During the summer of 2017, I was part of a Sustainable Community Systems: Netherlands program. The program focused on the principles, practice, and policy for sustainable planning and design of land use and transportation systems, with Canadian and international perspectives.
Within the first week of being exposed to the country, it became clear that Dutch urban infrastructure holds an abundance of sustainability design features. The video below outlines the country’s outstanding achievements in the following categories and how it compares to Vancouver and other places.
Last year, I took ENDS 221, a course describes as an “Introduction to interactions between human and natural urban systems using local and international examples of successful sustainable community designs” focused on Vancouver. Essentially, this class was a whole 4 months focused on the material covered in Week 11 – Healthy Urban Infrastructure Design. The course followed along with his Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities. The rules and some of their basic attributes are as follows.
Figure 1. A comparison of the Vancouver Skyline (Condon, P. M., 2010. pg 13)
Rule 1: Restore the Streetcar City
The streetcar routes created the form of the city, with most of the original 1900s roads still in place. Main travel corridors with important services and housing nearby such as 4th Ave and Granville St were originally streetcar arterials. Condon refers to the streetcar city as “ a meta rule for sustainable, low carbon community development” as it captures the at least 4 design rules discussed later on.
Rule 2: Design an Interconnected Street System
Streets following a grid systems make a city more sustainable than a “dendritic” or “tree like” layout (ie, cul-de-sacs, gated communities). Trips are shorter and more distributed with a grid system, as multiple routes are possible, reducing the amount of CO2 emissions from large queues along main branches of a dendritic road. Theses trips are shorter for cars, but also create more enjoyable and more direct trips for pedestrians to access transit and services.
Rule 3: Locate Commercial Services, Frequent Transit and Schools within a 5 minute Walk
The closer the chores or tasks required for daily life are, the more likely resident will be to walk. Being able to walk to a neighbourhood corridor to grocery shop and the flower store creates a sense of place, or belonging in a community. Additionally, ensuring a short walk for children to get to school promotes green modes of transportation and likely means not crossing a major arterial.
Rule 4: Locate Good Jobs close to Affordable Homes
This rule aims to reduce the amount of Green House gas emitted due to commuting by encouraging walking and biking. It is also key to remember that most city jobs don’t have the same effect as industrials jobs, don’t need a lot of space and can fit into a city block, if you build up.
Rule 5: Provide a Diversity of Housing Types
Providing single-family homes, housing co-ops, apartments and laneway houses creates an economically diverse, GHG friendly community. A variety of housing types within a neighbourhood also keeps things interesting and increases density.
Rule 6: Create a Linked System of Natural Areas and Parks
This rule directly corresponds to the Healthy Natural Environments. Utilizing connected green spaces within an urban environment improves air quality and biodiversity and positively benefits the resident’s well being as well.
Rule 7: Invest in Lighter, Green, Cheaper, And Smarter Infrastructure
The final rule focuses on methods and features of a community that influence the environment. The implementation of green roofs, bioswales, and pervious surfaces all infiltrate storm water, while encouraging biodiversity, pleasant human experiences and reducing the heat island effect.
References:
Condon, P.M. (2010). Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World. Washington: Island Press.
This week, one of the examples that was provided in the reading was regarding acoustics. While acoustic improvements may not initially be thought of as relating to sustainability, the field is gaining more traction within the industry. It is important to recognize that sustainability relates to the quality of an environment and its impact on human health. A healthy and enjoyable working environment, complete with appropriate acoustics, can reduce sick days, help prevent burn out, and lead to a happier more productive work force.
The Green Building Council has recognized the importance of this relationship and has implemented a pilot project whereby LEED credits are awarded for “sound” acoustic design 🙂
The promotional video below by MACH acoustics discusses a variety of strategies to mitigate noise ingress while maintaining a comfortable ventilated environment. These are listed below along with a brief description.
Mechanical Ventilation – Not ideal. These use substantial energy to operate and can be loud themselves.
Thermal Mass Storage – A good system in that it’s passive, but if rooms overheat the need for ventilation still exists.
Cross Ventilation – Reduces the need for lots of open windows, but increases the sound transfer between rooms.
