Environmental Architecture (Maggie Yost)

Environmental Architecture The environmental impacts of architecture is a growing issue. All of the material that go into building a home can have lasting effects on the amount of resources available as well as the environment around the home. I have chosen to dive deeper into learning about how to use natural resources and produce environmentally friendly architecture. I chose to watch a video on environmental architecture that gave four different examples of houses that are using natural resources in a modern way. Each of these homes were private, so I was not able to find further information about them, but the video provided a lot of information about each of these houses. The first house is located in Spain. It is made of all natural materials. The builder called it “bioecological” architecture. The “bio” part being that it is made all of local, natural materials, such as wood, glass, stones, and bricks, so that when the building can no longer stand, it will return to the soil and start the natural cycle all over again. There is no iron or metal used in the construction of this house. The “ecological” part of this architecture is that it was made by the people who live in this house. I thought that this was interesting because they were able to make it customized to their needs. This house is not very traditional looking. It looks more like an A-frame house, the biggest site line being the roof. One side of the house is all glass. This provides natural heat. Natural insulation helps to keep the heat in the house for an extended period of time. The video did not talk about what this natural insulation was, but I am assuming that it is how the wood frame was treated. On days that the sun is not able to heat the house, a wood burning stove attached to vents acts as the forced air in this house. They do not use electricity to climate control it. The large glass wall also provides light to minimize the use of electricity in this way. The basement of this house is used to make wine and store food. The upstairs rooms are open and adaptable to be able to grow with the needs of the family. Another interesting part about this house is that it blends in with its surroundings. Because of the materials and location, this house is almost camouflaged into its surroundings. This house is a good example of environmental architecture because it truly uses the environment to build and support this home. The next house they showed is a more traditional style home. It is located in a neighborhood in Canada, and looks like a normal suburban house. The purpose of using this home as an example is to show that even homes in neighborhoods can be conscience of the environment and have less of an impact on it. They called this house the “suburb house of the future”, emphasizing that these methods could be repeated in successful ways. The rooms are all oriented toward south facing windows to provide sunlight. To control the amount of sunlight entering the rooms, they constructed two levels of roofing. This is a little different than normal suburban houses because normally you would see one, consistent roof line, but in this construction they broke it up to allow for roof overhang over multiple windows. The windows in this house have three layers of glass. In between each layer of glass there is krypton gas. They included this gas because it is heavy and doesn’t conduct heat. This lets these windows have four times better performance than normal windows. The video stated that the normal energy consumption that is required to comfortably heat or cool a house is about one fifth of a households total energy consumption. To reduce this, they put much smaller vents in this house. The size of these vents are about two inches in diameter. This will greatly reduce the amount of forced air and, therefor, the amount of energy used to heat or cool the house. The south facing windows will provide additional heat to the house and the shade from the roof lines will help to keep it cool, also reducing the amount of forced air needed. Lastly, this house conserves the runoff rainwater into barrels for later use. They mentioned that the owners of the house use this water to water their outside plants. This house is a good example of how suburban living can also be environmental architecture, reducing the amount of energy needed to support these areas. The third house that this video highlights is also in Spain. This is probably the least traditional of all four of the houses shown in the video. This house is in a cave. The builders used ancient Arabian cave building methods to build this home. There are a couple of them in the area that are all very similar. The builder mentioned that there are no specific rules when building on of these caves, but there are traditional methods that he followed. He started with the entrance, then moved on to the dome ceilings and upper walls, and then whitewashed the walls for added strength. He repeated this technique in each room of the home. Because these caves are underground, there is no humidity. This helps to keep the home at a comfortable temperature. There are vents throughout the house that lead to the outside, allowing fresh air to always be circulating through the home. Fresh air is also pumped in through the ceiling. This cave is laid out like a tradition home. The living room is in the front of the house and the bedrooms are in the back. Although this home is not a viable way of living for many people, it is a good example of how ancient techniques can still work to make a home comfortable. The last house was touched on very briefly. It is also located in Spain and is a traditional whitewashed house that uses centuries old techniques in the construction. This house is located in the desert, so it is exposed to extreme heat. The white on the outside helps to keep the house cooler because it reflects a lot of heat from the sun. This house has the bedrooms in the basement to provide a comfortable temperature in which to sleep. Extending the house underground also allows the cold air from the earth to cool the rest of the house. Because the exterior of the house is all white, the owner used other colors and materials on the inside to soften the harsh sunlight that is magnified by the white walls. The windows in this house are very small, allowing light to come in but not a lot of heat and humidity. This house is a good example of how even in extreme temperatures there is not always a need for a lot of electricity and energy use to make a home comfortable. It is all about how you build and construct a building. There are both positive and negative affects to this type of architecture that focuses on minimizing affects on the environment. There are a lot of positive affects on the environment. Each of the houses that were described were great examples of creative ways to lessen their effects on the environment. They all used minimal electricity, as well as used the natural climate and environmental attributes in their favor. Some of the negative effects of this type of architecture, that I can think of, is that you lose some comforts and controls over certain aspects inside your home. The convenience of always being able to change the temperature in your home is something we have all grown very used to. It is nice to be able to close the blinds and have a warm house, or open the blinds and have a cool house. In using environmental architecture, there are definitely some comforts that would need to be given up. I believe that as this type of construction and living is researched and used for a longer period of time, there will be other ways to implement and improve these modern comforts that we have grown so used to. The video stated that protecting the environment is everyones responsibility, so I think that the construction and architecture world is a great place to start, since they are a huge part of our everyday lives. Works Cited Environmental Architecture. Sound Venture International, 2004. Kanopy. Web. 10 Sep. 2024.