Sustainable High Rise Buildings Pdf Download ((FREE))
To understand the demands being placed on the construction industry in more depth, Uponor undertook research among 200 architects, contractors and developers to gather their insights on the expectations facing the sector with regards to the delivery of high-rise buildings, and how feasible they are. Three priority themes for the research were identified based on academic research, the news headline and industry-wide discussions. These themes are:
Sustainable High Rise Buildings Pdf Download
The UN estimate 2.5 billion new urban residents by 2050, thus further increasing global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and energy demand, and the environmental impacts caused by the built environment. Achieving optimal use of space and maximal efficiency in buildings is therefore fundamental for sustainable urbanisation. There is a growing belief that building taller and denser is better. However, urban environmental design often neglects life cycle GHG emissions. Here we offer a method that decouples density and tallness in urban environments and allows each to be analysed individually. We test this method on case studies of real neighbourhoods and show that taller urban environments significantly increase life cycle GHG emissions (+154%) and low-density urban environments significantly increase land use (+142%). However, increasing urban density without increasing urban height reduces life cycle GHG emissions while maximising the population capacity. These results contend the claim that building taller is the most efficient way to meet growing demand for urban space and instead show that denser urban environments do not significantly increase life cycle GHG emissions and require less land.
Population and urbanisation are increasing with an estimated additional 2.5 billion people living in urban areas by 20501. The built environment is the greatest cause of carbon emissions, global energy demand, resource consumption and waste generation2. In the European Union (EU), it accounts for 50% of all extracted materials, 42% of the final energy consumption, 35% of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and 32% of waste flows3. Therefore, achieving optimal use of space and maximal efficiency in buildings is fundamental for the transition to sustainable built environments and to progress towards national and international climate targets.
Urban environments are diverse, arguably unique, and the product of many factors such as the landscape, culture, economy and history. Yet, a common theme throughout urban environments is the types of buildings that comprise them. These can be categorised as non-domestic low-rise (NDLR); non-domestic high-rise (NDHR); domestic low-rise (DLR); domestic high-rise (DHR); and terraced or semi-detached houses (House)16,17. Full details are given in the Supplementary Information (specifically Supplementary Methods 1, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Methods 3). The layout and combination of these different building types contribute to both the density and height of an urban space13,18,19,20.
High-rise buildings have much higher LCGE than low-rise buildings, as shown by the large bubbles in Fig. 2. Thus, building taller has a significant impact on the LCGE of an urban environment when the number of people is kept constant. For a 20k population, moving from a HDLR (small purple bubbles) to a HDHR (large purple bubbles) typology results in a 140% increase in LCGE; for 30k, 40k and 50k populations, the difference is 154, 143 and 132%, respectively. Compared with the difference between LDLR and HDLR typologies presented above, this shows the much greater impact of building taller over building denser.
From Table 2 it is possible to see that, for all the fixed populations, HDLR buildings minimise LCGE. HDHR is the worst-case scenario for all populations, ranging from a 27 to 77% increase in LCGE when moving from a 20k to a 30k and 50k population, respectively. However, the impact on LCGE with increasing populations is higher for the other urban typologies, despite absolute LCGE being much higher. For a LDLR scenario, doubling the population, i.e. from 20k to 40k, results in an 81% increase in LCGE; moving from 20k to 50k gives a 94% increase. In terms of increasing impacts with greater populations, LDHR shows the highest differences; 112% LCGE increase moving from 20k to 40k and 145% moving from 20k to 50k. This suggests that the land required, and thus the land use change emissions factor, to accommodate higher populations plays a role in LCGE. This is reflected in the larger land areas required when building low-dense typologies for higher populations; in a LDHR scenario, moving from 20k to 30k results in a 53% increase in land area and from 30k to 40k and 50k populations, the difference is 115 and 152%, respectively. However, the small absolute LCGE increase does not reflect the large increase in land required suggesting the relatively insignificant impact land use change has on LCGE.
The distribution of building types across the four population models is shown in Fig. 3. For the higher populations (40k and 50k), proportionally more domestic buildings are selected in order to accommodate the need for more residences. This need is particularly illustrated through the 50k population model in which domestic low-rise buildings dominate any other building type across all simulations.
When LCGE is normalised per building type, non-domestic buildings have the highest share of the impact at 75% (62% for non-domestic high-rise and 13% for non-domestic low-rise), so their inclusion in the urban scenario inherently increases LCGE. Domestic buildings account for the remaining 25% with the following split: 17% for domestic high-rise and 4% for both domestic low-rise and terraced/house. This split in LCGE impact aligns with the results presented in Table 1. As expected, non-domestic buildings are responsible for the largest portion of LCGE due to having higher operational emission intensities. This value will become less significant as a driver for higher non-domestic impact in future years due to the decarbonisation of the grid and reduced reliance on fossil fuels25. Therefore, the next hotspot to address from a LCGE perspective is the structural system of buildings, which is largest in high-rise buildings, both domestic and non-domestic. Beyond that, the largest difference is seen in the façade; non-domestic high-rise buildings have at least twice the impact of the other four building types, due to the heavy material intensity of steel and glass26,27.
Figure 4 presents the LCGE as a function of the tallness and density factor for each fixed population. This visual representation shows that LCGE increases with increasing height and that high-rise buildings are more commonly paired with high density typologies. Furthermore, this representation illustrates that the LCGE of different densities is less stratified than for building height, reinforcing the finding that building height has a significant impact on LCGE, while density does not.
With an aim to evaluate the widespread belief that building dense and tall is the only way to accommodate a growing urban population, we developed and employed a method to separate density from tallness in urban environments and establish the extent to which each influences the LCGE of cities. Indeed, the difference between varying urban scenarios and across varying populations had yet to be quantified from a LCGE perspective. We found that while tallness does significantly increase the LCGE, density does not, and we here suggest that there is an alternative low-rise pathway for urban development that can meet the growing demand for urban floor area. While not explored in detail, it is worth considering that low-rise urban environments also allow to choose from more construction materials than the handful of elite materials that govern and dominate our high-rise built environments (i.e. steel, reinforced concrete, aluminium and glass).
Sustainability is a three-legged stool comprising the economy, the environment and society: to be truly sustainable all three must be in equilibrium. Therefore, interdisciplinary considerations that need to be addressed when progressing this work include, for instance: occupant comfort; the urban heat island effect; competing land use; the carbon sequestration effect of green spaces; urban policies; resource consumption; how the urban environment affects crime; etc. Cities are the central hub of modern society and to address these multi-faceted issues a highly multidisciplinary approach seems the only appropriate way forward.
World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from the pandemic. It highlights the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect emerging economies, and advocates a set of policies to mitigate the interconnected financial risks stemming from the pandemic and steer economies toward a sustainable and equitable recovery.
To maintain a high level of confidence and consistency across the report, the researchers set a minimum height threshold of eight stories above grade. This yields a total of 139 buildings that are either proposed, under construction or completed.
Computer modelling is essential for analyzing and designing mid- and high-rise buildings and long-span structures. It is also a valuable tool for optimizing wood-based products, connections, and systems that improve structural performance.