SUSTAINABLE PLANNING & ARCHITECTURE

UNIT -3

1. ECO-FRIENDLY BUILDING MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

2. BIOMIMICRY
3. LOW IMPACT CONSTRUCTION
4. RECYCLABLE PRODUCTS AND EMBODIED ENERGY
5. LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS.
6. ENERGY SOURCES – RENEWABLE AND NON-RENEWABLE
ENERGY

Notes prepared by

AR. ACHILLES SOPHIA M.G

1. ECO-FRIENDLY BUILDING MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

1.1. Selection of materials

There are many good reasons why we should use eco-friendly construction
methods and materials.

 It can improve the health of our planet, and the health of our own lives.
 Eco-friendly construction can not only help to create a better outdoor
environment, it can also help to build a healthier indoor environment.
 Green buildings eliminate the problems through good ventilation design,
breathable walls, and the use of natural, non-toxic products and materials.
 Choosing to build green saves energy. The low embodied energy of green
products ensures that very little energy went into their manufacture and
production, with a direct reduction in carbon emissions.
 Eco friendly design methodology can further reduce energy consumption
 It also supports local business and helps strengthen the local economy, which in
turn helps to build our communities into vibrant, prosperous and desirable
places to live.

Sustainable building is an essential aspect of widening efforts to conceive an

ecologically responsible world.

A building that is sustainable must, by nature, be constructed using locally

sustainable materials:

i.e. materials that can be used without any adverse effect on the environment, and
which are produced locally, reducing the need to travel.
There are key criteria that can be used to judge whether a material is sustainable or
not:

1. To what extent will the materials used in this building cause damage to the
environment? When using locally sustainable materials it is essential that those
materials are renewable, non-toxic and, therefore, safe for the environment.
Ideally, they will be recycled, as well as recyclable.
2. To what extent will a building material contribute to the maintenance of the
environment in years to come? Alloys and metals will be more damaging to the
environment over a period of years as they are not biodegradable, and are not
easily recyclable, unlike wood, for example.
3. To what extent is the material used locally replenishable? If the material is
locally sourced and can be found locally for the foreseeable future, travelling
will be kept to a minimum, reducing harmful fuel emissions

1.2. Why eco-friendly materials?

Phenomenal growth in the construction industry that depends upon depletable
resources.

Production of building materials leads to irreversible environmental impacts.For

example- Stone quarrying leads to eroded hills, Marble quarry, brick kilns in the
fringes of the city lead to denudation of topsoil, dredging for sand damage the river
biodiversity etc.

Using eco-friendly materials is the best way to build a eco-friendly building.

1.3. What is Eco-friendly material ?

"...products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the
environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the
same purpose..."

1.4. Properties of eco friendly materials

 Renewable source - Rapidly renewable sources e.g. wood from certified

forests
 Reuse of Waste - Salvaged products –e.g. old plumbing, door frames
 Recycled contents – agriculture/ industrial waste e.g. Bagasse Board
 Embodied Energy - Scalar total of energy input required to produce the
product including transporting them to the building site
 Reduce Pollution
a. Air Pollution- Use of materials with low VOC emissions e.g. Cement Paints
b. Water Pollution – Materials that prevent leaching.
c. Land Pollution- Materials that reuse waste that would otherwise have
resulted in landfill. e.g. Flyash Bricks.
 Reduce material use -These are energy efficient and also help reduce the dead
load of a building. e.g. Ferrocement
 Durability & Life Span - Material that are exceptionally durable, or require
low maintenance e.g PVC pipes.
 Energy Conservation
a. Materials that require less energy during construction e.g. precast slabs.
b. Materials that help reduce the cooling loads- e.g – aerated concrete blocks.
c. Products that conserve energy – e. g. CFL lamps.
d. Fixtures & equipments that help conserve water e.g. Dual flush cisterns
 Recyclable
a. Reuse or Recycle as different product e.g. steel, aluminum.
b. Biodegradable – that decompose easily e.g wood or earthen materials

