scholarly journals Lifestyle and Embodied Energy: A Proposed Hybrid Analysis Method for Housing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Adele Louise Leah

<p>This thesis set out to form a bridge between the disciplines of architectural history, social and women’s history, building technology and environmental assessment, by investigating changes to existing houses over time and linking these with changes in lifestyle and technology. The primary aim of this research is to establish a Hybrid Analysis Method for Housing (HAMH) as a vehicle for the investigation of the relationship between the environmental impact of the building materials in a house and the lifestyle of its inhabitants, both immediately after construction and in the present day.  The method is developed using existing research techniques through the study of typical, working class, family houses in New Zealand (Tarikaka Settlement, Wellington) before being applied to a comparable sample of houses in England (Silver End, Witham). Although different in terms of layout, style, building materials and methods of construction, the two groups of case study houses have commonality in the people for whom they were originally designed, the period in which they were constructed and in their conception and planning.  The HAMH incorporates both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The former relates to oral interviews with people who lived around the time the case study houses were first constructed, complemented by oral interviews covering the same questions with the present inhabitants of the case study houses. The quantitative part of the research is an investigation of the embodied energy of building materials invested in the case study houses since their construction.  The research findings highlight a change in the purpose and function of housing which has taken place since the case study houses were constructed, when the house was very much a place of production and the adjacent public spaces were places for social interaction. Present day houses appear to be for eating and sleeping, relaxing, and engaging with technology, with the adjacent public spaces being dominated by the car.  The results of the comparative study show that although the Tarikaka Settlement case study houses as constructed had much lower levels of embodied energy than the Silver End houses, the alterations and improvements made to them, combined with the necessary maintenance means that the cumulative embodied energy of these houses in 2012 is higher than the Silver End houses. The analysis of embodied energy highlights the importance of occupancy levels in the environmental impact of houses.  This thesis suggests that the real value of the HAMH is its use as a vehicle for comparison and as such, it needs to be applied to other groups of houses, constructed in different time periods and in other locations. This should enable meaningful comparison between houses designed differently, using varied methods of construction and materials that are inhabited by different people with differing lifestyles, with the overall aim being to see how lifestyle and the environmental impact of building materials relate to each other. This thesis argues that unless the impact of household behaviour is understood, many efforts to produce more sustainable housing may be less effective than envisaged.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Adele Louise Leah

<p>This thesis set out to form a bridge between the disciplines of architectural history, social and women’s history, building technology and environmental assessment, by investigating changes to existing houses over time and linking these with changes in lifestyle and technology. The primary aim of this research is to establish a Hybrid Analysis Method for Housing (HAMH) as a vehicle for the investigation of the relationship between the environmental impact of the building materials in a house and the lifestyle of its inhabitants, both immediately after construction and in the present day.  The method is developed using existing research techniques through the study of typical, working class, family houses in New Zealand (Tarikaka Settlement, Wellington) before being applied to a comparable sample of houses in England (Silver End, Witham). Although different in terms of layout, style, building materials and methods of construction, the two groups of case study houses have commonality in the people for whom they were originally designed, the period in which they were constructed and in their conception and planning.  The HAMH incorporates both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The former relates to oral interviews with people who lived around the time the case study houses were first constructed, complemented by oral interviews covering the same questions with the present inhabitants of the case study houses. The quantitative part of the research is an investigation of the embodied energy of building materials invested in the case study houses since their construction.  The research findings highlight a change in the purpose and function of housing which has taken place since the case study houses were constructed, when the house was very much a place of production and the adjacent public spaces were places for social interaction. Present day houses appear to be for eating and sleeping, relaxing, and engaging with technology, with the adjacent public spaces being dominated by the car.  The results of the comparative study show that although the Tarikaka Settlement case study houses as constructed had much lower levels of embodied energy than the Silver End houses, the alterations and improvements made to them, combined with the necessary maintenance means that the cumulative embodied energy of these houses in 2012 is higher than the Silver End houses. The analysis of embodied energy highlights the importance of occupancy levels in the environmental impact of houses.  This thesis suggests that the real value of the HAMH is its use as a vehicle for comparison and as such, it needs to be applied to other groups of houses, constructed in different time periods and in other locations. This should enable meaningful comparison between houses designed differently, using varied methods of construction and materials that are inhabited by different people with differing lifestyles, with the overall aim being to see how lifestyle and the environmental impact of building materials relate to each other. This thesis argues that unless the impact of household behaviour is understood, many efforts to produce more sustainable housing may be less effective than envisaged.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
Milan Porhincak ◽  
Adriana Estokova

