A Comprehensive Approach to the Design of Sustainable Buildings

This book examines often neglected issues (e.g., people’s knowledge, motives and values) concerning energy saving and carbon dioxide reduction over the whole lifecycle of a building from a socio-technical perspective, particularly focusing on the operational phase of building occupation. Using the collaborative design process for university student housing as an example, the research explores the priority variances between four key stakeholder groups – designers, clients, occupants and legislators – with regard to their sustainability concerns. It determines that a complete consensus on sustainably constructed environments across all stakeholders is unlikely to be achieved in the near future. To improve this situation, a communication platform for facilitating knowledge transfer is proposed. Two approaches are addressed to introduce the principles of trans-disciplinary communication: a common language and a broader collaborative decision-making process. It also reveals that current education for sustainable development frequently overlooks the fact that adapting to climate change could involve carbon-intensive actions, for instance, although architecture students are generally aware of sustainability principles, to date these have had only a limited impact on their design protocols or lifestyle choices.