Abstract:
“Sustainable building does not have to be considered a new architectural language as far as style is concerned. It can be applied to any style.”
                                                                                            Ulrike Heine

Our slow incorporation of sustainability is leading to many irreversible environmental and societal problems.

Our lives are defined by energy. We need high energy levels to maintain our technology-driven high standard of living. In addition, we are now faced with the challenge of repairing environmental and community damage done over 200 years of industrialization, while at the same time finding ways of producing large amounts of energy without causing further damage. Population explosion, pollution and depletion of natural resources are the three most critical factors causing these pressures on our society. As resources become scarce, fossil fuel prices will become prohibitively expensive, making middle class life unaffordable for many. These factors bear direct influence on our human living space, both privately and publicly. Investigation into alternative energies and more efficient buildings is indispensable if we are to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and avoid an inevitable societal disaster.

Within this context, what is sustainability? And how can we define the task of a designer or user regarding sustainability? On a faster moving, more densely-populated planet, new design and organizational challenges emerge at an ever-increasing rate and with potentially momentous consequences.

We have three options for reducing our consumption of fossil-based energy:
o Developing and exploiting renewable sources of energy
o Increasing the efficiency of our machines and buildings
o Reducing our level of comfort

If we don’t implement the first two strategies in good time, the last will follow inevitably.

Sustainable design and maintenance of buildings is requisite in order to stave off pending energy and societal disasters. This involves the reintegration of our civilization into natural energy cycles. To be clear, this doesn’t mean turning the clock back to the time before industrialization, but rather using technology to optimize energy consumption and increase the efficiency of renewable forms of energy such as wind, geo-thermal, solar, water, tidal, biomass and waste energy. All of these forms of technology are sufficiently established today to be commercially viable. The broad variety of energies available and their geographical dispersion can ensure adequate stability despite fluctuations in the power-supply network.

Sustainable building does not have to be considered a new architectural language as far as style is concerned. It can be applied to any style. It is, rather, energy efficient, has intelligent facades, uses materials optimally and has balanced and adequate building services. The secret of a well-balanced energy efficient building resides in equilibrium between retaining and acquiring, always with respect to local conditions.

Neither sustainability nor ecology is necessarily a matter of technically expensive solutions.
Instead, they are about tapping into the specific potential of a location using systems that intelligently adapt to local and climatic conditions. This is always different because there is rarely a single correct solution. Sound sustainable and ecological strategies are based more on integrating existing natural processes than incorporating additional technically sophisticated systems. Strongly self-regulating natural processes include:
o utilizing thermal mass to buffer temperature fluctuation
o exploiting thermal effects and aerodynamics for ventilation
o generating coolness through water evaporation

The Architecture firm, Hascher Jehle Architektur, in Berlin, Germany, is one of the most sought-after German architecture practices for sustainability with respect to climate sensitive design. The projects, Dvg Office Building, Stuttgart Museum Of Art and LSV Office Building received numerous national and international awards and are examples of adapting to the local climatic conditions and dealing with them in a self-regulating way. Professor Heine participated in the design and administration of these projects.
 

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Ulrike Heine is Assistant Professor of Architecture, Clemson University, since August 2007. Her approach to architecture with respect to teaching and research is based on sustainability, specifically, ways of applying simple natural laws in response to climatic conditions. She teaches architectural design as a process of integration focusing on creative assessment of the interrelationships between materials, construction techniques, lighting, acoustics and energy saving technologies. Her research has a focus on roof an exterior wall construction (cladding), especially the specific materials properties and how the various materials involved can be joined appropriately.

Ulrike Heine graduated with a Master of Architecture from the Brandenburg Technical University in Cottbus, Germany, in 1999. She also spent a period of her studies at the School of Architecture in Barcelona, Spain. She worked as a practicing architect inter alia for the German architectural practice of Hascher Jehle Architektur in Berlin. Prior to joining Clemson’s faculty, she spent three years teaching Design, Construction and Energy Responsible Planning at the Technical University, Berlin, Germany.