building environmental assessment method – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) encompasses the issues in the environmental criteria that would contribute to the health and wellbeing of people working and living in their building environment. One of the factors that can contribute to how people feel about their environment – contributing to the perception of health and wellbeing is colour, and this has not been easily addressed in any of the national environmental assessment methods for buildings. Colour is a visual perceptual property; and plays an important role in the environment within which we live, work and play. It can cause a dramatic effect in changing and improving the aesthetic appeal of particular areas [1]. The building surface affects how the building is perceived, whether colour is used in school classrooms, hospital wards and waiting rooms, children’s play areas, sport and entertainment arena, danger/emergency zones, storage shed in our garden or for marking our space boundary such as in fencing. The colours used in the design decor can affect our perceptions of the environment that surrounds us. The colours chosen in these areas can have an inspirational uplifting effect or conversely they can create drab unwelcoming situations. Colour is also used to mark our identity in many situations; as in business, a company’s brand or to reflect our own personalities. The wide application of colour may make it seem a complex phenomenon [2]. Its presence in the physical environment generates sensations and excitement. There is a relationship between man, the environment and colour; the human society would look uninteresting and formless if the physical environment and everything in it was colourless. Our built environment should not be

Benchmarking energy use assessment of HK-BEAM, BREEAM and LEED

The Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and LEED were formally launched in the 1990's. How well the certified and rated buildings compare with each other of an interest to building designers and policy makers. This paper describes how the baseline buildings, performance criteria and the credit scales of the three schemes compare with each other. By statistical analysis of the energy assessment results of 60 HK-BEAM certified buildings and the available data for BREEAM and LEED, it seeks to ascertained of buildings scoring excellent energy performance under different schemes belong to the top 5% in the market. Through this exercise, a systematic approach to benchmark the energy assessments across schemes has been established. With people nowadays paying greater attention to the environmental issues and the rapid development of the environmental schemes in various parts of the world, this study forms a good basis for future benchmarking of energy assessment schemes across nations.

City buildings—Eco-labels and shades of green!

The concept of the sustainable city seems to fall somewhere between the ideal of sustainability and the more pragmatic responses to environmental degradation that lies within the ambit of sustainable development. Buildings are significant in terms of the economic and social development of cities, as well as their environmental impacts. Eco-labelling has emerged to provide a measure of the environmental performance of buildings, but what shade of green, i.e. environmental friendliness, is manifest in a particular eco-label, and how does the assessment and certification of individual buildings contribute to a city that is more sustainable? This paper examines the extent to which a building eco-label, defined here as a certified performance grade under a building environmental assessment method (BEAM), characterises the performance of a building in environmental terms, and considers the link between the issues covered in BEAM assessments with the indicators for the sustainable city. Given their significant influence on cities, the discussion focuses on heavily serviced office buildings.

Assessing energy performance in the latest versions of Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM)

The latest (4/04 and 5/04) versions of the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM), one covering new buildings and the other existing buildings, have been formally launched in 2005. The paper describes the building energy performance assessment method in these latest HK-BEAM versions. With the use of the energy budget approach, the assessment framework is applicable to a wide range of buildings that may comprise different mixes of premises types. The new scheme provides bonus credits for provisions that allow utilization of renewable energy sources. For existing buildings, it makes allowances for plant performance degradation and constraints to implementation of improvement measures in existing buildings. So far, the new assessment method has been applied to six building developments, including commercial complexes and residential developments. The assessment results are presented and discussed in the paper.

