Sustainable Building and Construction - International Environmental ...

Sustainable Building and Construction
materials and energy technology. This integrative approach allows the combination of
economic profitability and innovative creativity. It may do sensualise and motivate all
involved parties for the utilisation of special site-specific possibilities as well as to
integrate new technologies in the characteristic regional architecture. Intelligent
design does not cause additional costs, but may reduce the monetary and nonmonetary
costs for the building service significantly and may help to conserve
regional cultural heritages. The available instruments for the analysis and planning of
climate responsive buildings will be explained and systematically related to the
specific basic conditions of building site and the kind of building use. The purpose of
this paper is to encourage awareness and knowledge to realise the concept of the first
decision making processes and design approaches in a climate responsive way. Only
the know how of site specific chances and alternatives enables the sense full
utilisation of most available planning instruments for the further optimisation of the
design of specific buildings.
3.2.2.2 Basic principles of Climate responsive building
Regarding history, it is observable that since people have constructed buildings as
shelters, the site-specific climate always has influenced the building concept and
shape. In times when there did not exist any technical equipment to create indoor
climates independent from outdoor climates, climate responsive design and
construction methods using the positive climate effects and diluting the negative
effects have been the only possibility to create comfortable indoor climate conditions
for the human organism. Hence the traditional architecture in each climate zone and
region offers a large reservoir of suitable building concepts and measures for the
control of the indoor climate by selective utilisation of outdoor climate factors.
Building shapes and construction types were optimally aligned over centuries to the
specific climatic conditions. During the planning of buildings the ancient master
builders took it for granted to incorporate the different seasonal cycles of winter and
summer or rainy season and dry season, day and night, as well as the influences of sun,
wind and precipitations.
Looking at the different traditional building types it is eye-catching that special
building forms were developed out of geographic-climatic circumstances and local
conditions. The people did know how to create adequate indoor climate conditions by
the utilisation of climatically and physical principals and with a minimum supply of
additional energy.
Examples for climate responsive, traditional buildings are the well ventilated pile
buildings in tropical hot-humid regions, the massive adobe (clay) buildings, equipped
with flat roofs and a meagre amount of windows in the dry-hot climate zones, farm
houses in the mountains with flat sloped, wide protruding roofs as well as farm houses
in cost regions with deep-drawn roofs, well adapted for strong wind. The igloos of the
Eskimos with an optimal ratio between the cool building and terrain surface to the
warm indoor volume and equipped with tunnel entrances which work as heat locks,
are ideal examples for climate responsive buildings in extreme conditions.
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