Cross Talk Attenuators – Allow for cross ventilation, but block much of the associated sound transfer.
Modified Window Design – This can reduce the ingress of noise while still allowing for natural ventilation.
Attenuated Facades – Ideal for particularly noisy environments where ventilation is still necessary.
Don’t worry if you can’t hear anything when you play the video. It’s silent. Your personal acoustics are just fine!
Now, in case you thought acoustic design was straightforward, check out the studio where the New York Times recently recorded world renowned chef Massimo Bottura making his favorite childhood dish – Lasagna!
Lighting is one of the most crucial features of any indoor space and is often overlooked. Eco-friendly lighting not only promotes more sustainable living, it also promotes optimal health and well being within individuals. Sustainable lighting within a building can be improved by the addition of a skylight or window to increase natural light, and by choosing reflective materials and colours for walls, ceilings and floors. These options not only increase your UVB exposure (great for improving vitamin D levels), but also if implemented during the design process can save on energy consumption.
Although daylight lighting is a more sought after approach for lighting sources, its not always realistic to assume that a building can get sufficient natural light (i.e. night time). There are various types of lighting commonly used in current building practices and a summation of these features (positive and negative) can be seen below:
Fluorescent Lamps
Last 10 to 20 times longer and are 3 to 5 times more efficient than incandescent lamps
Incandescent Lamps
Used mainly for accent features and specialty lighting
Lower energy efficiency and shorter lamp life
High-Intensity Discharge Lamps (HID)
One of the best performing and most efficient lamps for providing large areas with light or providing longer distances of light
Can replace the usual high pressure sodium lamps typically used outdoors as HID lamps are more effective in peripheral vision detection
Do not work well with occupancy sensors as they take some time to generate light once turned on
LED Lamps
Compared to incandescent lamps, it uses 75% less energy and lasts 25 times longer
Sources:
Fehrenbacher, J. (June 10, 2014). GREEN BUILDING 101: Environmentally Friendly Lighting for Health and Well-Being. Retrieved from
“Design of Healthy Environments” explores many design principles and topics related to human health in indoor environments. I find this topic particularly useful and interesting as all of the topics pertain to buildings – specifically the subjects of structural engineering and building science – which are the focus of my studies. This post explores some details of one of the “Design of Healthy Environment” topics, namely: passive ventilation.
Passive ventilation (sometimes refereed to as passive cooling) is a design approach to the management of internal building temperature that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building through passive means in order to improve indoor conditions with minimal energy consumption. This is accomplished either by preventing heat from entering the building’s interior (known as heat gain prevention) or by removing heat from the building by promoting air movement or though diffusion through building surfaces. Methods to control indoor temperature can be broken into two broad categories – preventative techniques and heat dissipation techniques.
Preventative Techniques:
Micro-climate and Site Design: By accounting for the local climate and site location, specific cooling strategies/methods can be employed which are appropriate for the specific site.
Solar Control: By creating a shading system, solar gains can be effectively minimized. Shade can be cast on both transparent and opaque surfaces. Solar gains can also be minimized by using reflective surfaces on the building exterior, or painting the exterior white/light colours.
Heat Dissipation Techniques:
Cross Ventilation: This strategy relies on wind to pass through the building to cool the interior. Cross ventilation requires openings on two sides of the space, called the inlet and outlet. The sizing and placement of the ventilation inlets and outlets will determine the direction and velocity of cross ventilation through the building.
Stack Ventilation: This method relies on the buoyancy of warm air to rise and exit through openings located at ceiling height. Cooler outside air replaces the rising warm air through carefully designed inlets placed near the floor.
Night Flushing: This is a passive or semi-passive cooling strategy that requires increased air movement at night to cool the structural elements of a building. To execute night flushing, the building envelope typically stays closed during the day, causing excess heat gains to be stored in the building’s thermal mass. The building structure acts as a sink through the day and absorbs heat gains from occupants, equipment, solar radiation, and conduction through walls, roofs, and ceilings. At night, when the outside air is cooler and not too humid, the envelope is opened, allowing cooler air to pass through the building so the stored heat can be dissipated by convection.
Below is a diagram while clearly displays several methods of passive ventilation
