People walk in Beijing's Central Business District (CBD), as the city is shrouded in smog, in China November 1, 2023. REUTER/Tingshu Wang
Beijing: Architects often spend months or even years perfecting a design to express their ideas more clearly, convey additional information, or outline the right proportions for a building.
However, climate change is placing new demands on their work.
For example, in July, Super Typhoon Doksuri battered China, affecting more than 2.66 million people in Fujian province alone. Heat waves that affected areas of the country in the summer were the most severe since 1961, when China began compiling complete meteorological records.
Increased sunlight is also shrinking glaciers and melting ice caps.
Green architecture that conserves energy and reduces carbon dioxide emissions offers a solution, and concerted efforts have been made in research fields over the past three decades to minimise heat loss.
In addition, new buildings have to be tailored to the needs of people’s lifestyles.
Ren Jun, a professor at Tianjin University’s School of Architecture, who designed the first near-zero energy house in China in December 2019, said, “You can use niche technology to construct low-energy, environmentally friendly houses in the countryside in northern China, but if the interior design and environmental quality don’t meet residents’ requirements, these properties won’t be suitable to live in.”
The near-zero energy house, situated in Banbidian village in Beijing’s southern district of Daxing, won the International Design Award in the United States in January last year. It has been rented from local villagers.
The 400-sq-m property, which stands at the entrance to the village, runs on solar power gathered from rooftop panels, with the addition of a small amount of power from the grid.
Ren, former chief architect at Tenio Architecture and Engineering Co in Tianjin, said he initially thought of green architecture due to the prolonged hazy days experienced in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area in the autumn and winter of 2015.
“At the start of 2015, I took a photo each day of the winter sky outside my office from a fixed position,” Ren said.
“In winter 2016, the sky was at its murkiest, with bulk coal-fired heating in rural areas leading to severe pollution. Although conditions have improved since then, I wanted to use clean power to maintain an energy-efficient, low-emission house while reducing carbon emissions.”
In 2019, a funding project launched by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission offered Ren an opportunity to reach his goal. His vision of promoting green architecture nationwide was also embraced in designing the house in Daxing.
Ren said it will take three to five years before more ultra-low or near-zero energy buildings appear in Chinese cities.
China’s urban built-up area occupies about 65 billion sq m, with an annual construction increase of about two billion sq m, Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ministry data shows.
In some European countries, especially the Nordic nations, near-zero energy buildings have been promoted extensively. In Freiburg, Germany, a low-emission carbon community even produces enough energy to power the surrounding neighbourhood.
In China, the State Council released an action plan in October 2021 focused on peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, with all newly constructed urban buildings complying with revised green building standards by 2025.
Ren, the architect, said carbon emissions in the building industry comprise some 50% of the 10 billion tonnes of such emissions in China each year.
“If all buildings in China achieve near-zero energy consumption, let alone zero-energy consumption, then five billion tonnes of emissions in the construction sector could be reduced by 60%, which would have an impact on overall carbon emissions nationwide,” he added. — China Daily/ANN
