Week 10-1 Green Buildings' Health Benefits

Not only green buildings are environmentally sustainable, a recent study has proven that they have social and economical benefits as well. Therefore, green building advocates should also focus on improving well-being of occupants that could also lead to economical sustainability, other than lessening emissions and increasing energy efficiency in the built environment.

John Mandyck, chief sustainability officer in United Technologies Corporation stated that  human resources cost a lot more than energy bills in a building’s operating costs. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to try to think of the payback time for sustainable fixtures when they don't cost as much.

The Impact of Green Buildings on Cognitive Function study hosted 24 participants in laboratory conditions to stimulate indoor environment in sustainable structures with enhanced ventilation, green buildings and conventional buildings. The results were that compared to participants in conventional environment, those in green environment scored 61% higher and those in enhanced ventilation scored 101% higher.

In addition, researchers found that USD14-42 spent on a person per year on improving indoor health air could improve employee's productivity by USD6,500 annually. The findings will not only accelerate green building movement but also a better economic sustainability for investing in clean technologies.

Resources
http://www.eco-business.com/news/the-hidden-health-benefits-of-green-buildings/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=April%206%20newsletter&utm_content=April%206%20newsletter+Version+A+CID_90865690d186e4d024e54ce533fe04b7&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=The%20hidden%20health%20benefits%20of%20green%20buildings

Week 9-2 Make Recycling Easier

Packaging is not trash because a lot of it can be reduced, reused, recycled and even composted to gain back value from the materials that were used to make them. Seeing packaging as valuable makes more sense to recycle, diverting from landfill for environmental and economical sustainability as it conserves natural resources and reduces environmental impact.

In America, when items are recycled, they get processed in material recovery facility, where they get separated by material into paper, plastic, glass, metal, cartons and magazines or newspaper. After the separation, they are sent to reprocessor facilities, who pays for them to create new products.

Sorting out recyclable items can be confusing and a bit time consuming. How2Recycle has created a new, simple system for that purpose. The labels as shown above tells if the items are widely recycled, check locally, not yet recycled or store drop-off. How2Recycle has resources for check locally and also collects feedback. There are more than 40 participating members.

I think the system is very easy to understand and makes recycling of packaging a lot more efficient. I think other countries should try to follow this example. I can already imagine more recycling being done since it is easier and takes less time to sort them.

References
http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/sponsorvideo/think-you-know-how-recycle-think-again?utm_campaign=treehugger-native&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral

Week 9-1 Lilyfield Housing Redevelopment

As an Architecture student, while searching about housing in Australia, I came upon Lilyfield Housing Redvelopment. It not only provides affordable home for the citizens. but was also the first social housing project to receive the highest Green Start rating of 5 from the Green Building Council of Australia.

1. Passive solar design and natural ventilation eliminates energy hogging air conditioning (thermal performance of the units are 60% better than standard residence)
2. No car parking but space for residents' and visistors' bicycles
3. Water tanks capture over 100,000 litres of rain on the roof for toilets and communal vegetable gardens, grown by the residents and raise community spirit
4. Solar photovoltaic and solar thermal panels create on-site electricity production and gas-boosted solar hot water.
5. 9 of the 88 modern apartments are designed for disability access
6. Central courtyard and barbecue area also facilitates neighbourhood atmosphere
7. Lighting in common areas have daylight and motion sensors to decrease energy usage. Outdoor lighting was targeted that less than 5% of light output is wasted by escaping skyward, which solves a big flaw of Australia's light pollution.

The redevelopment considers sustainability in all aspects, environment, economy and social. The aim of the project was to inspire other cities and it deserves recognition and praise for combining several environmental innovations to make a more self-sufficient affordable housing with a lively community into a reality.

References
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/australias-first-green-star-public-housing-project-opens-in-sydney.html

Week 8-2 Sustainable Roadmap for 2050

By 2050, the world's population is said to be doubled. The main objectives are to abandon fossil fuels as they produce deadly green house gases, to limit natural resources such as crucial metals and minerals for manufacturing and rearranging how we produce, consume and live due to climate effects such as droughts, heat emergencies and high temperatures affecting crop growth and sea level rise.

Solution 1: renewable energy that is closer to users to avoid interruptions from issues such as devastating storms that destroy utility infrastructure in recent years or hacking and to decrease the energy loss over long distance transmission
Solution 2: more mobility with less cars so more sustainable transport such as walking, biking or shared transport using renewable energy (electric or hydrogen powered) for health
Solution 3: more local food with less carbon footprint reducing transport, waste less to save water and energy, carbon taxing on livestock, land-locked fish farming to not disturb aquatic food chain and better choices of food such as easily cultivated Moringa plant that provides many nutrients
Solution 4: renew, reuse and recycle consumer goods to reduce waste by creating a cycle instead of a chain such as local clothes manufacturing, reselling and recycling

I think it is very exciting to be living in a new sustainable lifestyle in the future and I am honestly looking forward to it, hoping things won't go so wrong as we have recognized the problems and solutions many years before 2050. In saying that, action starting today is definitely required as the population continues to increase even today.

