Correlation between Energy Reduction and Carbon Footprint - Essay Example

? Correlation between Energy Reduction during the Operation of a Building and the Carbon Footprint of It Introduction The correlation between energy reduction during the operation of a building and the carbon footprint of it has a great impact on the strength, beauty and stability of the building. In addition, the carbon footprint of a building is dependant on the dimensions of the proper coordination of the forms and space put in place over the time. This means that during the construction, the design should aim at energy reduction so that the amount of carbon footprint is reduced significantly. Modern housing design is a work aimed at satisfying customers need, setting measures of transforming the world by the architectural work and ensuring the quality of buildings (Bentley, 1999). In this regard, the design and transformation heavily rely on historical background and knowledge of the performers to make sure that the amount of carbon footprint is kept at manageable levels. Building design and transformation could be enhanced by applying a typological approach to analyze them, their evolution and the perspective of growth of architecture discipline. Therefore, this essay focuses on the correlation between energy reduction during the operation of a building and the carbon footprint of it. Buildings and Planning The amount of trapped energy must be reduced to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability as well (Retail Forum for Sustainability, 2011). The cities are amalgamations of different types of buildings round, stories and flats, thus safety concerns such as reduction carbon footprints is paramount (Smith, 2005). The buildings are constructed in away that satisfy all the population strata in terms of safety, economic situation, gender, and age. Toward the residential areas are the shops, supermarkets and merchandises which supplies the peoples needs at the residential areas. The buildings are served with social amenities such as the clubs, churches and schools (Davreu, 2008). The Latest Building Designs and Energy Concerns Modern housing design transformation is spreading across the world at a high rate; this could be seen with the sprawling of modern cities in England like the Poun-dbury (Bentley, 1999). Therefore, increasing the need for adequate education on energy reduction is necessary to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability (Forester, 2007). Achieving zero-carbon buildings is expected to be another exemplary work of architects, and must be ensured when the building is under construction. Other cities include the Vancouver of Canada, the Orchid Bay of Belize, the McKenzie Building and Val d’Europe of East Paris has been constructed in a manner that significantly reduced trapped energy (Wheeler, 1998). This was an attempt to eliminate carbon footprint of those buildings and enhance their stability. In addition, energy reduction ensures sustainability of the buildings and sustainable development (Yudelson, 2009). Apparently, sustainability and sustainable development in building construction is a term mostly applied by building planners’ inconsideration environmental and demographic factors which influences building set up. As compared to early population, the modern population has increased in population as well as change in their social economic activities (Forester, 2007). For this reason, building planners must develop a mechanism to cater for space in the building centers as well as the increase in trend over environmental pollution and safety concerns. In addition, the planners should address issues tied with social resources, pollution in the building centers, energy reduction, climate changes and building heat islands to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability (Retail Forum for Sustainability, 2011). Sustainable development should be created in away that the short and long-term healthy growth of a building centre should be maintained (Smith, 2005). This takes the aspect of effective and efficient control of pollution, proper housing to reduce congestion, good social ecology, better mechanisms of restoring natural resources and positive community interactions. For sustainable development to be carried out a wide view of policies and plans geared towards energy reduction must be put in place, basically to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability. Collaborative strategic goal oriented programming can be applied (Forester, 2007). This program looks into analyzed decision making based on well assessed problem on the ground using any possible means to reduce the possibility of trapped energy in buildings. It has majorly been applied on large building systems to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and improve their stability. It has successfully been applied on the European building development system and on various construction projects around the globe (Wheeler, 1998). The planning system applies the social approach of uniting groups to unearth information and ideas on the problems affecting that particular building area. It has successfully applied in The United States. The table conferences of Seattle and Portland brought out its achievement clearly. Currently the issues on discussion include building aesthetics and safety. The visual impression in building centers has become another important aspect in building transformation (Forester, 2007). Safety on weather condition and other natural calamities like earthquakes and Tsunamis are also emerging issues in the sustainable development plans, thus necessitating zero-carbon buildings. There have been numerous projects initiated by the building constructors in the process of transforming the building setting. Some of these development schemes have led to the improvement of the building’s safety, where as others have resulted to the degradation of the people’s lifestyle (Yudelson, 2009). For example, the increase in the number of low income earners normally leads to the formation of informal dwellings in the building centers. Other than the settlements, the human activities such as dumping of wastes, clearing the vegetation for the expansion of settlements and creating space for industries have also