This World Environment Day the theme is #OnlyOneEarth. As the climate crisis looms, sectors are constantly striving to produce new advancements to make themselves more sustainable and circular. On AZoBuild, we are proud to platform green innovations in the construction and architecture fields. We are taking a look back at some of our sustainably-focused articles and interviews:
Interviews
AZoBuild spoke with Kristian Ahlmark from Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects about their ambitious new project Rocket&Tigerli, which will become the world’s tallest residential building with a wooden load-bearing structure.
So, for us, the Rocket&Tigerli project posed an extraordinary possibility to have an impact on the development of a more sustainable future. Like in all of our projects, it is always about pushing a green agenda, taking it to new heights, so to speak. The Rocket&Tigerli project challenges the limits of what we have been able to do earlier on and hopefully, this will attract attention in a relatively conservative building industry.
We spoke with Carlo Ratti, of Carlo Ratti Associati, about the firm's ambitious plans to build the hydroponic Jian Mu Tower in Shenzhen.
According to my Harvard colleague E. O. Wilson, biophilia is what makes us yearn for green spaces in an urban environment. Through this concept, we arrived at the direction to bridge the natural and artificial worlds, which is the bread and butter of our work.
Image Credit: CC7/Shutterstock.com
Professors Noguchi and Maruyama, from the University of Tokyo, talk about their research and development of Calcium Carbonate Concrete (CCC), a new material that has the potential to cause a sustainable revolution in the construction industry.
As CCC is permanently carbon-neutral like wood, and can be recycled as many times as you like for local production and local utilization, it greatly contributes to solving the problems of global warming and resource depletion.
Articles
This article provides an overview of bioengineered building materials, discussing materials, products, and projects that have been made possible due to research in this area.
Amongst proposed technological solutions, bioengineered construction materials have been extensively researched, with new, innovative products entering the market over the past few years and exciting bioengineering-based building projects breaking ground.
Growing evidence for anthropogenic climate change has forced industries to work to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Several strategies have been explored in the construction industry of late, including making increased use of renewable energy, green manufacturing processes, and green building materials.
Cement manufacture alone produces 622 kg of carbon dioxide per tonne of cement produced, with around four billion tons of cement produced annually. A staggering 8% of total global carbon dioxide emissions come from cement manufacture alone. Moreover, embodied carbon, which is carbon released over the entire life cycle of a building, including end-of-life material disposal, is responsible for 11% of total global carbon emissions. The impact of these “hidden” emissions is vast.
Image Credit: petrmalinak/Shutterstock.com
Enhancing traditional construction materials with waste products has become a research focus in the construction industry in recent decades to meet the challenges of modern society. Organic waste is one of the most commonly produced waste streams in the world, and its use in construction materials can help to achieve the circular economy goals of many industries. This article will give an overview of some of the uses of organic waste to enhance cement.
The construction industry as a whole exploits around 14-50% of all extracted natural resources and is widely considered to be the second biggest contributor of carbon emissions behind the energy industry. In recent decades, waste materials have been increasingly researched as cementitious additives.
The construction industry is responsible for 11% of all global carbon emissions, and 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the built environment as a whole. However, the world’s population is growing and construction shows no signs of abating. More sustainable buildings and building practices – and deciding not to build – are vital if we are to avoid the worst-case scenario consequences of human-induced climate change.
There are many examples of buildings that, for whatever reason, were built with future green credentials in their sights. The future of green building should take the best aspects of these examples on board, combine them with new sustainable materials and more efficient methods, and continue to drive down the environmental costs of construction. That is, when buildings are actually necessary.
Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB is in partnership with LKAB and Vattenfall to produce the world’s first commercially available fossil fuel-free steel. In July, the first shipment of the sustainable steel product was shipped to a real customer, and a new partnership between SSAB and construction giant Peab will deliver the material to the building industry.
For more information on World Environment Day, visit this link: https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/