prof. janis birkeland - from vicious circles to virtuous cycles through built environment

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Janis BirkelandProfessor of Architecture

Queensland University of Technology

[email protected]

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Janis BirkelandProfessor of Architecture

Queensland University of Technology

[email protected]

Eco-Retrofitting can do the above, for less cost than doing nothing

- while improving human and environmental health and life quality.

But it requires a new approach to design - Positive Development

Green buildings are thus far not sustainable. They still cause and/or exacerbate social, economic and ecological problems

Outline

1. Social - urban areas need to provide basic needs, safety, environmental and social security

2. Economic - urban areas need to reduce the ongoing wastes, impacts and costs of past design and development

3. Ecological - urban areas need to increase the life support system and ecological base of the region

‘Positive Development’ would add social and ecological space and value to the urban environment by expanding:

- ‘Ecological base’ (ie life support system)

- ‘Public estate’ (ie equitable access to the means of survival )

Birkeland

Toxin removal

Materials

Recycling Climate mitigation Soils

Food production Air cleaning Water production

Storm water treatment Grey water purification

Lighting Heating and cooling

Electricity production

Fire prevention

Flooding

Biodiversity

fuel

Building Integrated Eco-technologies

Examples

• Aquaponics • Living machines • Algae farms • Vertical wetlands • Vertical agriculture

Urban integrated Eco-systems

Why do cities need to be eco-retrofitted?

Sustainability is otherwise impossible

Shortage of Water

Devastation of Forests

Climate Change

Air Pollution

Floods

Landslides

Waste

Toxic Landfill

Resource consumption

Social Impacts

Health Impacts

Biodiversity loss

Built environment design is implicated in all environmental, social

and economic problems upstream and downstream from construction

Shortage of Water

Devastation of Forests

Climate Change

Air Pollution

Floods

Landslides

Waste

Toxic Landfill

Resource consumption

Social Impacts

Health Impacts

Biodiversity loss

The impact of cities is greater than figures suggest by their eco-footprint

Design drives the demand for resources and energy in manufacturing, transportation, agriculture and other sectors

• They drive 75% of GHG emissions and waste

• Construction is over 40% of energy and material flows

• Construction and demolition waste is 44% of waste to landfill

• 80% of construction and demolition waste in conventional renovations.

• New and old materials in renovations still contain toxins

• Development transfers wealth

Urban areas cannot remain the same

The design of cities and buildings increase risks

Urban heat island effect, heavy metals, oxygen deficit

Urban areas make urban populations dependent on roads, wires and pipes, which are easily cut off in a climatic, financial, terrorist crisis or natural disaster

Sydney lung Country lung

• Building designs increase the impacts of mudslides, floods and droughts,

congestion, earthquakes fires, storms, resource consumption, pollution .

Social sustainability requires resource security, safety and basic needs

Many people die after crises due to a lack of access to food, water and other means of survival – yet we blame nature.

We have exceeded the

earth’s carrying capacity and are losing biodiversity

(UNEP 2005)

We are not providing for existing populations now

So we must actively increase ecological

carrying capacity just to stay still

How can development be ecologically

sustainable when we are already in deficit?

It has to give more to the ecology than it takes over time

The GOOD news is

…. Problems created by design can be fixed by design

Industrial systems replaced many natural systems with fossil fuels. This process must be reversed

How could cities be ecologically sustainable.......?

Urban areas need to increase the ecological base or life support system of the region ……

Cities must leave the ecology better off after than before development

I tried to re-create their natural habitat

Is net sustainability

possible over a development’s life

cycle?

Can development:

• Add ecological and social surplus value beyond initial site conditions?

• Make humans and ecosystems more healthy and resilient?

• Replace fossil fuels by using natural systems to provide services?

• Improve relationships between individuals, society and nature?

• Be bio-productive and convert ongoing negative impacts into eco-positives?

Are new (even green) buildings the answer

The environment would be better off without them

Are new buildings ecologically sustainable?

• ‘Green buildings’ only reduce the relative damage that we would ‘otherwise’ do in the future, but increase total harm

• If all new buildings were green we would reduce accelerating consumption by .04% (20% of energy X 2%)

Are new buildings socially sustainable ………........?

