Sustainable Building Technologies Research Articles

A scientometric review of global research on sustainability and sustainable development

Abstract The concept of sustainable development has gained worldwide attention in recent years which had enhanced its implementation. However, few studies have attempted to map the global research of sustainability. This study utilizes scientometric review of global trend and structure of sustainability research in 1991–2016 using techniques such as co-author, co-word, co-citation, clusters, and geospatial analyses. A total of 2094 bibliographic records from the Web of Science database were analyzed to generate the study's research power networks and geospatial map. The findings reveal an evolution of the research field from the definition of its concepts in the Brundtland Commission report to the recent development of models and sustainability indicators. The most significant contributions in sustainability research have originated primarily from the United States, China, United Kingdom and Canada. Also, existing studies in sustainability research focus mainly on subject categories of environmental sciences, green & sustainable science technology, civil engineering, and construction & building technology. Emerging trends in sustainability research were sustainable urban development, sustainability indicators, water management, environmental assessment, public policy, etc.; while the study generated 21 co-citation clusters. This study provides its readers with an extensive understanding of the salient research themes, trends and pattern of sustainability research worldwide.

Use of Information Modelling for Urban Poor Housing

India is facing the trend of increasing urbanization with a haphazard population growth that affects the environmental quality, economy and human health. Application of sustainable building materials and technology can improve the living conditions. The paper presents the role of creating and managing information using Building Information Modelling (BIM) to provide a comfortable indoor condition with the best-suited building envelope for the case study residential building located in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Building plan approved by the standards and local government practice was modelled and analyzed with BIM tool. This study examines the building performance for energy demand. The results thus obtained are used to analyze and compare the masonry products to achieve thermal comfort in buildings. The results obtained from the study conclude that the use of sustainable building materials and computational approach fastens the decision process to meet the housing demand.

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies 2018

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies 2018

Building Retrofit to Improve Energy Performance from Office to Accommodation. Case study: Tower Building, Nottingham, UK

Designed in Brutalism style by architect Andrew Renton, Tower Building has 17 floors for academic and lecturers’ office function. As the highest point in University of Nottingham, this tower has been built for almost five decades. The aim of this project is to propose the tower retrofit from current function to accommodation purpose. Improvement in terms of function and building energy performance by applying sustainable building technologies are the objectives of the retrofit. The advanced plan of building retrofit was proposed after assessing the current building performance and determined the problems. The proposed building design was based on building performance simulation result, literature, and precedent studies. Thereafter, several technologies and design ideas were applied for further investigation, to examine how is the strategies works in the building retrofit. Integrated double skin façade with BIPV, bio composite material for internal wall, double low-e glass for external wall, as well as green lung to improve natural ventilation and create public space were proposed for the building.

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies of Stabilized Earth

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies of Stabilized Earth

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies

Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies

Economic and GHG Emission Analysis of Implementing Sustainable Measures in Existing Public Buildings

AbstractBuildings in the United States are responsible for 72% of the nation’s electricity consumption, 39% of energy consumption, 39% of carbon dioxide emissions, and 13% of potable water consumption. These significant energy and water consumptions and their carbon emissions contribute to global warming, ozone depletion, and air pollution. To reduce these negative impacts of buildings and improve their economic performance, there is an increasing demand for integrating sustainable measures in public buildings such as energy-efficient lighting; motion sensors for interior lighting; motion sensors for lighting of vending machines; motion sensors for exhaust fans; solar daylight tubes; energy-efficient HVAC systems; thermal-pane glass; vestibule entrances; energy-efficient hand dryers; solar photovoltaic systems; and water-saving toilets and urinals. Despite the recent increase in the availability of these sustainable building measures and technologies, there is a pressing need to analyze the economic and g...

What works in water supply and sanitation projects in developing countries with EWB-USA.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports some progress on the global problem of a lack of improved water and sanitation. Between 1990 and 2012, the number of people that gained improved access to improved drinking water reached 2.3 billion people, while the number of children that have died from diarrheal diseases has fallen from 1.5 million deaths to just above 600,000 deaths (1, 2). However, it is estimated that there are still 1.8 billion people using a fecally contaminated source of drinking water (3). In addition, 748 million people continue to lack clean water, 1 billion continue to practice open defecation, and 2.5 billion people still lack adequate sanitation (3). In response to this global issue, Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) began with a mission to build a better world through engineering projects that empower communities to meet their basic human needs and equip leaders to solve the world's most pressing challenges. Their 15,000+ members work with communities to find appropriate solutions to improve water supply, sanitation, energy, agriculture, civil works and structures. Their development approach is based on standard engineering methodology, including problem identification, assessment, alternatives analysis, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. EWB-USA began in 2002 and currently has members working in over 40 countries around the world. The majority of their work is focused in Latin America and Africa, but their programs are expanding to Asia and the Pacific Basin. Currently, EWB-USA members are working in 17 programs in six countries, including the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Nepal, and Fiji. Success in these programs is defined by measuring overall impact and learning from failure. Impact is measured through Standard Monitoring Indicators and learning is accomplished by documenting failures and lessons learned. Through this work, the organization has impacted 2.5 million lives through primarily water supply and sanitation projects by focusing on sustainable engineering solutions, community-education, capacity building, and appropriate technologies and local resources.

