Sustainable Design: Abdulrahman Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays

Sustainable Design Name: Institution: Table of Contents Introduction 3 Management 4 1.Green Star Accredited Professionals 4 2.Commissioning Clauses 5 3.Building Tuning 6 4.Independent Commissioning Agent 7 5.Building Users’ Guide 7 6.Environmental Management 8 7.Waste Management 8 Energy 9 1.Conditional Requirement 9 2.Greenhouse Gas Emissions 9 3.Energy Sub-Metering 10 4.Lighting Power Density 11 5.Light Zoning 12 6.Peak Energy Demand Reduction 12 Conclusion 13 References 14 Introduction The global construction industry has experienced tremendous reforms particularly in the recent past. Gone, for example, are the days when participants in a construction project could care less about the sustainability of their construction project as well as the likely adverse environmental impacts likely to be caused by the project design. This, however, is not to mean that the world is not grappling with issues of pollution and other negative project environmental impacts. In fact, it is as a result of the excessive pollution and increased amount of the release of pollutants into the environment that has caused the construction industry to adopt measures to enhance the sustainability of construction projects. In that regard, therefore, the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) came up with the idea of establishing a system that could be used to assess any construction design of buildings with respect to the environment. The Green Star Rating System (GSRS) may, as a result, be defined as being that Australian free-to-adopt protocol that is tasked with ensuring that green building methodologies, innovations, design, and activities are incorporated into the construction industry. The ultimate role of the GSRS can as well be summarized as being to promote environmental efficiencies without negating productivity in the construction industry. It achieves this by setting standard best practices for all players in the building industry e.g. the developer, designer, and contractors. Ideally, the GSRS is categorized into nine different segments i.e. Land Use and Ecology, Energy, Materials, Transport, Management, Water, Emissions, Innovation, and Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ). This paper, therefore, seeks to employ the requirements set out in the GSRS to clearly and distinctively give recommendations on the possible strategies that may be applied in the design of a proposed new eight-storey commercial development in Dee Why CBD with a view to reducing the environmental impact likely to be caused. Important to note as well is the fact that this paper only dwells on two main categories i.e. Management and Energy. The proposed site is clearly illustrated in Figure 1 below: Figure 2: The proposed Development site at 914-930 Pittwater Road Dee Why, NSW Management Under the Green Star Rating System (GSRS), there are 7 sub-segments that should be taken into account as a guide for ensuring a sustainable building design for the said project. The strategies that could be adopted under management category for this particular project are discussed in detail below. 1. Green Star Accredited Professionals Understanding fully the requirements by a certain professional body, and following them to the latter is critical in ensuring complete adherence. In this case, it would be necessary to seek the services of one full-time structural engineer as well as one full-time civil engineer – both of whom are accredited by The Green Star Rating System. The ultimate goal of this strategy will be to incorporate the highest levels of professionalism. Most importantly, though, these two Green Star Accredited professionals will be tasked with bringing the objectives of GSRS together with the processes included in both the design and the actual construction of the eight-storey development. Basically, they will also be expected to give sustainability advice right from the design stage to the very end of the project. For economical purposes, it would also be recommended that the project owner employs these professionals full-time at least for the period of the project. That would be more economical than constantly hiring them as part of the professional body. 2. Commissioning Clauses While contracting, it would be prudent for the owner of the development to ensure that the commissioning clauses are fully factored into the various contracts. Additionally, there will be need for the owner to employ an independent audit entity to not only ensure complete professionalism, but also to see to it that all requirements for the commissioning clauses are satisfactorily met. This independent audit firm will ensure the inclusion of commissioning clauses in virtually all contracts and tender documents right from the pre-commissioning stage, to the actual commissioning stage, all through to the quality control stage. In order for the project owner to end up with the best and most reliable independent audit firm, there will be need for a transparent and competitive tendering process as well for this selection process. Eventually, the best candidate will go ahead to audit the inclusion of the commissioning clauses in all the contracts involved in the entire building process. It is also critically important for the owner of the project to obtain tacit knowledge of the construction of his office development. Since such knowledge is usually a preserve of the professionals involved in the construction process, it would be necessary for the various contractors to provide the project owner with various documentations for the construction stages. The architect, for example, will be required to hand over the architectural drawing of the eight-storey office development, the auditing firm will be expected to give their audit report for the commissioning clauses’ inclusion, the civil and structural engineers accredited by GSRS will be expected to provide their designs to the owner, and the main contractor will be expected to hand over an operations and maintenance manual for the office development. 3. Building Tuning With the help of a relevant design team member, the office development owner will be required to oversee the tuning of all building systems in the project. One such tuning will be to provide double glaze windows for the entire building so as to minimize noise from the outside environment. Even though double glazed windows are generally expensive (530mm by 780mm window costs $450 roughly), their benefits far much outweigh those of single glazed windows (which cost almost half the price of double glazed windows). One of the benefits of double glazed windows is that it helps reduce carbon emissions by up to 700kg annually. Very bright colours may also be used to paint the inside parts of the office walls so that minimal loss of warmth from the inside of the building occurs. Technically, this tuning aspect will ensure that the inside of the building remains warm. The use of wooden tiles will also be a necessary building tuning parameter that will have to be factored in. Such tiles are also essential in not only keeping the rooms warm, but also in creating a unique and elegant floor finish. Finally, the design team as well as the building owner will be served with copies of the building tuning report at the end of everything. Just like every other report, this report will document the various achievements made by the building tuning process. 