2. BIOMIMICRY

2.1. What is Biomimicry?

“bio” = life, living things

“mimicry” = copying, emulating

 Biomimicry is a design tool based on emulating the strategies used by living
things.
 Biomimicry – sometimes called Bionics or Biomimetic
 Is a scientific and technical discipline finding inspiration in biological systems
to define new engineering solutions.
 BIOMETRICS or BIOMIMETICS is a discipline in which we imitate or take
inspiration from nature's designs and processes to solve human problems.
 It is a multi-disciplinary subject involving a wide diversity of other domains
like electronics, informatics, medicine, biology, chemistry, physics,
mathematics, and many others.
 Biomimicry is a design principle that seeks sustainable solutions to human
problems by consulting and emulating nature‟s time-tested patterns and
strategies.
It has three major goals. They are:

1. Nature as Model: Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature's models

and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve
human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.

2. Nature as Mentor: Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the

"rightness" of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has
learned: What works? What is appropriate? What lasts?

3. Nature as Measure: Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It

introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on
what we can learn from it.

2.2. Approaches To Biomimicry

There are two approaches to Biomimetic design
1. DESIGN TO BIOLOGY
 The approach requires designers to identify problems and biologists to match
these to organisms that have solved similar issues.

 More fuel efficient due to aerodynamic body mimicking BOX FISH

 More material efficient due to mimicking tree growth patterns form structure.
 The car is not a new approach to transportation but improvement to existing
technology

2. BIOLOGY TO DESIGN
 The approach requires to have relevant biological or ecological knowledge and
research rather than design problem

 Lotus flower emerges clean from swampy waters.

 Lotusan paint enables buildings to be self cleaning.
 Biology can influence humans in ways outside predetermined design problem.
 This will result in previously unthought-of technologies or systems or approach
to design solutions.

2.3. Principles Of Biomimicry

 Nature runs on sunlight.
 Nature uses only the energy it needs.
 Nature fits form to function.
 Nature recycles everything.
 Nature rewards cooperation.
 Nature banks on diversity.
 Nature demands local expertise.
 Nature curbs excesses from within.
 Nature taps the power of limits

Biomimicry can be applied to buildings in order to:

 Make materials stronger, self-assembling, and self-healing.

 Use natural processes and forces for basic building functions.
 Allow them to produce resources by integrating natural systems.
2.4. Examples Of Biomimicry:
3. LOW IMPACT CONSTRUCTION

 All buildings which aim to reduce their impact on the environment could be
called, at least, „lower impact‟ but the term has come to mean those buildings
using largely natural or organic materials.
 „Low Impact Construction‟ serves to describe a body of work which takes in
most of the more radical attempts to produce „deep green‟ buildings with a quite
different approach to construction and the creation of comfort

3.1. Advantages and Disadvantages

 Small Scale And Rural: One characteristic of almost all low impact construction
is that it remains small scale and usually rural
 Very Low Embodied Energy: Low impact buildings are almost always
buildings with low embodied energy in their fabric
 Local, Unconventional Materials: Sourcing materials can be problematic.
Simply finding the material(s) can be difficult, particularly in urban areas
 Low Material Costs, High Labour Costs: Generally speaking the material costs
of low impact constructions tend to be low, but these are usually offset by
higher costs associated with labour and time.
 Passive Environmental Control: Most of the natural materials and coatings
associated with low impact construction are hygroscopic. Clay in particular
absorbs and desorbs moisture freely and as such can act as a moderator of the
humidity in the air, though ventilation remains the key tool for this.
 Maintenance: Maintenance has become a dirty word for some, and much talk is
made of “maintenance free” construction and products.

3.2. Common Materials And Systems Of Low Impact Construction

3.2.1. Cob construction

 A cob building is built up in stages.

