At first glance, the architect and constructions fall outside the usual topics for a website dedicated to the energy sector. But the ideas in the article prove to be of major impact, especially as the circular economy concept gets more and more traction. You will discover that, from thermal insulation to power generation, the authors review the numerous delicate aspects of the individual decision – at the beneficiary, builder, architect, or designer level –, as well as the intricate knots in which the regulatory and control authorities get stuck in, just the same as along the major European, regional or national strategies do. There are more questions than answers – as this is an invitation to reflection and responsibility from some professionals whose intelligence and humanity remains built within a building, , subjects of judgement for decades from posterity. Florin Enache is one of the speakers who will stimulate the debates at the Energy Breakfast Club on March 8th, upon the issues related to the PRACTICAL ASPECTS ON BUILDINGS’ SAFETY – Emergency lighting for exit: legislative framework, risk assessment and implications on the design works, maintenance and periodic verification programs.
Arch. Florin Enache
Arch. Mădălina Zaharia
Arch. Adrian Ibric
Assessment and performance are two concepts belonging more to the finance sector, but they have migrated within the everyday language in other areas and are becoming increasingly relevant in construction, particularly in the housing sector. If in the industrial, office and retail segments the buildings are already, for a long period of time, part of detailed business plans, the housing remains an unexplored resource from the perspective of the circular economy, particularly in Southeast Europe. In our country, we are talking about up to 3% the share of waste which is recycled, compared with 70, up to 90%, in the Western and Northern Europe. For Romania, the field is in full process of maturing and it will certainly be an engine for long-term businesses, given the context: high demand, limited resources, many emotions.
We will see that the life cycle model can be a building performance criterion, but it also should remain, however, „alive”, an adaptable system. It is increasingly obvious that the reality from 5, 10 or 15 years ago in the construction industry comes with many elements that are no longer valid, because the architect had to work with the data existing at the time of creating the house.
The Statistical Process Control (SPC) would reduce construction waste
We will refer to two fundamental requirements:
- energy saving and thermal insulation
- sustainable use of natural resources
Both are goals with major impact on the energy sector, ideals of education and civilization, both in society and increasingly more at the level of the authorities. The energy certificate exists and it expresses the increasingly aknowledged concern for energy saving in the housing segment. As for the the requirements for sustainable use, however, we will have to find ways to implement it. Certainly, it is a must that, along with the package of measures, to also provide specialists in sufficient numbers to cover the design market.
Some experts have noted the similarities between the housing market and the automotive market when it comes to detail, safety and comfort. In the automotive market, the statistical process control (SPC) and a greater specialization of the workers have significantly reduced costs, they have increased productivity and enabled an operational control. The lack of a similar methodology in construction generates waste and high prices. In addition, in industrial processes, reduced quality transfers into modest financial results. In construction, reduced quality is reflected not only in financial losses for investors and builders, but also in buildings that endanger the safety of the occupants and which are not complying with the legislation.
Decisions for both today and tomorrow
Until recently, the house – any construction – was a consumer, now it acquires an energy potential, becoming more and more present not only through a saving capacity, but also through the potential for self-supporting or even resource production. It goes thus from the status of “consumer”, to the status of “prosumer”. This phenomenon favors the development of the crowdfunding concept of renewable energy and thus of a new type of income for the user of the house. The state will also be interested by this potential, in order to balance its losses of revenue from taxes applied to the classic large producers, through taxes applied to the smaller ones, organize or not in local “electricity farms”. In the context of extended digitization – of the infrastructure, communication, of occupation, of housing, of the decentralized utilities, the limit between the user, the consumer, the manufacturer, the retailer etc becomes – as upsetting as itis for analysts and for consultants! – much more harder to identify. We are witnessing an accelerated evolution, and as architects we are often overwhelmed by the many opportunities of the present or the disruptive potential of the future. Finally, together with the project team and with the beneficiary, we must have the guarantee that we managed to take the best decision to choose the most appropriate technical solution TODAY, but also make sure that this has the flexibility to adapt to future systems, with greater performance.
Just a few years ago, 40% of the global electricity was consumed by housings. Moreover, the resources used to generate this energy were quite different than those we hear about today. There are already industry sectors in different countries that have totally changed their energy source – especially those involving production processes. A large part of these models can be implemented in the construction area, too.
We live in times of rapid change, it is increasingly clear that the future is not a continuation of the past. For the Romanian market, the gap is even more obvious since there it has a delay from the reference markets. Globally, for most of the times, innovation is causing major reverberations within the economy to the point that on the one hand, the big players disappear because they have missed the “wave”, and, on the other hand, citizens are forced by consumption and by the affirmation of the social status, to adopt the innovative product without fully understanding its energy or sustainability effect. Locally, however, there is a delay in adopting effective new solutions, although the real-time movement of the information about their effectiveness would, in theory, avoid the takeover of obsolete or unfeasible technologies.
