Sustainability means to design with intent to help the overall health of the earth and the people occupying the built environment. Over the past few decades we have seen a major decline in the health of the earth, mostly due to air pollution caused by human activity within the built environment. Architecture is not only an art of creative expression, but is an act done in service to others to better their overall lives. To me this includes keeping the earth and its longevity as a top priority when designing and building.
Beitou Public Library in Taipei, Taiwan
Many examples of incorporating sustainability into design came to mind when sitting down to write this exercise. The first being the easiest way to think about the earth during early stages of design which is passive design. Passive design is the act of using the nature of a building site to determine the form that you are going to build. Easy ways to do this is using the natural flow of a space, trees, hills, etc. to be physical boundaries for your design to be maintained within. Passive design also means that the environment is used in interesting ways to help light, heat, cool, and ventilate a space to mitigate the emissions from the systems necessary to perform these tasks with technology.
Another simple building practice that is easy to implement into design to help a building be more sustainable is the use of recycled materials. I talked a lot about this practice of using scraps or unconventional building materials in my last design project check in, but this is something that many people forget about when designing. We can take inspiration from incredible projects such as the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Temple that is pictured below. This temple is made up of over 1,000 empty beer bottles. A creative take on using recycled materials in architecture.