Shared markets: coexisting building environmental assessment methods

The evolution of market-based building environmental assessment methods is explored to show how they are influenced by, and subsequently influence, other systems. Two contexts are considered – Hong Kong and North America – where there are two or more voluntary systems operating in the same market. The dynamic interactions of the coexisting systems are the primary focus rather than the evaluation of the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of each method individually. While it is clearly difficult to predict how building environmental assessment systems will evolve in the future, or whether coexisting systems will be effective in furthering green building practices, a number of valuable observations can be made. The coexistence of systems can potentially offer a powerful driver for excellence and ease of use or, if there is no clear differentiation, it can confound the market. In practice, the organizational and market context in which the systems operate, the financial and political support they receive, and personal interests and biases are all complicit in their market acceptance and influence. There is a need for a greater understanding of the evolution and relationship between coexisting assessment methods, and for a strategic approach to evaluating changes in the marketplace as a result of their presence. L'auteur étudie ici l'évolution des méthodes d'évaluation environnementale des bâtiments basées sur le marché pour montrer comment elles sont influencées et, par conséquent, comment elles influencent d'autres systèmes. L'auteur étudie deux contextes – Hong Kong et l'Amérique du Nord – où l'on compte au moins deux systèmes volontaristes sur le même marché. Les interactions dynamiques des systèmes coexistants sont plus intéressantes que l'évaluation des caractéristiques des points forts et des points faibles de chaque méthode prise individuellement. Alors qu'il est très difficile de prévoir comment des systèmes d'évaluation environnementale de bâtiments évolueront dans l'avenir ou de savoir comment des systèmes coexistants seront efficaces dans la promotion des pratiques de bâtiments ‘verts’, l'auteur fait un certain nombre d'observations précieuses. La coexistence de systèmes peut être un facteur puissant d'excellence et de facilité d'utilisation ou, s'il n'y a pas de différenciation précise, elle peut être un facteur de confusion pour le marché. En pratique, le contexte organisationnel et commercial dans lequel ces systèmes fonctionnent, le soutien financier et politique qu'ils reçoivent et les intérêts et les partis pris personnels sont tous complices dans leur acceptation et leur influence sur le marché. Il est nécessaire de mieux comprendre l'évolution et les relations entre des méthodes d'évaluation coexistantes et de disposer d'une approche stratégique pour évaluer les changements sur le marché du fait de leur présence. bâtiments, méthodes coexistantes, évaluation environnementale, Amérique du Nord, Hong Kong

Building environmental assessment methods: redefining intentions and roles

The initial intentions and current emphasis of building environmental performance assessment methods are compared and contrasted with their emerging roles. This analysis provides a starting point for anticipating future developments in environmental assessment methods for buildings, how they are likely to evolve and how they will be used. The current varying expectations of assessment methods are examined, including the extent to which they can address complex issues while remaining simple and practical, their role as ‘market transformation tools', and their ability to enhance dialogue among a range of stakeholders broader than a design team. More importantly, the increasing framing of environmental issues within the wider context of ‘sustainability’ raises the question about whether existing methods are capable of being easily reconfigured to fulfil this new agenda.

Assessing the future of green building

As the realities of resource depletion and global environmental degradation become more evident, we can anticipate a maturing and strengthening of the public’s concern and knowledge on environmental issues. This will translate into an expectation for greater environmental responsibility and, as with other sectors, the building industry will be increasingly scrutinized for its environmental actions. The adoption of environmental strategies has been accelerated by the emergence of building environmental assessment methods that have provided both a definition and common language for green buildings as well as a means of communicating performance improvements. Whereas the current focus is on ‘‘green’’ design—reducing or mitigating the environmental consequences of buildings—the future concerns will embrace mitigation, adaptation to the new conditions and restoring previous adversely impacted regions and human settlements. This presentation will provide an overview of the evolution of green building practices to set a context for understanding emerging issues in building acoustics. Since the adoption of green building practices is a function of the context that shapes political and public priorities, the presentation compares and contrasts several short and long-term scenarios some certain, others more speculative and their direct and indirect consequences for environmental progress building design.

Green Buildings: How Green the Label?

Much is written nowadays about ‘green buildings’, although clear concepts and descriptions are generally absent from the discussion. Building environmental assessment methods (BEAMs) have been developed to give a rating that provides a more holistic assessment of building performance. To appreciate the outcome of an assessment, ie what a building ecolabel signifies in terms of environmental performance, it is necessary to take full account of the environmental aspects that are assessed, the standards of performance required, the relative weightings of each aspect, and the overall score required to achieve a specified grade. Based on a review of several well-established BEAMs this paper seeks to help the reader weigh up the relative ‘greenness’ of a particular building eco-label.