Adaptation, but with local specific
The human behavior is adapting at an accelerated pace to these ever faster changes in the area of the resources, but sometimes is does it still anchoring in local values and potential.
Recent technologies, such as labeling of the construction elements and the intelligent 3D components, allow both managers and users to understand how the different components of the building are used and how they behave throughout their life span. These data allow a comparison of each of the items’ performance and they allow to purchase those items and materials that are optimal in reducing losses and unnecessary costs. Meanwhile, new times come with new technologies and new constructions; users need to adapt their lifestyle and their level of knowledge in order to acquire the benefits of such constructions.
The house tends to be a consumer of clean alternative energy, even an energy producer – with minimal adaptation. The same cannot be said about the mentality and behavior of the inhabitants and about all that is affecting their way of thinking. Waste, more and more within the urban crowded environment, becomes a valuable resource only in connection with a very well established recovery system. At the same time, and equally necessary is a certain type of behavior that is modeled in time, with different impact, if it is not well-defined by value criteria.
The concern for the built environment also comes from the need of comfort – almost 90% of the time, we spend it indoors – at home or at the office. So all our activities, all that is exploitation and use of the built environment and in particular of the living space can have significant variables when it comes to sustainable use of resources.
Sustainability – an old concept, with different meanings
Sustainability is not a new concept for the specialists from various fields, but, from a professionla filed to another, it is suffering alterations, and sometimes ends into contradiction. Financial sustainability is often opposed to environmental sustainability, and the mediator – be it the final user, the authority, the manufacturer or distributor of materials or equipment – is not always sufficiently educated, informed or well-intentioned.
However, addressing the transition from consumption to production is relevant for the housing in terms of sustainability, too; whether we are talking about biomass production using green roofs or facades, whether we consider the re-use of materials and waste resulting from the construction or the usage of the house, to their conversion by upcycle or their revaluation as the basis for a new raw material. In this context, education / communication at a wider scale on the benefits on incentivation by the authorities can be simple but effective measures.
We are talking increasingly more often about enveloping solutions which generate energy, photovoltaic roofs through which, in the coming years, the renewables industry will cannibalize an entire segment of the construction industry, hunting for sustainability within the triad made of raw material consumption / energy consumption / social impact.
In the same line of efficiency or multifunctional interface, the enveloping of the houses in the future might naturally ventilate not only themselves, but also at the level of an entire neighborhood, thus reducing the urban heat islands captured from the construction ineffective shields from the past. Or they could clean atmosphere, could retain and purify the rain water re-circulating it into the installations system of the house, reducing the amount of rainwater in the community sewage, the resource consumption at home level, but also that in the treatment plant of the city.
In Europe, different according to the quoted source, between 30% and 50% out of all materials are used for the construction of houses – mainly iron, aluminum, copper, clay, sand, limestone, wood and stone with mineral materials having the greatest proportion. Up to 65% of all the aggregates and 20% of the metals are used in construction. Can we use this huge amount of resources not only to ensure an increasingly more comfortable shelter, but also for providing many community services useful for the inhabitant (because they are paid), but also for the sustainability and resilience of the community as a whole (through low operating consumption)?
Habitation involves huge financial values, but also a, sometimes, irreversible impact upon the environment. The question that occurs more frequently is: Where do we place the limit up to which we should invest in education? Definitely, it is an investment with a long-term impact, a permanent need and a necessary component in the concerns of a community, of a society.
The autonomus building – what costs do we internalize?
Every home is a system with a high level of complexity, askes for a large amount of resources and countless variables, both in the production process and especially during the operation period, for the entire lifetime and even more in rehabilitation, conversion, rehabilitation scenarios. Is is possible for a house to reach evaluation, predictability and sustainability performances similar to those in the automotive? How relevant is the impact of education in this regard? Can we identify a trend towards autonomy, as it becomes more and more predictable in the auto industry?
An autonomous building is designed to be self-sustaining, possibly independent of any electrical infrastructure, gas supply networks, sewerage and drainage systems, communication and, in some cases, even public roads. The promoters of this type of construction consider that among the benefits, there is a reduced environmental impact, the highest safety and the lowest cost of ownership. The “off-grid” buildings rely very little on community service and may be less affected in the event of a major natural or military event. However, although such a house sustains itself by reduced consumption of resources, to what extent this giving up of the common infrastructure may finally, in fact, lead to an even greater consumption of resources? When measuring sustainability in the use of an efficient equipment, the cost should include (besides the materials and human resources) the social impact of the production or of the transportation – sometimes from the other side of the continent, where maybe, a certain population is held captive for financial ‘sustainability’! Fortunately, replicability, adaptation or transfer of the technological innovations are becoming more and more affordable and with a downward negative impact.