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Sustainability

Sustainability has become popular in the policy-oriented researches for public policies want to achieve. The principal inspiration came from the Brundtland Report of 1987. This paper argues that the shift which exists between long-term sustainability and short-term welfare is for the better. But before that, we will have to understand sustainability is and the history behind it.

What are sustainability and the history

While there are a lot of definitions of what sustainability when looking up what sustainability means the Cambridge dictionary state that sustainability is “conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.” so if something is sustainable, it can be reused, recycled, repeated because it has no limits. It has biological systems in place. I will touch on biological and ecological systems later on. With a little history, the concept of sustainability initially started in the forestry industry, where it meant never harvesting more than what the forest provided in new growth. As it appeared in the forestry study in Germany as they called it Nachhaltigkeit (which was the German term for sustainability) meaning. The concern with preserving natural resources for the future, of course: undoubtedly our ancestors worried about their prey becoming extinct, and early farmers must have been apprehensive about maintaining soil fertility. The distinction between three ‘pillars’ of sustainability is conceptually fuzzy. We propose a definition that reverts to the original sense in which the concept was intended. Since that time, there have been two major developments in the concept of sustainability: its interpretation regarding three dimensions, which must be in harmony: social, economic and environmental. Two, the distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ sustainability "The Brundtland report speaks of two concerns that should be reconciled: development and the environment. They can also be interpreted as needs versus resources, or as the short versus the long term. Today, however, sustainability is almost always seen regarding three dimensions: social, economic and environmental. This is embodied in the definition of sustainability adopted by the United Nations in its Agenda for Development: “development is a multidimensional undertaking to achieve a higher quality of life for all people. Economic development, social development and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development.” with all this information about sustainability, I will focus what is meant by sustainable design and its importance.

What is Sustainable Design?

Sustainable design is about designing physical and conceptual objects, even in the built environment where they follow for principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability. Sustainable designs are more commonly seen nowadays because of the rise in environmental issues like greenhouse effect and global warming. According to the Autodesk 2010 survey results, “designs that use less energy or reduce emissions remain the most important sustainable technology practice while manufacturing processes that use less energy and natural resources were also a priority.”

The importance of sustainability

Good sustainable design must relate to the people with the natural environment. Human and nature interaction are encouraged by allowing people to be in touch with the natural surroundings. Activities should promote environmental wellness and the quality of life. Recycled furniture is, therefore, becoming a trendy choice. Wood and glass are good examples of recycled material. However, recycled furniture could also mean to reuse old and unwanted items.

“CLIMATE Change Week might not be on the radar of everyone in the business community, let alone the commercial property organisations But it should be. Our built environment is responsible for 30% of all carbon emissions; which means you have a role within constructed environment supply chain with considering how your work, the choices you make and the materials specified and the project management process adopted affect carbon emissions, we need to make sure the energy efficiency of our built environment is improved. That means working on existing buildings, especially in the housing sector.”