 A lime and stone foundation with walls that has layers of a mix of earth and
straw laid over.
 The lower parts have been „shaved‟ to form a (relatively) neat surface, while the
most recently added top section is „as trodden in‟.
 A completed straw bale wall with the first coat of lime plaster being applied.
 the use of chicken wire over the corners to form a firmer substrate for the
plaster and help protect the corners.
3.2.2. Earth
 Earth is still the most widespread construction material known and one third of
humanity still live in earthen buildings. The material even gave its name to the
entire planet ‒ or was it the other way around Vernacular forms of earth
construction survive in many parts of the world and remain instructive on the
most efficient way to produce earthen buildings even today. There are a number
of techniques but broadly they can be divided into three.
 The first involves stacking and compressing earth to form a monolithic wall ‒
examples are „cob‟ and rammed earth (using shuttering).
 The second uses earth pre-formed and dried into blocks or „adobes‟ and then
built up. Both techniques employ earth as the principal load-bearing material.
The principal advantage of the latter is that it avoids most of the problems
associated with shrinkage, whilst the main disadvantage is that it entails double
handling.
 The third alternative is to mix earth with some filler material like straw and
apply it to a framework which takes the structural loads. This was more
common traditionally where timber supplies were plentiful.

3.2.3. Light Earth And Hemp-Lime

 One way around the problem of insulation is to increase the level of insulating
filler, and usually the depth of the mix so that the overall wall complies with
modern requirements for thermal performance.
 This can be done in a number of way, but the main techniques employed with
use of earth / clay and straw, or lime and hemp, to form a solid, non-
loadbearing fairly well insulating mass wall.
 Both techniques require drying out times and are still fairly labour intensive,
though more mechanised, and pre-fabricated options exist.

3.2.4. Other Crops

 A number of bio-based materials have found their way into the building
material supply chain.
 Among these are hemp, flax, and sheeps wool, all used for insulation while flax
is also used in the manufacture of linoleum.
 Sisal, coir and jute are used in carpet manufacture, and reeds are becoming a
little more common not only for traditional thatching, but bound and used as
backings to plasters and renders.

3.2.5. Straw Bale Construction

 Straw bale construction normally involves placing rectangular bales exactly as
bricks are placed to form a wide, hairy wall which can be either load bearing or
infill to a structural frame, and which is normally plastered on both sides with a
clay or lime-based render.
 Straw bale construction has a number of advantages over earth and insulated
earth construction types.
 It is a dry system and so has none of the (admittedly minor) problems
associated with drying out and shrinkage.
 It is also a very good insulation material which, when combined with the
sensible placement of thermal mass, makes a lot of sense overall in the UK.
 Third, it is quite quick to construct, but possibly more involved than the other
techniques to adequately finish.
 There is no doubt however that straw bale construction is relatively quick,
cheap and easy to do, and increasingly easy to get through the legislative and
financial hurdles which often bedevil low impact projects.

3.2.6. Timber
 So widespread it is easily overlooked that timber forms the mainstay of much
conventional, very high impact construction, but has the capacity also to be an
integral part of very low impact construction if used wisely.
 If sourced from local (at least, not imported) and certified forests, and if used
efficiently and without chemical treatment, and if detailed well so as to be
durable, timber represents a low impact material choice.
 The Segal method uses timber very efficiently, roundpole construction reduces
the machining of timber while retaining all of its strength, and gridshell
construction enables very efficient use of small amounts of timber yet creates
large span structures.
 Using „green‟ timber avoids the energy associated with kiln drying and there
are a number of ways in which timber can be used, such as with „Brettstapel‟
construction where good use is made of a material which has little other value.

3.2.7. Masonry
 Traditional stone and brick construction, using lime and clay mortars probably
counts as a low impact strategy, depending on how the insulation required is
achieved.
 Reclaimed elements such as tiles and slates reduce the overall impact
 People are becoming more familiar with the use of lime, and increasingly, clay,
for mortars and plasters. Perhaps the main advantage of these materials for
mortars, unlike cement, is that the bricks or blocks can more readily be re-used
 at the end of their lifetime, and that is the real tragedy of cement (which acts as
a type of glue).

