The need and importance of sustainability in design

China is the world’s largest annual country in terms of new buildings, with every 2 billion square meters of a new area, equivalent to 40% of the world’s consumption of cement and steel, also producing millions of construction waste every year, posing an environmental threat for China and the world. In addition, China’s severe shortage and low actual utilization of energy, land, water, raw materials, and other resources, and environmental pollution remain severe. The grim facts show that for China to follow a sustainable development path, the vigorous development of energy-efficient buildings cannot be delayed.

Building energy efficiency is the total energy savings in every aspect of the whole building life cycle. It refers to the construction site, in the planning, design, construction, and use process, through reasonable planning and design, the use of building materials, products, and equipment of energy-saving type, the implementation of building energy-saving standards, strengthening the operation and management of building energy-saving equipment, reasonable design of the building envelope, thermal performance heating, cooling efficiency improvement, lighting, ventilation, drainage piping system, and the use of renewable energy, to ensure the use of function, the building indoor thermal environment quality, reduce building energy consumption, and rational and effective use of energy.

Building energy efficiency is conducive to promoting the conservation and rational use of energy resources, alleviating the contradictions between China’s energy supply and economic and social development; it is conducive to accelerating the development of a circular economy and achieving sustainable economic and social development; it is conducive to the long-term security of national energy security, protecting the environment, improving people’s quality of life and implementing the scientific concept of development.

Aspects of sustainable development that can be considered in the design.

1) Respect the natural environment, optimize the design, conserve resources and improve the physical environmental conditions of the building.

a.Research the various climatic conditions of the design lot, such as temperature, relative humidity, sunlight intensity, wind and wind direction, and other geographical factors.

1. Consider the building site, such as orientation, positioning, typography, and layout; evaluate the extent of shadows, and direct airflow; respond to the natural environment and protect it.
2. Use of natural energy and renewable resources, such as solar energy, natural cold sources, wind, and water energy. Solar collectors and wind micro-generators can be erected on the roof.

2) Enhance the connection between the natural environment and the user. As an intermediary linking the user and the natural environment, the building should introduce as many natural elements as possible to the user, which is an important embodiment of the ecological design principle.

1. Increase the natural light factor as much as possible and establish a high-quality natural light system.
2. Create a well-ventilated convective environment and establish a natural air circulation system.
3. Create an open space environment, so that users can get closer to the natural environment more easily, such as using the retreat to design a roof garden.

3) Considering the requirements of sustainable development, the building should leave a certain margin to save resources and reduce the impact of the building as well as construction waste on the environment, so that the building will have enough area for future development as science and technology develops.

a The use of renewable energy sources: biogas, water recycling systems, waste resourcing.

b Reuse of buildings: this reduces construction waste by a large amount and reduces the waste of resources.

4) Protection of land and vegetation, attention to the ecological environment of the building territory, ensuring a certain level of greenery coverage and creating an idyllic and comfortable environment inside and outside the building.

5) New materials

a.Transparent thermal resistance material (TIM) combination wall, TIM is a transparent thermal insulation plastic, which can be compounded with the external wall to form a transparent thermal insulation wall.

b.Glass material. With the continuous development of modern technology, heat-absorbing glass, heat-reflecting glass, bottom radiation glass, electrically sensitive glass, dimming glass, electromagnetic wave shielding glass, etc. have appeared in this field one after another. The design can combine them into a composite form of construction, to achieve the ecological building insulation and lighting requirements.

1. Solar photovoltaic materials. In the building species with solar cells to generate electricity for the building to provide energy, both pollution-free and noiseless.

6)Rainwater collection and water recycling

7) Use of geothermal resources provided by the soil and groundwater. In the future, cold and thermal energy from the ground will be second only to solar energy as a very important renewable energy source, because it is universally available, almost unlimited and easily accessible.

The study of energy efficiency is an important research topic for the sustainable development of buildings. At this stage in China, it is mainly advocated in terms of simple energy-saving technologies to make them compatible with the level of economic development and not to disregard economic costs and other objectives in the unilateral pursuit of low energy consumption and the extensive use of new energy-saving technologies. Attention is also paid to the research and development of renewable resources such as solar and wind energy, to reduce the cost of using renewable energy sources, and to gradually achieve the goal of energy efficiency in buildings, starting with the economic zones of large cities and spreading to the whole country.

reference:

M. Peng. On the design of high-rise buildings and urban space [J]. Consumer Guide. 2008(08)

Chunxia Wang, Ting Ren, Hongxiu Li. High-rise building design and urban space [J]. Science and technology information. 2009(04)

Mei Zhang,Hui Lv. Urban planning and architectural design [J]. Popular business. 2009(12)