Abstract Building activity has recently led to the deterioration of environment and has become unsustainable. Several strategies have been introduced in order to minimize consumption of energy and resulting CO2 emissions having their origin in the operational phase. But also other stages of Life Cycle should are important to identify the overall environmental impact of construction sector. In this paper 5 similar Slovak buildings (family houses) were analyzed in terms of environmental performance of building materials used for their structures. Evaluation included the weight of used materials, embodied energy and embodied CO2 and SO2 emissions. Analysis has proven that the selection of building materials is an important factor which influences the environmental profile. Findings of the case study indicated that materials like concrete, ceramic or thermal insulation materials based on polystyrene and mineral wool are ones with the most negative environmental impact.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjar Primasetra

The largest of CO2 emissions on earth derives from construction activities. It is necessary to solve the problem to reduce the impact of CO2 emissions. One of the solution to reduce the impact of CO2 emission because of construction activity is using re-used material for building construction, such as re-used shipping container because the re-used material has low embodied energy. This paper has three purposes, and there are: explaining the application of re-used containers as building materials in the context of green architecture, explaining the application of building design using re-used containers as material, and explaining the advantages and disadvantages of used containers as building materials. Creative Hub ITSB as a case study owned by the campus of ITSB. The building construction consists of 20 units of a re-used container (20 feet size). The prefabrication construction uses for each steel material. Each component of the building assembled in the workshop, then it delivered to site by truck. The main issues that need to be solved are a matter of the delivery system, the structure, and joints, and the component assembly. Cross-ventilation system and insulating material also crucial because it can reduce building temperature.


2020 ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Iman Hegazy

Public spaces are defined as places that should be accessible to all inhabitants without restrictions. They are spaces not only for gathering, socializing and celebrating but also for initiating discussions, protesting and demonstrating. Thus, public spaces are intangible expressions of democracy—a topic that the paper tackles its viability within the context of Alexandria, case study Al-Qaed Ibrahim square. On the one hand, Al-Qaed Ibrahim square which is named after Al-Qaed Ibrahim mosque is a sacred element in the urban fabric; whereas on the other it represents a non-religious revolutionary symbol in the Alexandrian urban public sphere. This contradiction necessitates finding an approach to study the characteristic of this square/mosque within the Alexandrian context—that is to realize the impact of the socio-political events on the image of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square, and how it has transformed into a revolutionary urban symbol and yet into a no-public space. The research revolves around the hypothesis that the political events taking place in Egypt after January 25th, 2011, have directly affected the development of urban public spaces, especially in Alexandria. Therefore methodologically, the paper reviews the development of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square throughout the Egyptian socio-political changes, with a focus on the square’s urban and emotional contextual transformations. For this reason, the study adheres to two theories: the "city elements" by Kevin Lynch and "emotionalizing the urban" by Frank Eckardt. The aim is not only to study the mentioned public space but also to figure out the changes in people’s societal behaviour and emotion toward it. Through empowering public spaces, the paper calls the different Egyptian political and civic powers to recognize each other, regardless of their religious, ethnical or political affiliations. It is a step towards replacing the ongoing political conflicts, polarization, and suppression with societal reconciliation, coexistence, and democracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 894 (1) ◽  
pp. 012004
Author(s):  
S Hartini ◽  
B S Ramadan ◽  
R Purwaningsih ◽  
S Sumiyati ◽  
M A A Kesuma

Abstract Tofu contains various substances that are very good when consumed to improve people’s nutrition. In addition, tofu also has good taste. The problem is that the tofu production process produces products and non-product outputs in the form of waste that is very dangerous if directly disposed of in the environment. The BOD5 content of tofu small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Sugihmanik Village ranged from 3,667-4,933 mg/L and COD 7,668-9,736 mg/L. At the same time, the TSS values ranged from 701-1,189 mg/L. The BOD5 value in the river water content is 367 mg/L. It greatly exceeds the set Threshold Value. This study aims to measure the environmental impact using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA can identify the impact of each activity based on the impact category to identify the processes that contribute significantly to damaging the environment. This study found that the cooking and frying process had the highest impact, where the climate change category was the largest. Wastewater treatment plants, biogas from the biodigester as a substitute for electricity for water pumps, rice husks, and corn cobs are expected to reduce environmental impacts. The first section in your paper