Resources:
http://cityminded.org/adapting-adaptation-roadmap-will-live-2050-15334

Week 8-1 Limiting Melbourne's Skyscrapers

After learning about urban heat island effect and that the urban fabric includes walls, which can be 50% of total surface area and 3 times the aerial surface area. Hence, taller buildings take a lot more time to cool down at night due to less exposure to the cool sky, resulting in higher temperatures in urban areas compared to rural areas.

Surprisingly to me, Melbourne CBD is that it is denser than some dense Asian cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Therefore, it is proposing for buildings higher than Government height limits to prove that it provides special value to the city to ensure the sustainable development.

Building industry groups argued that lead developers will invest elsewhere so it will be harder to create innovative ground-breaking projects and property value will decrease with restrictions, which will impact state and local government budget. They added that Melbourne continued to become less attractive due to planning decisions without consultation with the industry.

Melbourne is referring back to Sydney and doubting the industry groups' fears would happen. "[T]he proposal would be up for public discussion, which would be assessed by an independent panel and the Government would make a decision in September."

It would be interesting to see the regulations in a few months. The government seem to be taking in consideration of the industry, having public opinions heard and I hope the building industry's "innovative ground-breaking projects" can prove to be of special value to the city to go over height limits. The biggest problems would be turning away of investors and drop in land prices, which hopefully will not occur. I hope the government account for this so even if the worst case scenario occurs, it can bounce back.

Resources
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/proposal-to-limiting-size-of-melbourne-skyscrapers/7357102

Week 7-2 Inspiring New York's High Line

New York City's High Line, a park on a deserted elevated rail line, succeeded with the public and nearby real estate developers and inspired park projects all over the world. It seems that each month, there is a city planning for its version of High Line. Some projects are a knock off of it, such as Singapore's plan for transforming at-grade railway to a series of public spaces so it is not high at all. Another example is Washington's plans for a bridge park over the Potomac River, which is a new construction rather than recycling old infrastructure. As the comparisons are stretching, "High Line" is becoming urban planners' term for a "linear park." Most of them commonly want to cure wounds on a city's urban fabric made by highways, railways or social segregation.

Four recent examples are from different continents. Seoul is turning a vehicle overpass into elevated park instead of demolishing to preserve historical marker for Korea's industrial age and reconnect areas to decrease travel time. Tel Aviv is planning a park on top of Ayalon Highway to reduce noise and air pollution, create easier access and provide leisure facilities and bicycle and pedestrian routes, creating job opportunities. Rome is creating exhibition space under a viaduct left unfinished, where garbage piled to socially activate the space. Philadelphia plans to transform unused Reading viaduct to an elevated park instead of twice as costly demolition to revive the area. High Line deserves the credit for its success in fulfilling its purpose of transforming socially dead areas to active areas and inspiring sustainability all over the world.

Resources:
http://cityminded.org/inspired-by-new-yorks-high-line-if-not-always-copying-it-15251

Week 7-1 Downsizing Royal National Park

The Royal National Park is not only oldest park in Australia and one of the oldest parks in the world, but also it is the first to receive the title, "national park" and one of the closest parks to the city, allowing the experience of untouched wilderness. It is an important breakthrough for wildlife conservation with habitat that provides shelter and food for a wide variety of animals and allows expansion into neighbouring urban suburbs. This made Sydney high in biodiversity compared to other cities in the world.

Despite its significance, the Royal National Park forests are currently under threat of developers, planning to cut down more than a thousand trees on an untouched bushland, which is an essentially home to birds, possums and sugar gliders. It will take 80 years for the trees to mature enough to support the current wildlife. Even then, plenty of the Red Bloodwood trees, which provides most of the canopy in Spring Gully, formed strange growths, 'mallee', which is very rare for this species. In addition, it is a home to many threatened species, Pigmy possum, Red-crowned Toadlet, Giant Burrowing Frog and Broad-headed Shake.

The developer's objective is to create ecotourism by installing office, tents and kitchens, while claiming that there are no threatened species. This may seem harmless on the surface but eventually 15.5 hectares of unaltered bush will likely be wiped out with the tactics of series of small development at a time. Ecotourism can be an excellent idea and aid conservation efforts when rightly done. If the developer sincerely cared about conversation, he would buy an already developed site, not wiping out the trees in a national park with threatened species.

It always make me wonder how far human greed can go in terms of harming other species. On the brighter note, Spring Gully Protection website is working on an objection proposal to stop this crime against nature and not compromise their oldest relics. I have also lodged my objection and shared with my friends so our voices will be loudly heard. It is a pity that I personally have not visited the park, so I will be doing so in the near future in case the worst case scenario comes.

Resources:
http://gumnutnaturalist.com/destruction-of-one-of-the-oldest-national-parks/