The application of ecosystems services criteria for green building assessment

In the discussion of environmental architecture, we are conjoining two disciplines, the subject of architecture and that of ecology. At their best, green buildings are examples of applied ecology, where designers understand the constitution, organization, and structure of ecosystems, and the impacts of architecture are considered from an environmental perspective. By utilizing the concepts, methods, and language of ecology, designers can create architecture that intentionally engages the natural systems of a site. The establishment of assessment criteria implies the definition of building design criteria. If we establish criteria that are based on our best scientific understanding of environmental capacity, we will begin to develop a building stock that is sustainable. To do this we must quantify the link between the resulting environmental impacts and their cause in building production and use. This is not done in traditional building environmental impact assessment methods, which are based on quantifying assumed negative impacts of man-made interventions on the natural environment, typically using a code compliant reference building as a standard to improve upon. These indexes lack an ecologically derived baseline, or standard of measure, under which sustainable developments can be analyzed and compared on a universal basis. An ecologically derived baseline can be used to measure negative impacts as well as positive impacts of buildings. It also allows vastly different project types, sizes and locations to be compared on an equal basis. This study extends the concept of ecological capacity into an architectural context, and develops carrying capacity as a time and area dependent tool to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental building design. The ecosystem services criteria study uses an objective metric of carrying capacity as an ecologically derived baseline (hectare/years) to assess building sustainability. The farmhouse, a low energy, biological material based building located in Boulder, Colorado is evaluated to show the application of this method. The relative ecological impact of energy and materials for this project is described, as well as identification of effective strategies for reducing environmental impacts of typical buildings.

A Method to Assess the Energy Performance of Existing Commercial Complexes

Of the building environmental assessment methods currently in use, none are able to assess the energy performance of existing commercial buildings that comprise a mix of premises with differing energy use characteristics. This paper proposes a method that takes into account the inter-related energy use characteristics of the landlord and the tenants, which aims to provide for a more comprehensive and fairer assessment. The key features of the proposed method includes a tenants/landlord co-operative scheme, and the fact that it is based on total measured energy consumption for the whole complex. This includes consumption by tenants and that of the centralised services systems. The assessment criteria have been established using the surveyed data from an energy end-use database, together with a method to determine the shares of energy consumption by the central services systems amongst the various premises in the building complex. Obtaining full participation by the tenants encourages efficient and effective use of equipment that is part of the cooling load, which can benefit both the landlord and the tenants.

On the study of the credit-weighting scale in a building environmental assessment scheme

A major strength of the voluntary building environmental assessment method is to encourage good environmental practice beyond the current industry practice. For a successful voluntary scheme, the credit scale must be attractive to investors and performance-based criteria should be used. However, most of the current schemes use a combination of prescriptive and performance-based criteria, and credits are allocated using subjective judgement, irrespective of cost and practical implications of attaining improved performances. This is pointed to the need to establish an incentive-crediting scheme, which is oriented towards performance-based scales having credits linked to cost and performance. In formulating the incentive-crediting scheme, the cost effectiveness of different energy-saving level in a base building is investigated under the premise that the investors would pursue a strategy in the most cost-effective manner. This paper presents a conceptual framework for policy makers to formulate an incentive-crediting scale for accrediting criteria within the greenhouse gas objectives of a building environmental assessment scheme in Hong Kong, aiming to attract participation of the profit-maximising investors. Establishment of an incentive-crediting scale starts from developing a carbon dioxide abatement curve for greenhouse gas emission. This is subsequently followed by dividing the maximum energy-saving potential into ten equal energy reduction intervals. The incentive-crediting scheme is formulated on a basis that proportionally more credits would be rewarded for diminishing investment return of consecutive reduction levels in a base building.