Improving Building Technologies with a Sustainable Strategy

In recent years it has been noticed the progressive disappearance of vernacular sustainable building technologies all over the world mainly due to a strong urban rehabilitation process with modern technologies not compatible with ancient knowledge. Simultaneously new dwellings are needed all over the world and in this sense it was decided to study an ecological and cost-controlled building technology of monolithic walls that can combine the use of low carbon footprint materials, such as earth, fibres and lime using an invasive species: giant reed cane (Arundo Donax). This paper explains the development of this building technology through testing diverse prototypes.

Low Embodied Energy Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies

Construction industry is one of the largest consumers of the natural resources and responsible for substantial amount of CO2emission in the world. The purpose of this paper is to carry out comprehensive literature review on the low embodied energy materials and techniques used in the existing and / or new buildings in India. The paper also compares the conventional building materials and techniques, with alternative ones to assess their superiority. An investigation into the energy consumed by the building materials and techniques is computed to find out the embodied energy requirements to prove superiority of innovative construction techniques over traditional materials.

Life Cycle Flow (LCF) Application to Evaluate the Real Estate Investment in Residential Buildings with Tax Benefit Incentives in Cases of Positive Externalities

Investing in the main home is an important form of investment for families and represented one of the main family assets in Italy in the second half of the 20th century. The evaluation of the convenience of the house purchase needs to consider that technologies in construction have undergone a rapid change in recent times that proposes an approach to sustainable building technologies, such as dry construction systems that can reduce energy consumption over time. Moreover, these construction systems are encouraged with tax deductions from the state, that is, financing with public spending via a tax benefit, which recognizes the role of externalities of investments in sustainable construction. The article would apply Life Cycle Flow (LCF) model to a residential building; LCF is based on the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) model and adapted to assess a real estate investment, such as a residential building for private use, taking into account the effects of a tax benefit. The model quantifies the cost of satisfying consumers’ housing needs in the long run. The model takes into account the absorption of financial resources at all stages of property investment. The proposed LCF approach quantifies an average discounted cash outflow per year and an average discounted cash outflow per year per surface unit in square meters; thus, it is possible to compare project alternatives and choose the alternative that minimizes the absorption of financial resources in the long run. In this article, the LCF model is applied to three project alternatives and highlights the energy savings in the long run for consumption choices and the importance of tax benefits for the reduction of the cash outflow for a family in long-term housing. Given the results of the research, the proposed LCF model can be applied on a larger scale, in particular, to quantify social welfare generated by tax benefits financed with public spending, in terms of economic activation and assessing environmental externalities.

Sociological Methods for Sustainable Urban Design

The authors raise a question of the necessity of urgent introduction of the principles of green building design into the practice. It is emphasized that such a necessity is dictated by the dangerous degradation processes occurring in the biosphere and society. In the given report the questions of social purpose and function of architectural activity are raised, as well as of the development of the sociology of architecture as an essential field of scientific research for providing the quality of design solutions.Green building technologies are widely spread in Europe, USA and in the Korea, China. Green building and sustainable building technologies have converted into a regular construction and building operation practice, whose mission is to reduce consumption of power and other material resources and to preserve or improve the quality of buildings and their comfort. The most reputable green building standards include LEED in the USA and BREAM in Great Britain. A discussion of local green standards, that will take account of the climate, landscape, and the lifestyle of residents, is underway in Russia. Principles of the ecologically sustainable design are being introduced into the architectural practice.

Editor's Note

"Editor's Note." International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development, 6(1), p. 1

A Study on the Sustainable Building Technologies Considering to Performance of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction

The purpose of this study is to construct a database of sustainable building technologies considering the performance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. Through analysis of various sustainable green building certifications such as G-SEED, LEED, BREEAM, and CASBEE, sustainable technology factor categories associated with GHG reduction technologies were derived. Environmental performance and economic characteristics according to the considered sustainable building technology was examined and a model was generated. This model will be used to determine the best sustainable technologies which will support optimum building design to reduce national GHG emissions in Korea, enhance energy efficiency and preserve natural resources.

