Materials Sustainability Overview

An Architect is expected to balance cost, function, time, and aesthetics of a project. In the past, there was never much thought to the sustainability of building materials, however, this has obviously changed and sustainability is an important aspect of the building design that must be considered.

The key point to remember in any design, is that sustainability is the most overused and abused word thrown around by today's Architects– many simply using it as a marketing tool. Its imperative for the designer to understand what sustainability truly means, and to allow that idea to infiltrate different areas of the project in all decisions

Criteria For Evaluating Building Materials

Asking 100 different architects what a ‘sustainable’ design is, you’ll get 100 different answers. While this will always be true— and one of the reasons a client needs to carefully evaluate whether the Architect is the right Architect for them— there are tangible various ways and approaches to quantify and evaluate building materials from technical and binary sustainability aspects.

Quantify & Evaluate

Embodied Energy

Is the total energy included to extract the material, transport the material, process, manufacture, and deliver the finished product. This thought has led many to say that regardless of everything else, ‘the most sustainable building is one that is already built’. There is a high prevalence and importance given to existing buildings and adaptive reuse in rating agencies because of this fact. It is always better to re-use what is already there.