resulted to the destruction of the ecosystem. Literally, the destruction of the ecosystem degrades the environment, which in turns makes it impossible to transform the buildings. Notably, governments in most developing countries are unable to deal with the amount of wastes that the building residents generate (Siegfried, 2001). Different categories of waste, whether plastic or non-plastic, may end into the drainage system, consequently blocking the systems from operating and increasing carbon penetration in building. In the end, the blockages and carbon accumulation lead to spillovers and carbon concentration, thereby draining the wastes to the rivers and weakening the buildings respectively (Morris, 1997). The rising populations in the cities has put pressure on the resources that are available, thus affecting their distribution among the building dwellers equally. Certainly, this has prompted competition for the few resources, thereby leading to high tension between one social group and the other. Building planners also take advantage of such pressure to ignore measures that eliminate energy, thus affecting the overall quality of the houses with regards to safety and carbon footprint (Hall, 1998). The stability of buildings is as a result of the inclusion of various structural designs, regardless of the intended occupants’ social class. Therefore, adherence to the regulations reduces the amount of energy, thereby eliminating carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability (Retail Forum for Sustainability, 2011). Notably, it is through the stability that the improvement of the building centers is achieved. Therefore, lack of cooperation may lead to the constant disruption of the building improvement plans (Siegfried, 2001). For example, the angered social class may rise against the planned demolition of the informal structures, in order to pave way for the construction of the state of the art buildings (Hall, 1998). Cities authorities all over the world have been implementing building reforms in a hard way to enforce the regulations. However, several problems are associated with law enforcement in the construction industry. First, there is lack of understanding on the importance of the building transformation (Yudelson, 2009). The lack of understanding hinders the ability of the existing authorities to carry out building development projects in an effective manner. For instance, the slum residents may bar a contractor from demolishing part of their dwellings in order to pave way for the construction of modern buildings, which consider energy reduction. The other human aspect of the building transformation is the political activities in a particular country (Hall, 1998). Conspicuously, the political trend in a country has a lot of influence on the facilities of the country. For instance, political leaders tend to give their sycophants limitless freedom on the use of the available resources. Such freedom is given to lure the voters in favor of a candidate may lead to misuse of the resources, thereby making it difficult to implement certain building upgrading projects (Siegfried, 2001). For instance, through guaranteed freedom, the people may be tempted to expand the construction of the informal settlements. Later, the same government’s move to clear the informal settlement might experience heavily resistance from the same group of people (Hall, 1998). The Scope and Possibility of Design In terms of energy reduction, the extent to which the building sector has been transformed since World War II is great, and this has led to elimination carbon footprint of buildings and enhanced their stability. Most centers have shown the emergence of the new building designs and the change in the structural arrangements within the emerging cities to help eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and boost their stability (Yudelson, 2009). From the look out, there is a possibility of other new designs taking over from the old system or designs (Morris, 1997). Furthermore, with the increase in the need for upgrading the building centers, more needs to be done. For example, there is need to increase the use of technological methods of drawing the designs, such as the use of Archi-CAD and Auto-CAD software. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be noted that from 1945, there has been a lot of transformation of the buildings to accommodate energy reduction requirements. Particularly, the housing sector in urban centers has also been transformed tremendously in terms of design to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and enhance their stability. Indeed, this is evidenced by the replacement of the old building styles with modern ones. The human projects over the period have also undergone various changes in terms of behavior and respect to human rights. As a result of education, there has been social acceptance of the need to reduce energy that might be trapped during construction to eliminate carbon footprint of buildings and improve their stability. However, the major problem in modern building centers is overcrowding and disparity in the distribution of the resources. Therefore, there is a correlation between energy reduction during the operation of a building and the carbon footprint of it because buildings constructed under low trapped energy are more stable compared to the ones constructed without taking into consideration this aspect. References Bentley, I., 1999. Building Transformation: Power, People, and Building Design. New York: Springer. Davreu, R., 2008. Cities of Mystery. Sydney: Readers Digest. Forester, J., 2007. Planning in the Face of Conflict. New York: Routledge. Hall, P., 1998. Cities of Tomorrow. New York: Springer. Morris, S., 1997. British Building Planning & Building Design. Singapore: Longman. Retail Forum for Sustainability, 2011. Measurement and Reduction of Carbon Footprint of Stores. Issue Paper, no. 6. Smith, M., 2005. City Size in Late Post-Classic Mesoamerica. New York: Sage Publications. Siegfried, G., 2001. Space, Time and Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Wheeler, S., 1998. Planning Sustainable & Livable Cities. New York: Routledge. Yudelson, J., 2009. Greening Existing Buildings. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers. Read More