Three dimensions of Sustainable Environmental Architecture

Sustainability

Sustainable building involves considering the entire life-cycle of buildings, taking environmental quality, functional compatibility and future values into account. In the past, attention has been primarily focused on the size of the building stock. In many countries, quality issues have hardly played a significant role. However, in strict quantity terms, the building and housing market is now saturated in many countries, and the demand for quality is growing importance.

Read more

Building Green Architecture | Sustainable Design

What is “Green Approach”?

It is difficult to define Green building Architecture. Although we could define what the green approach could be like. It takes into consideration the impact of design of buildings on the environment. Constructing a building requires resources. For example, materials for construction, fuel, users engagement in design etc. All of these factors are considered in Green building architecture. They form the backbone of this type of approach.

the Blu Homes mkSolaire, a green building designed by Michelle Kaufmann
the Blu Homes mkSolaire, a green building designed by Michelle Kaufmann

Designing green buildings has become a motto to many design companies and individual designers. It is important to pay attention to the conflicting issues that arise out of design. Every design decision needs to be thought with depth since it has environmental implications which could be harmful to us.

Measures for green buildings can be divided into four areas:

  1. Reduction in energy consumption
  2. Environmental damage prevention by reducing external pollution
  3. Reduction in embodied energy and prevent resource depletion
  4. Indoor air quality (and hence maintain good health)

One of the excellent examples of Green Architecture is “Aliens Space Station”.

Read more

A Guide to Site Planning

Planning

Site Planning

Site planning involves arranging structures on the land and shaping spaces between them. It is an art linked to architecture, and city planning. The site plan locates objects and activities in space and time. It may be concerned with a small cluster of houses, a single building and the surrounding space, or a small community built in a single operation.

Read more

Forest Landscaping | Guide to Landscape Design

Forest Landscaping Design

Today there is a need in the woodlands to integrate the design arts with the principles of forest management. Through the collaboration of landscape architects and foresters, the woodlands produce remarkable visual amenities in great measure. Many of the positive visual effects of forest management have been overlooked. Although many receive a high degree of aesthetic and recreational enjoyment from their woodlands, few understand the improvement scenery that can be achieved.

Forest Landscape

 

Many complaints are often heard about monotony of driving or walking through forests from miles after miles. It becomes boring and soporific. This monotony can be removed by prescribing silvi-cultural treatment that can establish contrast and variety in successive stands of trees.

Colour and texture are important design elements of forest vegetation. The primary visual function of forest vegetation is to reveal or to conceal what lies beyond. If trees are removed from an area, it helps to open-up the landscape, affording views far and wide revealing the outdoor spaces. The landscape itself is not visible if tracts of land have not cleared. The depth of visual penetration can vary from a metre to a hundred metres or more beneath a closed canopy of foliage.

Read more