Simplifying energy performance assessment in the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method

In the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM) for air-conditioned office premises, energy use for air-conditioning constitutes one major item of assessment. The current assessment method for existing offices is based on computer simulation predictions. Following a recent review of the HK-BEAM scheme, simplified models have been developed for use in the assessment as an alternative to the detailed simulation method. These models are multiple linear regression models relating the annual electricity use for air-conditioning, and the maximum electricity demand, in an office building to the key characteristics of the building envelope and the air-conditioning system. Use of these models can reduce the effort required for data collection and input, and will allow the assessors to more quickly complete an assessment. In addition, additional parametric studies can be performed within much less time, which will help assessors in formulating advice to developers/designers on measures that will lead to improved energy performance and thus higher credits. This paper summarizes the review findings and describes the approach taken in the establishment of the regression models. Comparison of predictions by the detailed computer simulation method and the alternative method showed that the latter could provide estimates close enough to the simulation predictions for the purpose of assessing the credits to be awarded to a building for its energy performance.

Environmental benchmarking of Hong Kong buildings

A method for assessing the environmental performance of Hong Kong’s buildings has been developed, known as the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method or HK‐BEAM. The assessment is a type of expert‐based survey, either of the design, in the case of proposed buildings, or an evaluation of building performance for newly built or existing buildings. The assessment essentially provides a benchmark of environmental performance against a series of qualitative and quantitative measures that earn “credits”. Buildings can be rated as “excellent”, “very good”, “good” or “fair”. The assessment covers global, local and indoor issues. The original assessment has been in use since 1996 and allowed appraisal of new and existing air‐conditioned offices. A new version has been recently produced for residential buildings. The latest version has addressed some of the criticisms of the earlier versions and covers a wider range of issues, taking a life‐cycle approach. Reviews the latest new residential version, making comparisons with the earlier new offices scheme.

Framework of Building Environmental Assessment Methods

Since the policy address by the Hong Kong SAR’s Chief Executive in Octaber 1999 there has been greater interest in environmentally sustainable or ‘green’ buildings, The judgement as to whether or not a building is environmentally sustainable goes beyond its site boundary, and what constitutes a green building remains open to debate. Building environmental assessment methods (BEAMs) are tools that can focus attention on actions to Improve building environmental performance, However, the framework, development and content of such tools is influenced by many factors, such as the environmental aspects targeted, type of building covered, extent of support from stakeholders, and the level of endorsement by government and end-users, etc. The paper discusses the framework under which voluntary BEAMs are being developed and operated, including the locol HK-BEAM scheme. It concludes that the coverage of environmental aspects, the extent to which building environmental performance can be improved, and the take-up of...

Energy Behavior of High-Rise Residential Units in Hong Kong

To maintain relevance, Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM) far residential buildings should be periodically updated to incorporate new environmental data, so extensive research an energy and environmental performance should be performed for high-rise residential buildings found in Hong Kong. This embraces various aspects such as building wall, door, window, and shading characteristics, and utilization in time and space patterns of activities in residential units. In this paper various design tools are described, simulation procedures outlined. Preliminary results show energy savings of roughly 8 % for an optimally placed insulation, and lower cooling demand of 14 % for a provision of additional concrete in the building envelope.

Building Energy Efficiency Assessments in Hong Kong and the Way Forward

The Hong Kong Government has issued five codes of practice on energy efficiency of buildings, including one on overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) of buildings and four on major services installations in buildings. Compilance with the OTTV code is now a legal requirement to new commercial and hotel buildings. Although the other four codes were also intended for mandatory implementation, they are being implemented under the voluntary Hong Kong Energy Efficiency Registration Scheme for Buildings (HKEERSB). The Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM) is a private sector voluntary scheme, which assesses a wide range of environmental issues, including energy efficiency. The scope, methods and criteria of building energy performance assessment in the two schemes are largely different. Yet, the performance-based assessment method and the philosophy adopted for setting the zero credit levels in HK-BEAM make it a suitable alternative compliance route to the codes. The need for, and the benefits of having such an alternative route to prescriptive controls in the codes are discussed and exemplified through a comparison of the assessment results of a building that has undergone both the HKEERSB and the HK-BEAM assessments. The study revealed that the minimum performance level that would pass the lighting and air-conditioning codes would lead to zero credits under the HK-BEAM assessment, which is a reflection that buildings obtaining some credits would have an energy performance standard above the minimum set by the codes, and that it would be important to allow trade-offs amongst the assessed issues in the codes.