The sustainable building

A building designer could adopt many disparate strategies to improve the ‘sustainability’ of a building.

These may centre around some key themes such as:

• Choice of construction material
• Minimisation of environmental impact in use, such as design for low-energy
• Limitation of social disruption, for example by the use of off-site construction.
• Flexibility of design to allow for future adaptation with minimal extra cost or disruption.
• Incorporation of socially-sensitive design features, for example, to encourage the use of shared transport or to soften the building’s image.

In some cases legislation, either through Building Regulations or planning control, is driving the choice of sustainable strategies. For example, the Building Regulations relating to conservation of fuel and power are driving more energy-efficient design. It is always possible, however, to exceed regulations, for example by increasing insulation or decreasing air leakage yet further. Whilst Building Regulations currently require a maximum air leakage rate of 10 m3/m2/hr, pre-finished steel clad buildings are regularly achieving a rate of 3-4 m3/m2/hr.