3.2.8. Re-Used And Recycled Materials

 A few constructional techniques have been developed to deal directly with
some of the waste arisings from industry.
 One of the most enduring has been the common tyre. Rammed full of earth and
tied together these have become symbols, of ecological design through the re-
use of waste (Earthships).
 Drinks cans and bottles, short logs and many other unlikely materials have been
similarly employed to create walls, which are often however sadly little more
than a matrix of cement mortar.
 The principal of using waste materials is a sound one, and be it tyres or recycled
paper insulation there is no doubt the impact of development is reduced.

4. RECYCLABLE PRODUCTS AND EMBODIED ENERGY

 Materials with high recycled content not only reduces the amount of new
material, energy and pollution in their production, it reduces the need for
landfills, and possible pollution from incineration. Many materials and
components are now available that have recycled or "waste" product content.
 These range from concrete that uses fly ash aggregate, carpets made from
recycled soda bottles, and insulation made from recycled paper, to paints that
contain post-consumer returns. the availability of products with recycled
content is dependent on demand by specifiers.
 EMBODIED ENERGY is defined as the total energy inputs consumed
throughout a product‟s life-cycle. Initial embodied energy represents energy
used for the extraction of raw materials, transportation to factory, processing
and manufacturing, transportation to site, and construction.
 Once the material is installed, recurring embodied energy represents the energy
used to maintain, replace, and recycle materials and components of a building
throughout its life. Embodied energy is typically expressed in MJ/kg, where a
mega joule (MJ) is equal to 0.948 kBtu or 0.278 kWh. The embodied energy
values in Material LIFE have been converted to MJ per construction unit (i.e.
ft2 for flooring, etc.) and are listed for the cradle-to-gate portion of the
product‟s life cycle, as highlighted in green in the diagram below.
4.1. Why Is Embodied Energy Important?

 Energy is embodied in everything we use every day: from food to clothing to

cars, as well as buildings and all materials used in them
 As buildings consume less energy in operations, the energy embodied in the
building‟s materials will become increasingly important as a percentage of a
building‟s total energy footprint.
 Academic studies have illustrated that embodied energy accounts for the
majority of a building‟s energy footprint for approximately the first 15-20 years
of a building‟s life-cycle.

4.2. What Can We Do to Reduce Embodied Energy?

 Architects, interior designers, and engineers need to be conscious of the

embodied energy of the materials specified on projects so that they can select
products that help reduce the overall energy footprint of buildings.
 Given that the envelope and structure alone account for approximately 50% of a
building‟s total embodied energy, we can reduce the footprint of our designs by
selecting existing buildings for interior build-outs, renovations, or adaptive
reuse projects.
 Interior finishes account for approximately 13% of a building‟s embodied
energy, so adaptive reuse or interior build-out projects have an overall smaller
energy footprint that new construction.
5. LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS.

 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool for the systematic evaluation of the
environmental aspects of a product or service system through all stages of its
life cycle.
 LCA provides an adequate instrument for environmental decision support.
Reliable LCA performance is crucial to achieve a life-cycle economy.
 The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), a world-wide
federation of national standards bodies, has standardised this framework within
the series ISO 14040 on LCA.
 Life-cycle analysis (LCA) is a method in which the energy and raw material
consumption, different types of emissions and other important factors related to
a specific product are being measured, analyzed and summoned over the
products entire life cycle from an environmental point of view.

 Life-Cycle Analysis attempts to measure the “cradle to grave” impact on the

ecosystem.
 LCAs started in the early 1970s, initially to investigate the energy requirements
for different processes.
 Emissions and raw materials were added later.
 LCAs are considered to be the most comprehensive approach to assessing
environmental impact.

“The evaluation of the relevant environmental, economic and technological

implications of a product, process or system from cradle to grave “.

