The Bullitt Center built by the Bullitt Foundation, a Seattle-based non-profit group that focuses on urban ecology, officially opened on Earth Day 2013. It is certified as one of the 21 living buildings in the world, it is In other words, the building generates so much energy to consume it; supplies its own water and processes its own wastewater. Rooftop solar panels produce more energy than is consumed. Two years since it was occupied, the building’s energy efficiency is commendable; with the building generating 60% more energy than it used.
NuOffice in Munich, Germany, was commissioned by Haupt Immobilien and created with the help of the EU-funded research group DIRECTION and the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics. NuOffice received LEED Platinum certification, the highest rating ever issued by the agency for such a building. NuOffice is equipped with a solar photovoltaic system that covers most of the building’s roof and its triple-glazed windows provide excellent insulation. Radiant heating and cooling systems, which are connected to a complex district heating system in the basement, keep energy consumption low and the interior comfortable. The interior courtyard design of the building creates natural cross ventilation and allows sufficient natural light both indoors and outdoors.
One Angel Square is the head office of the Co-operative Group Housing. Built in 2013, it has been awarded a “Outstanding” Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) rating. The building’s sustainable features include a high-performance double-panel façade, ground pipes for heating and cooling, rainwater harvesting, and a future-proof sensor that will help the building anticipate a three to five degree rise in temperatures. summer temperatures and a 30% increase. in the winter rains. It is also a more energy-efficient building, producing surplus energy and zero carbon emissions. One of the building’s passive solar design features is the south-facing atrium.
The Shanghai Tower is currently the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world. But the fact that it claims to be ‘the greenest super skyscraper on earth’ has drawn attention. The tower’s glass façade design, which completes a 120 ° turn as it rises, is intended to reduce the natural oscillation generated by the wind of tall buildings by 24%. Therefore, the Shanghai Tower used 25% less structural steel than a conventional tower design of similar height. The double layer insulating glass façade was designed to reduce the need for indoor air conditioning and is composed of advanced reinforced glass with a high tolerance to temperature changes.
Sky Studios in West London bills itself as ‘the most sustainable broadcast studio’. Arup Partners architects treated Sky Studios more like an inner city than your average building. Sustainable innovations include a biomass-fired power, heating and cooling plant, one of the UK’s largest urban wind turbines, generating enough electricity to power 90% of the facility’s lighting, and a rainwater tank. that provides 100% of the building’s water. The facility was built to capture all viable natural resources on the site and radically minimize energy use. The CCHP plant also provides enough green energy to significantly reduce the building’s carbon emissions.
The Crystal in London, a Siemens sustainable cities initiative, offers a vision of the future free of fossil fuels. It is an all-electric building that uses solar energy and terrestrial heat pumps to generate its own energy. It also stores electrical energy in a giant battery to ensure that excess energy can be saved for use when supplies are low. The building incorporates rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment, solar heating, and automated building management systems. The design of the building’s structure, including the glass, provides additional insulation, helping it achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum and BREEAM Outstanding qualifications.
PNC Financial Services Group has its new headquarters in Pittsburgh: The Tower at PNC Plaza. The “breathable” design created by the architecture firm Gensler moves away from the traditional closed air-conditioned environment and allows employees in the 33-story glass tower access to natural light and fresh air. The façade will have operable doors and windows that allow fresh air to enter the building in optimal conditions. A solar chimney is another component of the passive system of the structure: it draws in air through the open windows, instead of drawing in air as is usually the case in a high-rise building, then the air travels through the floors, heats up and exhale through the axis of the ceiling.
The YS Sun Green Building Research Center at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan has been awarded top honors by the USGBC. The 4800-square-meter three-story building uses 13 different sustainable construction techniques to achieve 65% energy savings and 50% water savings compared to typical office buildings. Among them, the most exciting is natural buoyancy ventilation technology, which allows an international conference room with a capacity of 300 to stay cool in summer and warm in winter without turning on the air conditioning. The YS Sun Green Building Research Center is the first green architectural education center in the subtropical zone, which is open for the development of green technology research and promotion work.