Construction ecology : nature as the basis for green buildings

Industrial ecology provides a sound means of systematising the various ideas which come under the banner of sustainable construction and provides a model for the design, operation and ultimate disposal of buildings.

Author Notes

Charles J. Kibert, Director of the Rinker School of Building Construction, University of Florida, is one of the authors of the concept known as sustainable construction. Jan Sendzimir is a systems ecologist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria and is fostering the large-scale application of adaptive management in Central Europe, especially Poland. Brad Guy, an architect, is a Research Associate in the Center for Construction and Environment at the University of Florida and is an internationally recognized expert on building deconstruction and materials reuse.

Charles J. KibertCharles J. Kibert and Jan Sendzimir and G. Bradley GuyHoward T. OdumJames J. KayTimothy F.H. AllenGarry PetersonRobert U. AyresIddo K. WernickStefan BringezuFritz BalkauSim Van Der Ryn and Rob PenaJurgen BischMalcolm WellsCharles J. Kibert

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. xiii
List of boxes	p. xiv
List of contributors	p. xv
Preface	p. xx
Foreword	p. xxiii
Introduction	p. 1
Current state of green building	p. 2
Organization	p. 4
Summary and conclusions	p. 6
1 Defining an ecology of construction	p. 7
Introduction	p. 7
Construction industry compared with other industrial sectors	p. 8
Materials and sustainability	p. 14
Lessons from natural systems	p. 16
Industrial ecology and metabolism	p. 19
Ecologically sustainable architecture and construction	p. 21
Defining construction ecology and metabolism	p. 24
Summary and conclusions	p. 26
Part 1 The ecologists	p. 29
2 Material circulation, energy hierarchy, and building construction	p. 37
The energy hierarchy	p. 37
Materials and the energy hierarchy	p. 40
Material budgets	p. 40
Inverse relation of material flux and emergy per mass	p. 42
Material valuation	p. 46
Emergy and economic geology of ores	p. 47
Metabolism and the structural unit	p. 53
Life cycle minimodel	p. 55
Structural stages and succession	p. 58
Ecological engineering insight	p. 60
Maximum empower principle	p. 60
Global materials and construction	p. 63
Summary	p. 65
3 On complexity theory, exergy, and industrial ecology	p. 72
Introduction	p. 72
Ecosystems, sustainability, and complexity	p. 74
Industrial ecology: the design of ecological--economic systems	p. 82
Construction ecology	p. 96
Acknowledgements	p. 103
4 Applying the principles of ecological emergence to building design and construction	p. 108
Thermodynamics in biological and human organization	p. 109
History, accidents, and positive feedbacks	p. 115
Applying biological thermodynamics to buildings	p. 118
The design and energetics of the building	p. 120
Energy in the building cycle	p. 123
Conclusion	p. 124
5 Using ecological dynamics to move toward an adaptive architecture	p. 127
Ecological dynamics	p. 128
Managing ecosystems	p. 137
Moving toward construction ecology	p. 139
Scale	p. 145
Managing disturbance	p. 147
Conclusion and summary	p. 149
Part 2 The industrial ecologists	p. 151
6 Minimizing waste emissions from the built environment	p. 159
Background	p. 159
Household energy services	p. 168
Summary	p. 174
7 Industrial ecology and the built environment	p. 177
Introduction	p. 177
Material flows	p. 179
The land resource	p. 186
The ecological analogy	p. 189
Conclusion	p. 191
Acknowledgments	p. 193
8 Construction ecology and metabolism	p. 196
Requirements for construction ecology	p. 196
Strategies and goals for sustaining the metabolism of economies	p. 198
Construction material flows in Germany	p. 200
MIPS and the method of material intensity analysis	p. 203
Design of construction products and buildings	p. 205
Materials management	p. 207
Planning of infrastructure	p. 208
Product, facility, and building management	p. 212
Conclusions	p. 215
9 Construction ecology	p. 220
Introduction	p. 220
The concept of industrial ecology	p. 220
Implementing industrial ecology models	p. 221
Construction ecology	p. 224
Conclusion	p. 225
Part 3 The architects	p. 227
10 Ecologic analogues and architecture	p. 231
Place: form follows flow	p. 233
People: every voice matters	p. 237
Pulse: metabolism and flow	p. 241
Conclusion: breaking through the barriers	p. 244
11 Natural metabolism as the basis for "intelligent" architecture	p. 248
The rise of science and industry	p. 249
Mechanization and society	p. 249
Applying natural metabolism to architecture in Europe	p. 250
Metabolism--streamlining the design	p. 251
Applying simple physics to activate the function of ceilings	p. 254
Design using the efficiencies of past and future centuries	p. 257
Controlled ventilation	p. 259
Energy input reduction	p. 260
Selecting materials	p. 261
Summary of approach	p. 262
Lessons learned	p. 265
Limits and changes--an outlook	p. 265
Conclusions	p. 266
12 Green architecture	p. 269
How to build an underground building	p. 278
Construction costs	p. 283
The next step	p. 283
Conclusions	p. 284
Recommendations and agreements	p. 285
Critical issues requiring further investigation	p. 287
Additional observations	p. 288
Closure	p. 289
Glossary	p. 291
Index	p. 297

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