• Most green buildings divide the rich and poor, privatize ever more public space, transfer of wealth from rural to urban populations, etc

• Lock us in to unsustainable patterns of resource consumption and waste and heat island effect.

Are new buildings economically sustainable.....................?

New green buildings are cheaper than what might have been built instead over their life cycle, but they do not reduce total costs or resource flows.

Embodied energy (20% of total energy consumption in Oz) is more that half the total energy costs of a building.

The material flows and costs of demolition are not counted in approval processes

To reverse the existing social, ecological and economic impacts of poor design, eco-retrofitting is necessary (and profitable)

• Operating energy can easily be reduced by >50%

• Using old structure can save about 1/3 of cost and materials

• Investments in retrofits compare favorably with stock and bonds

• One can buy securities in retrofitting (an ethical investment)

• The savings from productive employees exceed health and energy savings.

• Lockheed's daylit facility saved $400,000 a year, but increased productivity by 15% (Romm 1999)

• Students in daylit schools (with no glare) outperformed others 20%

• Correlations between test performance and fresh air supply.

Salaries are roughly 75% + of business costs

So a 1% productivity increase can pay the energy bill (RMI)

Eco-retrofitting makes money by saving resources and improving productivity – and eliminating actual ongoing costs.

Cool Business (Romm)

• An office in Portland upgraded its lighting, roof insulation, windows and HVAC system to reduce energy consumption by 61%. Saved 130,000 each year thereafter

• A hospital in Indiana reduced lighting electricity use by over 70%.

• The upgrade cost $85,000 (ie less than a 1 year payback)

• Saved thereafter (each year):

– $102,000

– 1,500 tons of CO2

– 13 tons of sulphur

– 6 tons of nitrous oxides

Urban retrofitting for Urban retrofitting for resource autonomy and resource autonomy and biodiversity and energy biodiversity and energy

efficiency can “fit in”efficiency can “fit in”

Michael Mobbs townhouse

Passive systems can be achieved on almost any site

ACF 60 L Building Melbourne

Passive systems can be integrated with buildings no extra cost

Heritage buildings can be eco-retrofitted

Retrofitting with internal atriums can protect facades while using passive solar systems

Is resource autonomy enough?What would make a retrofit ‘net positive’?

Design for Eco-services

What are eco-services? • supporting biodiversity

• disposing of organic wastes

• sequestering carbon

• controlling pests and diseases

• producing food, fibers, pharmaceuticals

• producing healthy construction materials

• regulating the local and global climate

• developing topsoil and soil fertility

• producing crops and natural fertilizers

• heating, cooling and ventilating with the sun

• preventing soil erosion and sediment loss

• purifying air and sewage

• storing and cycling fresh water and nutrients

• regulating the chemistry of the atmosphere

• maintaining habitats for wildlife

• alleviating floods and managing storm water

• protecting against UV radiation

The annual rates of 15 out of 24 major physical diseases were significantly lower among those living closer to green spaces.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ymx9e66vrGc/SgJ0MI1VrUI/AAAAAAAAIqQ/raB9ylUxpSg/s1600-h/green%2520roof%2520penn%2520state.jpg

So why are we afraid of living systems, urban biodiversity and ecosystem services .......?

Living systems can decontaminate the air,

water and soil, increase biota and

appropriate biodiversity).

Eco-solutions can be up-scaled and integrated with all urban layers

Natural systems are self-managing and organizing and perpetuating

Toxin removal

Materials






Fire prevention

Flooding

Biodiversity

Fuel

Can we integrate low-impact eco-solutions with urban structures to move toward eco-retrofitting for Positive Development?

Oils spills are cleaned up with bio-solvents of vegetable oil

Microbes and worms turn waste into healthy soil

Cleaning up toxins?

Dung beetles clean up cow pollution

‘Living Machines’ are chains of ecosystems that treat sewage for

factories, buildings or whole neighborhoods

Living machines

A series of containers of aquatic ecosystems treat organic sewage and toxins and produces fish and vegetables.