BALWOIS 2010 APSTRAKT

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION CAUSED BY THE BUILDINGCONSTRUCTION PROCESSES SIDE

EFFECTS ORIGINS AND SOLUTIONS
Built structures steal parts of the natural environment, and at the same time they are becoming an
integral part of it. Misbalanced relations between those two systems have negative effects on all
natural ecosystems. Consequently, disrespect of ecological constrains in creating built structures
often results in unhealthy indoor environment within designed systems. This is making people feel
unwell at times and possibly contributing to cancer and immune disorders.
The impact of the building industry on the global environment is increasingly becoming more
intrusive in terms of energy use, and depletion of natural resources, as well as water, air, and soil
pollution caused by building construction and operation.
Contemporary building practice only recently started dealing with problems of environmental
degradation caused by the building processes side effects.
The main characteristic of conventional designing and buildings construction approaches is
fragmentation, which resulted from increasing specializations in the professional disciplines. At the
same time the ecological, environmentally sound approach requires the architects to apply the
integrated building delivery process, with understanding and respecting basic principles of
sustainability.
Although different in description of achieving desired excellence, the sets of principles essentially
direct strategies towards six major issues of sustainability: 1) site; 2) water; 3) energy; 4) indoors air
quality; 5) building materials; and 6) waste. The success in achieving green building objectives
relates to proper and timely addressing these six key topics.
Contemporary builders must foster a team approach to sustainable built environment. The
sustainable teams members must seek constant improvements by sharing knowledge through direct
and open communication within the team, as well as within wider community of all concerned
parties. The goal of this is to link long-term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and
to reestablish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activities. A
comprehensive multidisciplinary partnership must be created.


environmental degradation, conventional, integrated building delivery process, principles of
sustainability, site, water, energy, indoor air quality, building materials, waste