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Environmental Sustainability in Architecture

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is one of the most active areas of interest in sustainable architecture world wide. Many techniques are used to reduce heat and electrical energy requirements inside buidlings.

Thermal mass and insulation, combined with Passive solar design principles aim to use the sun's heat to warm the inside of the building during the day, and retain that warmth during the night. Passive Solar design also looks at restricting heat entering in to the building during warm periods (summer days), as well as allowing maximum natural lighting, to reduce reliance on electric lighting.

Waste Management

Some Sustainable architecture practices use recycled or second hand materials for their buildings. The reduction in use of new materials has a corresponding reduction in embodied energy, as products such as steel framing and roofing, and glass windows do no need to be created using high-energy production processes.

Sustainable architecture also looks at on site use of waste, incorporating things such as grey water systems for use on garden beds, and composting toilets to reduce sewerage.

This, combined with on-site food waste composting and off-site recycling can reduce a house's waste to a small amount of packaging waste

Social Sustainability in Architecture

• Mental Health

Sustainable Social Constructs

Architectural design can play a large part in deciding the ways that social groups interact. Communist Russia's Construtivist Social condensers are a good example of this, buildings which were designed with the specific intention of controlling or directing the flow of everyday life, to "create socially equitable spaces".

Sustainable design can help to create a sustainable way of living within a community. While the existing social constructs can be seen to influence architecture, the opposite can also be true. An overtly socially sustainable building, if successful, can help people to see the benefit of living susstainably, this can bee seen in many of Rural Studio's buildings in and around Hale County in south-west USA. The same can be said for environmentally sustainable design, in that architecture can lead the way for the greater community.

Art in Sustainable Architecture

Art can be a powerfully positive social force. It can help to reduce stress in many situations, lowering the risk of stress-related health problems, both physical and mental.

Art can also be a way of individual expression, which can add to the community as a whole. Hundertwasser's buildings in Austria are an inspiring example of art giving back to the community.