Architectural Professionals’ Needs and Preferences for Sustainable Building Guidelines in Korea

The issue of sustainability has become one of the major concerns among architectural professionals throughout the world. As a way of providing information, many countries have developed and distributed sustainable building guidelines. This paper aims to investigate architectural professionals’ needs and preferences with regard to sustainable building guidelines in Korea, with a specific focus on various guideline attributes. We conducted a review of existing sustainable building guidelines in many countries and undertook a questionnaire survey among professionals in Korea to gain insight about their opinions. Forty guidelines were examined and characterized by their attributes, including main purpose, target building type, communication format, hierarchy of the information, and information type. As the main purposes of guidelines, professionals identified “to provide education on the significance of sustainable buildings and promote a better understanding of sustainable principles” and “to provide comprehensive and detailed information on sustainable building design strategies and technologies”. Cost, financial information, as well as comprehensive implementation methods were found to be crucial information types for professionals.

Reorienting innovation: transdisciplinary research and building technology

Over fifty years ago at the RIBA’s 1958 Oxford Conference, discussions about architectural research and science posed seminal questions about the very nature of creativity in architectural research and education. Leslie Martin observed that research is the tool by which theory is advanced. For more than half a century, we have seen traces of scientific research fuelling the advancement of architectural knowledge and its feedback loops into practice. Yet, interrogations around how architectural creativity is affected by intersections with the sciences are not new. The Bauhaus, for example, sought to integrate scientific thought in architectural education in 1936. Thus, why are emerging interdisciplinary collaborations where architecture, engineering and science converge at the inception of design potentially transformative?Increasing attempts to accelerate the pace of innovation in sustainable building technology is engendering pioneering intersections between architecture, engineering and natural science disciplines such as bioengineering and chemistry. The broad disciplinary breadth of these research processes inevitably requires mediating the diverse values, perspectives and research methodologies of disciplines that pursue innovation in different ways. However, to what extent is this new interdisciplinary convergence possibly transformative? Could it be that these processes, particularly in building technology innovation, may be influencing scientists and engineers to rethink how design problems are conceptualised and researched?

Effective reflectivity and heat generation in sucrose and PMMA mixtures

Recent efforts in the construction sector to develop panels made of agricultural waste and polymer mixtures are becoming more frequent. These panels are usually developed in pursuit of low embodied energy, biodegradability and energy efficiency. PMMA's transparency and structural advantages over other thermoplastics is making this material progressively more common in façades. While advances in PMMA's recyclability are under development, the process still presents multiple challenges regarding environmental efficiency and resulting structural integrity. It is important, therefore, to establish mixtures where PMMA's structural advantages are balanced with low carbon emission substrates, such as agricultural wastes. Typically, agricultural waste in architectural panels is used for structural reinforcement (i.e. fibers). However, agro-derived materials such as sucrose have additional and/or alternative potentials in construction applications. Sucrose's unique optical properties can be implemented for light and thermal control. Additionally, since the energy losses of buildings concentrate in the envelopes another major challenge of cladding substrates pertains to how the façade material can improve energy efficiency, i.e. acting as thermal mass while providing light transmission control avoiding conditions such as glare. Façade materials that can minimize environmental impact while supporting energy savings and appropriate natural light conditions bear strong potential for advancing sustainable building technologies. This analysis provides an expression for the overall reflectivity of combinations of sucrose and PMMA, as well as, estimates of the thermal heating rate, as a function of the relative volume fractions and material properties.

Approach to Steel-Bamboo Composite Structure System

Modern bamboo structural system is a new type of green sustainable building technology, conform with our country’s requirements of developing environment-protecting and energy-saving buildings. This paper presents a new lightweight, high-strength , earthquake-resistant and energy-saving system-steel-bamboo composite structural systems , and given the various structural elements of the composite structural systems of steel-bamboo production methods . This paper also gives the production methods of steel-bamboo composite elements. Steel-bamboo-structural system can per-fectly combine steel and bamboo to bear load together, and it have excellent mechanical properties and broad application prospects.

A Review of Design Considerations and Representation of Sustainable Tall Building

The purpose of this paper is to introduce design considerations for the super tall building especially those related with sustainable design methodology and the topic presented in the SB11 Helsinki World Sustainable Building Conference by Hyeong-il Kim. The design of tall buildings should take into consideration of environmental impact and economic benefits from sustainable approaches to ensure low energy consumption and CO2 emissions. In the paper, author tried to identify key issues related to sustainable building technology and emphasis the role of the sustainability in tall building design. The study also provides analytical survey of the significance of adaptable use of sustainable solutions that demonstrate use of renewable energy resources, and respond to climatic conditions with energy conscious design principles including form, orientation and materiality of the buildings on the current practice.

The Sustainability of High Risers and Their Necessity of Specification

(2011). The Sustainability of High Risers and Their Necessity of Specification. International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development: Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 283-286.