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Hu

Knowledge and research tying the environmental impact and embodied energy together is a largely unexplored area in the building industry. The aim of this study is to investigate the practicality of using the ratio between embodied energy and embodied carbon to measure the building’s impact. This study is based on life-cycle assessment and proposes a new measure: life-cycle embodied performance (LCEP), in order to evaluate building performance. In this project, eight buildings located in the same climate zone with similar construction types are studied to test the proposed method. For each case, the embodied energy intensities and embodied carbon coefficients are calculated, and four environmental impact categories are quantified. The following observations can be drawn from the findings: (a) the ozone depletion potential could be used as an indicator to predict the value of LCEP; (b) the use of embodied energy and embodied carbon independently from each other could lead to incomplete assessments; and (c) the exterior wall system is a common significant factor influencing embodied energy and embodied carbon. The results lead to several conclusions: firstly, the proposed LCEP ratio, between embodied energy and embodied carbon, can serve as a genuine indicator of embodied performance. Secondly, environmental impact categories are not dependent on embodied energy, nor embodied carbon. Rather, they are proportional to LCEP. Lastly, among the different building materials studied, metal and concrete express the highest contribution towards embodied energy and embodied carbon.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisha Al-Rumaihi ◽  
Gordon McKay ◽  
Hamish R. Mackey ◽  
Tareq Al-Ansari

Food waste is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and therefore global warming. As such, the management of food waste can play a fundamental role in the reduction of preventable emissions associated with food waste. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to evaluate and compare the environmental impact associated with two composting techniques for treating food waste using SimaPro software; windrow composting and the hybrid anaerobic digestion (AD) method. The study, based on a 1 tonne of food waste as a functional unit for a case study in the State of Qatar, concludes that anaerobic digestion combined composting presents a smaller environmental burden than windrow composting. The majority of the emissions generated are due to the use of fossil fuels during transportation, which correspond to approximately 60% of the total impact, followed by the impact of composting with 40% of the impact especially in terms of global warming potential. Environmental assessment impacts were the highest in windrow composting for the acidification impact category (9.39 × 10 − 1 kg SO2 eq). While for AD combined composting the impact was highest for the human toxicity impact category (3.47 × 10 kg 1,4 − DB eq).


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-491
Author(s):  
Ya-Gao Qin ◽  
Chen Yi ◽  
Guo-Liu Dong ◽  
Jian-Zhang Min

The meteorological factors play an important role to influence the concentration of the particulate matters. The path analysis method is employed to investigate the influence of meteorological factors (including atmospheric temperature ( AT), relative humidity ( RH), and wind speed ( WS)) on particulate matters (including PM2.5 and PM10) in Dazhou city. The following results are obtained: (1) The direct path coefficients of AT, RH, and WS to PM2.5 and PM10 are all negative, which means that the concentration of particulate matters would be declined following with the increasing of AT, RH, and WS. (2) The meteorological factors would explain about 17.43 and 16.52% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. However, 82.57% variance of PM2.5 and 83.48% variance of PM10 would be determined by non-meteorological factors. (3) AT and WS are the most important meteorological factors to modulate the concentration of particulate matters. AT would explain 12.73 and 8.78% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. WS would explain 6.54 and 8.69% variance of PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. (4) According to the absolute value of the determination coefficients, the main influence on the concentration of PM2.5 is the direct influence by AT and the impact on the concentration of PM10 is by the combined contribution of meteorological factors.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 507
Author(s):  
Ezyana Anyzah Marmaya ◽  
Rohana Mahbub

To ensure high performance of projects, risk factors and their impact towards the environment need to be addressed during and after the construction phase. This research aims to assess the risk factors and the impact of industrial projects to the environment and surrounding areas. The research employs multi-method strategies: this case study includes several interviews, observations, analysis of project documents and questionnaires distributed among the occupants living in the surrounding area. The results of the research indicated that the project is perceived to have negative environmental impact measured under ecosystem, natural resources, and public impact.Keywords: risk assessment, risk factors, environmental impact, industrial projects, MalaysiaISSN: 2398-4287© 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.


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