Sustainable Housing and Urban Construction
Since the beginning of time, the built environment has been an integral part in providing shelter needs for men, women and children. Maslow (1943) formulated that shelter is a basic requirement of humans. In the future, humans will have to construct sustainable shelter otherwise would they would risk depleting resources for subsequent generations.
Construction is an example of a multitasking activity. The lifecycle of construction can be broken into phases. Achieving building sustainability in modern environment requires a better understanding of environmental impacts. Impacts such as climate change, associated costs, as well as utilising benchmarking scale to measure across a whole range of building types and occupancies. This report will discuss building sustainability, the constraints that stake holders of built environment face, and the role of architects in the process of constructing sustainable buildings.
Conceptually, sustainability is allowing present generation to meet its needs without depriving later generations of a way to meet theirs. According to Meckler (2004), building sustainability means to “provide a safe, healthy, comfortable indoor environment while simultaneously limit the reduction of the earth’s natural resources”. Architects, with their unique position within the built environment, are well equipped to meet the challenges of sustainability in the built environment. The building and construction industry possesses a high ability to be innovative (Meckler 2004), and through this innovation that it would create new methods and processes resulting in constructing improved sustainable buildings that can be serve as subsequent year’s benchmark to beat.
The construction industry has invested in research and development into sustainability in order to gain a clearer understanding the effect of building on the environment and reducing the impact of buildings on the environment. The common goal is to be “energy efficient”. Being energy
Construction is an example of a multitasking activity. The lifecycle of construction can be broken into phases. Achieving building sustainability in modern environment requires a better understanding of environmental impacts. Impacts such as climate change, associated costs, as well as utilising benchmarking scale to measure across a whole range of building types and occupancies. This report will discuss building sustainability, the constraints that stake holders of built environment face, and the role of architects in the process of constructing sustainable buildings.
Conceptually, sustainability is allowing present generation to meet its needs without depriving later generations of a way to meet theirs. According to Meckler (2004), building sustainability means to “provide a safe, healthy, comfortable indoor environment while simultaneously limit the reduction of the earth’s natural resources”. Architects, with their unique position within the built environment, are well equipped to meet the challenges of sustainability in the built environment. The building and construction industry possesses a high ability to be innovative (Meckler 2004), and through this innovation that it would create new methods and processes resulting in constructing improved sustainable buildings that can be serve as subsequent year’s benchmark to beat.
The construction industry has invested in research and development into sustainability in order to gain a clearer understanding the effect of building on the environment and reducing the impact of buildings on the environment. The common goal is to be “energy efficient”. Being energy
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