Sustainable architecture, sustainable climate control and building biology: natural building practices
Recent concern about energy consumption and limitation of the use
of non-renewable resources has had an impact on buildings and construction practices.
Europe's construction industry accounts for 10-12% of the EU's Gross Domestic Product and employs about 30 million people.
Building on the basis of the principles of sustainable architecture has had an impact on both design and construction of new buildings and renovation of existing ones. Sustainable architecture, viewed as the architectural practice of building
on the basis of the principles of sustainability, aims to set up a harmonious relationship between buildings and environment.
This definition was introduced in Italy by ANAB, the National Association for Ecological Architecture. Buildings are viewed as an interface between the indoor and outdoor environments, and so new buildings are designed to use innovations in technology to produce new forms of expression and make appropriate use of resources from our environment, to meet the needs of the current generation without harming future generations. Sustainable climate control is a series of architectural solutions for maintaining a comfortable environment in a building, controlling the building's internal microclimate and natural lighting while minimising the use of technological systems that consume energy from conventional sources. The criteria of building biology and the opportunities to restore balance to our environment offered by an ecological model of building offer vast scope of action with careful choice of methods, practices and materials to use, relying on certified products and dependable businesses. Sustainability in architecture assigns the task of capturing or repelling the sun's rays primarily to the building's structure and physical shape, orientation and climatic context, making the most of the local microclimate and using resources from the environment consciously for proper sustainable planning of use of built-up land.
This form of development is very attractive for its potential to save energy and cut pollution, especially considering that in Europe, energy consumed to heat, cool, light and otherwise serve buildings represents about 40% of our consumption of primary energy sources. The future of our society depends partly on our ability to come up with a new form of architecture, and we rely on architects to achieve this goal.
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