LCA Stages

 material extraction and processing

 manufacturing
 transportation and distribution
 use
 end of life management
Example:
 LCA Framework
• Developed by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
(SETAC) in 1990.
• Several workshops in the Netherlands and the United States gave birth to
LCA as we know it today.
• Comprises three fundamental stages: inventory, impact and improvement.

LCA: An Environmental Decision-Making Tool

• Good environmental decision-making tool.
• Possesses two unique attributes:
– Considers whole life-cycle of a product or service; avoids problem
shifting.
– Allocates all environmental burdens to the functional unit, making
easier value/impact assessments.

Why is LCA Important?

• Allows to identify when a selection of one alternative over another or
when the modifications made to any part of the system has the desired end
result of reducing environmental impacts from all life-cycle stages.

LCA STEPS

Generally, a LCA consists of four main activities:

1. Goal definition (ISO 14040): The basis and scope of the evaluation are defined.

2. Inventory Analysis (ISO 14041):

Create a process tree in which all processes from raw material extraction through
waste water treatment are mapped out and connected and mass and energy
balances are closed (all emissions and consumptions are accounted for).

3. Impact Assessment (ISO 14042): Emissions and consumptions are translated

into environmental effects. The are environmental effects are grouped and
weighted.
4. Improvement Assessment/Interpretation (ISO 14043):

• Areas for improvement are identified.

Step 1: Goal Definition and Scoping

Define the goal:

• Intended application of the study
 • Intended audience
Define the scope:
• Identify the product system to be studied
• Define the functional unit
• Define the boundaries of the product system
• Identify assumptions and limitations of the study
• Select impact categories to be included

Step 2: Life Cycle Inventory

• Highly data intensive

• Detailed mass & energy balances performed over life-cycle
• Advantages: measure data & define baseline metrics of life-cycle processes
• Challenges: Assumptions made when data unavailable
Step 3: Impact Assessment

• Converts the inventory into impact categories or mid/end points which explain
the environmental effect
• Impact categories may include: carcinogens, respiratory organics and
inorganics, climate change, radiation, ozone layer, ecotoxicity,
acidification/eutrophication, land use, minerals, fossil fuels
• Can apply weights to impact categories
Step 4: Report Results Life cycle interpretation:

Findings of the inventory analysis or impact assessment are evaluated in relation to

the goal and scope of the study to reach conclusions and recommendations

• Identify significant issues

• Evaluate results for completeness, consistency, and sensitivity of the data
• Draw conclusions & make recommendations consistent with the goal & scope
of the study

Application of LCA Studies

• Identify major contributors to environmental impact

• Compare options based on environmental impact
• System Environmental Strategic Planning
• Evaluate resource effects of existing and new systems

LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT - STEPS

• Categorization - determine impact consequences

• Characterization - determine how the actions affect the categories
• Valuation - determine which impact are more relevant to society
• Allows to evaluate the complete environmental impact of a product, process or
system during its complete life cycle.
• The LCA is still an evolving, unfinished methodology.
LCAs are used:

• In the design process to determine which of several designs may leave a smaller
“footprint on the environment”, or after the fact to identify environmentally
preferred products in government procurement or eco-labeling programs.
• Also, the study of reference or benchmark LCAs provides insight into the main
causes of the environmental impact of a certain kind of product and design
priorities and product design guidelines can be established based on the LCA
data.
• The major disadvantage of quantitative LCAs is their complexity and effort
required Designers and manufacturing engineers find it almost impossible to
practically work with LCAs because of
• The consistent lack of solid data about all aspects of a products life cycle,
• The nearly infinite amount of decisions to make and data to deal with,
• The lack of standardization resulting in numerous conversions and
interpretations,
• The lack of a standard evaluation scheme caused by and resulting in different
views on what is environmentally correct,
• The approach is currently only suitable for design analysis / evaluation rather
than design synthesis. LCAs are "static" and only deal with a snapshot of
material and energy inputs and outputs in a dynamic system

6. ENERGY SOURCES – RENEWABLE AND NON-RENEWABLE

ENERGY