Environmental
Context of the Project
Buildings
and landscapes consume material, energy, and water resources
on an enormous scale. The World Watch Institute reported
(Roodman and Lessen, 1995) that the impacts of building construction
on people and the
environment are approximated at:
• 40%
virgin materials (raw stone, gravel, and sand)
• 25% virgin wood used for construction
• 40% total energy resources
• 16% total water withdrawals
• percentage of construction waste comparable to municipal
solid waste generation
• 30% of new and renovated buildings have unhealthy indoor
air quality.
Educating
current and future generations of architects, builders,
contractors, interior designers, and landscape architects
to design, build,
deconstruct, and
renovate projects
in ways that are more symbiotic with the efficiencies
and resiliency of natural systems is critical at a time when
we may have exceeded the world's peak oil production
(Deffeyes, 2001) as well
as are rapidly exceeding our planet's carrying capacity
for the ecological systems that support us (Wackernagel
and Rees, 1996). A sustainable environmental design curriculum
is a step towards
outlining
issues and creating a resource package for course development
in post-secondary educational settings.
Definition
of Sustainable Design
"Sustainable
Environmental Design" consists of the principles and
practices of architecture and landscape architecture
that protect environmental
quality and human health, reduce environmental impacts
resulting from physical changes to buildings and landscapes,
and improve
the life-cycle economics of natural, human, and financial
investments in the built and natural environments.
[Definition
for this project.]
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