Mjøstårnet, the world's tallest timber building. Credit: Moelven
Today is Earth Day, so this week let's take a look at how the construction industry is addressing sustainability and climate change.
Mass Timber
The hottest new construction material is also arguably the oldest: wood. New sustainable milling and manufacturing techniques allow timber to act as a carbon sequester, removing carbon from the air and storing it within a building’s raw materials. Improvements in engineered wood like cross-laminated timber (CLT) allow for high-rises built entirely out of timber, like this 18-story mixed-use building in Norway.
Efficient Design
Passivhaus is a set of building standards meant to minimize building energy requirements. It emphasizes continuous insulation, high-performance windows, and ventilation standards that naturally retain heat in the winter and circulate cool air in the summer. The result is a remarkable drop in the amount of energy required to maintain comfortable conditions within a building.
Retrofitting
Retrofitting existing buildings to improve energy efficiency and thermal performance is a great way reduce consumption and extend the life of a building. Demolishing a building and rebuilding it typically has a much higher environmental impact, and keeping older buildings viable longer helps maintain the charm and character a community. We do this for signs all the time—one of the best ways to extend the life of sign and to reduce energy and maintenance costs is to retrofit it with LEDs. Here’s how we do it.
If all of this is a little too crunchy granola for your appetite, we should note that the biggest challenge facing further innovation in the industry is conservative building codes and restrictive zoning requirements. That 18-story timber construction in Norway wouldn’t make it off an architect’s desk here in the US. Real innovation can’t happen here until designers and builders have the freedom to experiment.
Credit: Vincent Callebaut, Asian Cairns
Solarpunk is a futurist aesthetic movement that imagines a sort of green environmental utopia, one of the few non-dystopic sci-fi visions. Find more here, including more mesmerizing imagined renderings.
Join us tomorrow from 6—8pm for the closing reception of Higher Love at Florida Mining Gallery. We'll be serving beer and wine. More info here.
Friday, April 23
6—8pm
5300 Shad Rd,
Jacksonville, FL 32257