Another example of the importance of sustainability is the Monmouthshire County Council “which has been delivering better educational environments, like the Rogiet Primary School which is making a real difference to the lives of pupils, teachers and the local community. The sustainable design required a low-energy, environmentally sensitive building that was innovative, flexible to change, safe, healthy and accessible to all, including improved education standards and greater community participation. The designers White Design undertook extensive consultation with end users from the earliest stage of the commission to ensure that the ambitions of the school and community were met. Teaching and learning environments are influenced by four key factors: levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), lighting, acoustics and temperature. White Design considered each of these issues throughout the design process to ensure ventilation, heating and noise levels optimised productivity among users of the school building. Design solutions to facilitate this included a single-storey plan to provide high levels of natural daylight across all learning areas, with all classrooms orientated north to benefit from consistent light levels and avoid over-heating in summer. Positioning classrooms in this way also enabled natural ventilation while avoiding acoustic problems from nearby motorways and national railway routes. Considerate design can also promote health and wellbeing in building users, landscape and planting strategies enhance educational benefits and biodiversity of the site for both the school and surrounding community. Access to the site and the school building is fully inclusive, with no internal level changes within the single storey design, and extensive consultation on colour ensures maximum assistance for visually impaired users. Low energy technologies In close collaboration with designers White Design.” Why we should consider sustainability in design: The Gaia theory The growth and development of our communities have a significant impact on our natural environment. The manufacturing, design, construction and operation of the buildings in which we live and work are responsible for the consumption of many of our natural resources. Because energy conservation is a primary goal of sustainability, and because a building's energy consumption is determined to a great extent by volume and cladding characteristics, architects must still concentrate design attention on building form and facades. More compact buildings require fewer materials, which means less energy invested in construction and, with the reduced exterior surface, less energy to heat and cool buildings after creation. At one extreme is the sphere, the most efficient form because its skin-to-volume ratio is lower than any other geometric shape. This suggests that for optimum sustainability, blob-like architecture might be the wave of the future. Whatever this Science may have been initially; it has grown ever more associated in the public mind with human ecology. The Gaia hypothesis, on the other hand, started with observations of the Earth's atmosphere and other inorganic properties. Where life is concerned, it focuses particular attention on what most people consider to be the lowest part, that represented by the microorganisms. The human species is, of course, a crucial development for Gaia, but we have appeared so late in her life that it hardly seemed appropriate to start our quest by discussing our relationships with her. Contemporary ecology may be deeply embedded in human affairs and a more general framework of geology. How then should we live in Gaia? What difference does her presence make to our relationships with the world and with one another? This means a stoical acceptance of the apocryphal Murphy's law: ‘If anything can go wrong, it will', and implies a programme for the future based on the realistic awareness of this law and of the fact that we live in a very unfair universe. When Aldo Leopold suggested in 1949 that a new requirement for any relevant contemporary ethic must include a "land ethic," he was talking about eco-ethics. When Rachel Carson pointed out the inevitability of some future "silent spring" if we do not contain our production and use of pesticides, she was talking eco-ethics. When E. F. Schumacher suggested for development theory the possibility that "small is beautiful” and that we need to develop a new “Buddhist economics"—an economics that would in fact function “as if people mattered"—he was focusing on eco-ethical concerns. When Christopher Stone posed the question"Should tree have to stand?" it was clear that new eco-ethical formulations were in process. There is an ancient myth describing how the king of the Persians applied a fundamental rule in evaluating the work of his regional governors. He would merely observe the condition of the land and the forests within particular jurisdictions. If the area and the forests were well cared for, he automatically rewarded his governors. If the nation was illtended and restoration efforts to repair damage delayed, the king replaced the caretakers. He evaluated the overall governing ability of his subordinates by their care for the natural world. `The political principle is clear and as applicable today as it was in the mythical past. Those who genuinely care for the Earth, who are sensitive to the effects of human impacts on the environment, can be trusted to govern well generally. The final assessment of the integrity of any political system may be judged on two primary concerns: the respect the network shows for nature, and the care it provides for the least advantaged in the society. Our dominant eco-ethic has been mainly instrumental. We see life as little more than the colourful background for working out our little dramas of fulfilment and salvation. Essentially, as Woody Allen once remarked, "We are at two with nature.” View of the human—nature connection is adequate, increasing numbers of people understand intuitively that nature has intrinsic value, in and of itself. Although usually not for reasons of sustainability. No matter how efficiently configured, a compact form remains aesthetically mute until its exterior walls are composed. And facades continue to offer architects their most excellent opportunity for developing new modes of artistic expression based on sustainability-related composition. Such opportunities are numerous: employ visually diverse cladding materials and textures; control, filter, reflect or transmit daylight to the interior; shade summer sun but admit winter sun to provide heat; cast ever-changing shadow patterns; allow natural ventilation; exploit views to and from the interior; and create overall window and door patterns, juxtaposing transparency and opacity, to animate and impart order to facades. Few of these moves are new. Ancient Greek and Roman builders, Renaissance and Enlightenment architects, and architects of the Modern movement understood these moves long before energy was an issue and long before anyone used the word “sustainability. Designing for sustainability merely continues an ageless architectural tradition, based on the idea that "necessity is the mother of invention." Sustainability in designs is hugely beneficial to our environment and hence strongly encouraged. The factors to consider when creating a sustainable model are ecological sustainability, built environment, economic sustainability and social responsibility. Everyone is responsible for the natural environment that they are living in and hence should play a part in protecting our Earth. Sustainable designs can be created through sensitive designs concerning the site context to achieve energy efficiency. Sustainable designs are achieved through sensitive models, for example, energy efficiency. Delicate designs include good contextual studies of the surroundings, factors like site location, weather and local culture. The choice of material for the design is also an essential factor as well. It is encouraged that renewable resources are used for building materials as it is environmentally-friendly. It adopts many climatic responsive techniques: “wind walls” to direct wind to internal spaces, solar panels, mechanically joined connections between building components to facilitate recycling, rainwater collection, sewage composting and grey-water reuse. The placement of the vegetation within the tower at different levels correspond to the microclimates of each sub-zone at the tower. Sustainable design aims to accommodate people's current demands and needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to supply their own needs. Many of the current processes the modern world chooses to obtain and use our natural resources are short-sighted. Companies looking to make a profit right away can cause long-term damage to the environment when they do activities, for example, cutting down too many trees or produce pollutants. However, a sustainable design would require the massive amount of time, money and research to find out which methods of production would damage the environment the least. This is the primary reason why people are hesitant to support sustainable development.

Referencing

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