Sustainable architecture and green building design: “How to build a home that saves the Planet”
If you are looking for a way to reduce the environmental impact of building usage, save money on energy bills, and create healthier and happier lives through healthier spaces, you might want to consider this.
Sustainable architecture is a way of designing and constructing buildings that will reduce the use of natural resources, utilize renewable energy, and enhance the total well-being of building inhabitants and the surrounding environment.
In this blog post, I will share with you some of the benefits of sustainable architecture and green building design, as well as some tips on how to build a home that saves the planet. Let’s get started!
The benefits of sustainable architecture and green building design
This can offer many advantages for both the environment and the people who live in them. Here are some of them:
1. By building houses that have sustainable architecture in mind you reduce the use of fuels for generators and gases emitted from air-conditioning units.
Read Also Laterite and Clay: Your Best Block Wall for Sustainability.
2. Indoor air quality is improved. You breathe in more oxygen-filled air. When you choose building materials like laterite, clay wood, and bamboo, you also reduce coming in contact with harmful chemicals that can cause reactions such as asthma, skin sensitive reactions, etc, thereby improving your well-being.
3. Optimized natural lighting. This will reduce your dependency on artificial lighting, helping you maintain your sight, and improving and boosting your overall mood, energy, and performance.
4. It will increase your property market value should you wish to sell anytime.
5. You have reduced maintenance costs and energy bills. There are also tax incentives and rebates for green buildings you can access.
Tips on how to build a home that saves the planet
In a city centre with a bustling environment, unlike our village counterparts, to build a home that saves the planet, here are things to do.
1. Ensure your buildings are designed by a professional such as an Architect.
2. Consider the building materials to be used for your building. For the tropical environment, instead of block walls, clay will make your interior cool, while wood will make the temperate regions warm.
3. Use large windows for the tropical areas and smaller windows for the temperate regions. The temperate regions can still use large windows with only small openable ones. You want to still maximize the use of natural light.
Read How to maximize your roof type for solar installation.
These large windows should be protected from the entrance of direct sunlight into the interior. This is done using natural shading devices like trees for a bungalow house and shading devices (such as fins, aluminum panels, etc.) for storey buildings.
4. In the design, look out for spaces for installing solar panels for using renewable energy.
5. Create a rainwater harvesting system like an underground tank or even an earth surface tank. This water can be used for flushing toilets, laundry purposes, and watering plants.
6. If your building is a large residential building for rentals, use a composting toilet system that treats human waste. Some of this waste can be converted to cooking gas.
7. Incorporate natural elements in your interiors. A small water body passing through your interior will help keep the indoors cool. The sound of a calm flowing water body is calming to the soul.
8. Use potted plants placed near the windows to serve as air filters. This gives you more oxygen to breathe. It also helps connect you to nature and reduces stress for you.
Note that not all plants are advised to be brought inside the home. Some can bring in insects that will find their way to your edibles. Please, speak to your landscape Architect before bringing a potted plant in.
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Is your building already constructed and finished but you want to maximize the building elements you are using for sustainability? You can chat with us on WhatsApp, and let’s discuss how we can help.