Sustainable Building and Construction - International Environmental ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Sustainable Building and Construction Africa, Asia there is still a building stock, which meets the definition of sustainable building, is durable and climate responsive constructed and offers comfortable living conditions. Although the majority of people wants to use “modern” and “fashioned” building materials, like e.g. metal sheets as roofing material and cement blocks and cement plaster as wall building material, not because the indoor climate is better than in houses, built with traditional materials and methods, but because it looks “modern”. Cement and Steel became status symbols in developing countries because they are used in industrialised and high-income countries since decades. These countries always have paradigm functions and their building styles, the utilised materials and technologies are the symbols for prosperity and the improvement of life. Therefore a change towards sustainability in the building and construction sector can be only effectively achieved by a paradigm-shift in high-income countries. Only technologies and materials, widely used in these parts of the world will also change the wishes and goals of people living in low-income countries and will open the way towards a sustainable evolution. Illustration 29: Modified traditional clay house in the rural area of Kumasi, Ghana, with tin roof, modified building corner out of natural stones and cement mortar as well as inappropriate cement plaster on the existing clay wall in the background. Illustration 31: Advertisement for cement in the rural area of Kumasi. Illustration 30: Traditional house with spark eroded clay wall and new tin roof, in the rural area of Kumasi, Ghana. An example in the rural areas of Ghana may be generally representative for the worldwide situation in low-income countries regarding traditional sustainable design and construction technologies. The existing traditional buildings are made out of clay, and are several hundred years old. They are still very strong and durable. They are more resistant to mechanical impacts and therefore harder to deconstruct than modern buildings, constructed out of earth cement blocks. They offer a good indoor climate but the clay walls and grass roofs do not meet the present design and status standards. Therefore, 32
Sustainable Building and Construction the owners do refurbish their houses with modern building materials even though these measures are relatively expensive and contra productive. The traditional roof cover is replaced by inappropriate metal sheets and cement plaster is applied on the clay walls. The new roofs do boost the indoor temperatures compared to the traditional ones and the cement plaster on the outside walls is not durable because there is no adhesion between the materials clay and cement. 3.2.1.5 Combination of Alternative and Common building materials Since many years also research is done to develop techniques, which shall allow the replacement of reinforced steel or aggregates in concrete products by bamboo fibres or chips (e.g.: MIT Boston (1914); Fachhochschule Koeln, DFG Forschungsvorhaben II-D4-At 11/1,J.Atrops und S. Haerig: ”Bambus und Bambusbeton” (1983)). Research in natural fibre reinforced concrete has also been done e.g. by the Institute for intuitive technology and bio architecture (TIBA), Lengen, J. v., at Casa Do Sonho, Brazil. In 1966 Brink, F. E., Rush, P. J. published already the research work “Bamboo reinforced concrete constructions”; U.S. Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory; Port Hueme, California, USA 1966; which is available at: http://www.romanconcrete.com/Bamboo/BambooReinforcedConcreteFeb1966.htm These techniques are somehow compromises to reduce the amount of common building materials and to enforce the durability of building products. Regarding the possibilities to improve the quality of building materials also by the utilisation of bio- or eco-technologies, their utilisation should be avoided and alternative technologies preferred. The bonding strength and water resistance of clay and mud plaster can be significantly increased, e.g. by mixing it with whey, curd, cow dung or linseed oil varnish, while the mixing with cement and lime can reduce the compression strength, especially if the percentage of the additives is less than 5%, because it destroys the bonding strength of the clay. (According to Minke, G.; Lehmbau Handbuch – der Baustoff Lehm und seine Anwendung; Germany, Staufen bei Freiburg 1994) Hence and especially concerning the durability and recycling ability, the combination of materials with different product characteristics should be avoided. Adobes or compressed earth blocks (CEB) are appropriate building materials in many regions of the earth. However, the combination of earth and cement is also an appropriate technology to produce durable building elements, e.g. in regions where clay, timber or bamboo is not available. In these cases a relatively small amounts of cement (compared with normal concrete) can be used to produce components out of earth-cement or sand-cement. Further information regarding appropriate materials, are available e.g. at http://www.gtz.de/basin/publications/index.asp?A=1 (many are downloadable as *.pdf files). 3.2.1.6 Local Materials The utilisation of local materials may minimise the effort for transportation and allows the preservation of the cultural identity and knowledge in the build environment by the utilisation of traditional materials, which may be natural resources (organic and inorganic), as well as recycled materials from building or other 33
Page 1 and 2: Sustainable Building and Constructi
Page 7 and 8: 1.2 Population and climate change S
Page 19 and 20: 3.2 Design Approaches Sustainable B
Page 31: Sustainable Building and Constructi
Page 55 and 56: 3.2.2.4.2 Arid Climate Zones Sustai
Page 59 and 60: Illustration 50f: Underground build
Page 69 and 70: 3.2.2.5 Data and Planning Tools Sus
Page 75 and 76: Illustration 55: Light directing co
Page 79 and 80: Illustration 66: Solar gain factors
Page 83 and 84:
3.2.3.4 Mechanical Ventilation: Sus
Page 85 and 86:
Illustration 69b: Material and surf
Page 87 and 88:
3.2.3.5 .1.1 Evaporative Cooling Su
Page 89 and 90:
3.2.3.5 .1.2 Ground Cooling Sustain
Page 91 and 92:
3.2.3.5 .1.4 Refrigerative Cooling
Page 93 and 94:
Sustainable Building and Constructi
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Appendix 1 - “Planning Tools for
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Appendix 2 - Life Cycle Assessment
Page 107 and 108:
Appendix 2 - Life Cycle Assessment
Page 109 and 110:
Appendix 3 - Internet Resources Sus
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Appendix 4 - International Case Stu
Page 125 and 126:
Case Study Ethiopia - Hot and Dry C
Page 127 and 128:
Case Study Tanzania - Hot and Humid
Page 129 and 130:
Case Study Nicaragua - Hot and Humi
Page 131 and 132:
Case Study Peru - Mountainous Clima
Page 133 and 134:
Case Study China - Transition Zone
Page 135 and 136:
Case Study Malaysia - Hot and Humid
Page 137 and 138:
Case Study Philippines - Hot and Hu
Page 139 and 140:
Case Study Thailand - Warm and Humi
Page 141 and 142:
Case Study Australia - Moderate Cli
Page 143 and 144:
Case Study Germany - Moderate Clima
Page 145 and 146:
Appendix 5 - Physical Data From: Gu
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Appendix 6 - References Illustratio
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Appendix 7 - References Literature
Page 165 and 166:
Appendix 7 - References Literature
show all

Sustainable Building and Construction - International Environmental ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?