What will 2013 bring us in terms of green building trends? To start with, green architecture and design will continue to be on the rise in North America, even when faced with economic obstacles. As reported by a recent count, there are about 50,000 LEED® projects in progress already this year. According to consultant Jerry Yudelson, instead of building green-certified buildings from the ground up, the focus will be on overhauling old buildings (especially universities) and “greening” existing structures. To do so, green building will be managed in cloud-based software more and more, and this software will also be used to better disclose green building performance to the public. The most popular components of green building to focus on are expected to be solar power, water conservation, and the avoidance of “Red List” chemicals. The entire life cycle of green building products will also be looked at. Under what conditions were the products made? What was the effect of the manufacturing process on the environment? There will be also be an increase in green building outside of the United States to about 40% of all LEED projects.
Now let’s jump ahead to the much more distant future, say 2050. The images that come to mind include robots, holograms, space travel, flying cars, and more thanks to shows like The Jetsons. What can we expect in the future of green architecture? Recently, a design team sat down and tried to imagine the “building of the future,” and the result was just about the most sustainable building you could envision. The skyscraper that they conceptualized fits directly into the urban world where 75% of the world’s population is anticipated to live, yet will be the very definition of “green”. In fact, their building goes beyond Net Zero building and actually produces more energy than it consumes. Energy will be saved thanks to flexible modular pods, urban agriculture, climate-conscious facades, interior surfaces with phase change material will be used that has the capability to facilitate heat recovery, and individually-operated climate and lighting controls. Energy will be harnessed via photovoltaic capability in the form of paint, and then transmitted to on-site fuel cells, as well as via elevators, wind turbines, and algae-producing bio-fuel pods. To save space, charging stations will be available for fuel cell cars in the building itself, and it will also double as a location for vertical farming techniques.
Photo courtesy of gizmag.com
The 2050 skyscraper is hard to visualize, but who is to say that we won’t eventually get there? Maybe if we stick to the goals and trends predicted for 2013, we can slowly make our way to that mega-green building forty years into the future. With green building on the rise the way it is, we could see the “Green Urban Skyscraper’ sooner rather than later!
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