4. Independent Commissioning Agent For convenience purposes, the client would be better of employing one commissioning agent to take care of the entire commissioning process. This agent will be mandated with verifying that all commissioning demands and preferences by the owner of the building are exceptionally handled. He/she will be selected through a competitive contracting process where the best candidate will be expected to carry the mantle. It is worth noting that this commissioning agent will be the one in charge of providing the prerequisite pieces of advice regarding the commissioning process to both the design team as well as the developer of the office development. As a matter of fact, the agent will ensure that proper and adequate commissioning is fully employed in all building systems within this construction project. 5. Building Users’ Guide Information and knowledge management has been, still is, and will continue to be indeed an important parameter in any construction project. For this particular project, the case will not be any different. This is where a Building User’s Guide for this structure will come in handy. The building owner will be served with a comprehensive, but simple Building User’s Guide for their eight-storey office development. This guide will be expected to contain such information as that which is relevant to the occupants of the building, the tenants, and other building occupants. This guide will be prepared as the construction of the building continues so that all the required precautionary information about the use of the building is comprehensively captured in the Building User’s Guide. 6. Environmental Management Environmental protection is one of the main objectives of the Green Star Rating System. In fact, that is the core business for which it was established in the first place. For that reason, therefore, there will be utter need for the contractor to adequately put in place a proper Environmental Management Plan (EMP) specifically tailor-made for this office development. According to GSRS, such EMP should conform to the requirements of Section 4 of the NSW Environmental Management System (EMS) guidelines 1998 to 2007. These project specifications should be part of the tender documents so that vetting of the most qualified contractor ends up with an environmentally-conscious contractor altogether. It will also be prudent that the winning contractor be verified to be having a verifiably-true ISO14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) accreditation. This requirement should be met both during the tendering process as well as through the entire construction process. 7. Waste Management Construction projects are known to cause numerous waste releases into the environment that may as well pollute the environment. According to the GSRS, a contractor for a construction project should be in a position to put in place strategies that lead to minimal or negligibly small amounts of waste disposal. For that reason, therefore, the contractor will be required to implement a Waste Management Plan (WMP) alongside documenting waste disposal and reports to the developer. In order to meet GSRS standards, the contractor for this project will be required to ensure that at least 83% of the total amount of waste from construction and demolitions is either recycled or reused. Energy 1. Conditional Requirement This subcategory of the GSRS Energy category stipulates that designs for a construction project should be such that they allow negligibly minimal greenhouse gas emissions in line with the total amount of energy consumed during operations. This, however, should be accompanied with the highest possible efficiency in the operational energy particularly for the base building. Specifically for this construction project, therefore, it would be recommended that the greenhouse gas emissions be kept lower than 110kgCO2/m2/annum. This requirement is in line with either of the two protocols i.e. The Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR) Validation Protocol for Computer Simulations or The end version of the Green Star Energy Calculator Guide as is stipulated in its current form. 2. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Whereas the Conditional Requirement above will be important in the minimization of the emissions of the greenhouse gas, emission of 110kgCO2/m2/annum is still quite high. For that reason, there is need for the contractor to put strategies in place that will help in reducing this emission even further. Several strategies may be employed here. For this project, however, the following strategies will be worth taking into account: a) Allowing the use of refrigerants whose GWPs is much lower so as to reduce any leakage from any refrigeration equipment or system that may be used in the office development. b) In the event that waste water treatment is necessary in the building, the water and waste water system should be made more energy efficient. The efficiency should be such that the greenhouse gas emissions from the system do not exceed 1.5% of the total energy consumption in the building. c) The waste management system should be made more efficient through such strategies as recycling, land-fill methane capture system, and general reduction in the amount of waste released from the building. By so doing, there will be reduced decomposition of solid waste especially in landfills. d) The design for this office development should be such that the available energy consumption systems are of very low energy consumption. With this in place, there will be reduced release of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere from the building. 3. Energy Sub-Metering Currently, there are a lot of attempts to reduce energy consumption by ensuring accountability in the consumption of energy in buildings. One such strategy is by ensuring that every energy consumer in a building is provided with their own meters. GSRS proposes this because it helps to effectively monitor energy usage in the building with a view of discouraging excessive energy consumption. This building will not be an exception on this. Specifically, therefore, the contractor for the construction of this building will be expected to install sub-meters in the building for each building user’s individual consumption data collection. In this regard also, the contractor will be required to preferably install separate sub-meters for lighting and power at least for each unit in the building since the building is an office development that will have relatively smaller units for individual tenants. Such sub-metering is not only effective, but also convenient for energy consumption of over 100kVA. 4. Lighting Power Density In any commercial or residential building, lighting is one aspect of the building’s design that cannot be underestimated. Despite the fact that it is commonly understood that lighting consumes little energy, its energy consumption can be substantially higher if certain conservative energy system designs are not implemented. Traditionally, the lighting systems that have been in use over the years have been power-conservation ignorant. The conventional bulbs, for example, can attest to this. As the demand for energy and the need for efficiency in power consumption rises, there has been a dire need to design and adopt energy-saving lighting methods, for instance. That’s where lighting power density comes in handy. For this office development design, therefore, and at a default maintenance factor of 0.8, the lighting power densities for 0.95 of the NLA will have to use energy of at most 2.0 W/m2 per 100 Lux at 720 mm AFFL. This being an artificial lighting system, a two-component lighting technique will be preferred i.e. a base building design background component lighting system, and a task lighting component lighting system. While the former will be designed to generate an approximate amount of lighting power density of 110 lux to the office space, the latter will be required to have a density of 290 lux at least on each desk or table. In summary, at no given time will the building’s illuminance exceed 350 lux. Additionally, the rooms for this office development will have to be installed with Ecozone Biobulbs energy-saving bulbs rated 20W (equivalent to 80W) with illuminance of 1250 Lumens. Each of the eight storeys, the contractor will be required to install at least 45 such bulbs in every floor, costing a total of ($30×45×8=$10,800) to light up the whole building. A Draper 39077 68200Btu 230V Stainless Steel Solar Space Heating system may also be installed in the building, five for each floor costing a total of ($500×8×5=$20,000) to set up a comprehensive heating system for the building. 5. Light Zoning In similar attempts of minimizing energy consumption in buildings, GSRS provides that energy (lighting, in this case) be consumed only where it is genuinely required. This implies that lighting should only be focused onto the exact regions and positions where there are occupants i.e. occupied areas only. By so doing, the amount of lighting power that would otherwise be wasted on unoccupied areas where lighting is not necessarily required is largely reduced. For this building, first, the lighting system will be recommendably designed in such a way that every closet (or office) has its own switching system so that the total amount of light energy wasted on empty regions of the building be reduced significantly, if not eliminated. This will be achieved by setting a standard in which the designers will ensure that only offices whose area is smaller than 100 m2 for 0.95% of the NLA be individually switched; otherwise, more partitioning should be carried out. Additionally, the switching within the offices should be distinctively labelled for easy usage by the occupants of the building. Secondly, it will be recommended that for 0.9 of the NLA, there exists a separate individually addressable lighting system. Each of these systems will preferably be installed in each one of the eight floors of the building. 6. Peak Energy Demand Reduction During peak hours, the power producing entities usually get overstrained with demand for energy. As a matter of fact, peak power demand leads to frequent power outages in certain areas where the overall power produced is far much lower than the available demand. It is for this reason that the GSRS entices building designs for whose energy demand during peak hours is far much reduced. This is in not only economical for the users of the building, but it also adds value to the owner’s building hence raising its value altogether. For this eight-storey building, therefore, it will be recommended that the design encompasses energy storage as well as other energy-load-sifting technologies. This strategy will be helpful in ensuring that the difference between average demand and the peak is kept well below 40% as required by the Green Star Rating System (GSRS). Conclusion It is important to note that green buildings are basically similar to the normal buildings except that their designs are always done with a lot of consideration on the ultimate effect of the building design on the well-being of human beings and their surrounding as well. Their designs strive to achieve three main objectives: a) Maximum efficiency in the consumption of such resources as energy, and water b) Ensuring the well-being of the occupants of the building, as well as their overall production per capita while they are in the building, and c) Minimizing environmental pollution and disposable waste. For a building such as the one to be built in the Dee Why CBD, GSRS proposes that the contractor should ensure that all the aforementioned factors are fully accounted for in one way or another. In conclusion, therefore, just like the other architectural designs of a building are usually given a higher priority while constructing a building, environmentally sustainable design system should also be given a similar priority. In fact, that is what founds the safe interaction of humans, structures, and their surroundings. It is unfortunate; however, that such due diligence is only done for mega buildings such as the said storey building to be constructed herein. References Dannenberg, A. L., Frumkin, H., & Jackson, R. (2011). Making healthy places: Designing and building for health, well-being, and sustainability. Washington, D.C: Island Press. Green Building Council of Australia, GBCA (2015). Available at: http://www.gbca.org.au/ Guenther, R., & Vittori, G. (2013). Sustainable healthcare architecture. Jurleit, A. (2015). Think global certify local: Global comparability and regional adaptation for community certification systems. Norderstedt: Books on Demand. Kibert, C. J. (2012). Sustainable construction: Green building design and delivery. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Kubba, S. (2012). Handbook of green building design and construction: LEED, BREEAM, and Green Globes. Mumovic, D., & Santamouris, M. (2009). A Handbook of Sustainable Building Design and Engineering: An Integrated Approach to Energy, Health and Operational Performance. London: Earthscan. Winchip, S. M. (2011). Sustainable design for interior environments. New York: Fairchild. Santamouris, M. (2006). Environmental design of urban buildings: An integrated approach. London: Earthscan. Read More

Sustainable Design: Abdulrahman - Case Study Example

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