SUSTAINABLE BUILDING

Sustainable picEnvironmentally sustainable building design has now become an integral step in the planning and design of any new development.

 

The concept of designing buildings that minimize waste during construction, choosing materials that don’t consume large amounts of energy or produce excessive amount of carbon monoxide during manufacture are fast becoming commonplace in today’s market. Not only does it make the right steps towards a healthier planet, but by reducing large quantities of waste on site will flow on and result in lower costs for a project and this just makes good sense.
Buildings using sustainable materials, incorporating Passive Solar Design, natural ventilation will reduce the demand on energy consumption and water usage, plus making them a healthier option for the inhabitants, and making them more attractive to the market place.

It is at the early stage of design where Building Green is most cost effective. Many aspects of Building Green can be retro fitted to existing buildings such as solar hot water systems, but usually at a higher cost than if it was built into the initial design.

Building Green is not a new concept for Crater Lake Developments Ltd (Crater Lake). Brian Hermann, the owner of the company, can be credited for such builds as The Narrows Landing which was built over a period of two years (1996 – 1998) using recycled electricity pylons that had previously been scraped and buried. Only the bare minimum of plants on site were removed to make way for the build and great effort was made to retain the majority of the existing surrounding flora. Local, untreated timber has been used liberally throughout the building to create a truly rustic environment and unpainted corrugated iron used to clad the building. Many of the windows installed at the Narrows are recycled Totara windows that are well over 100 years old. Apart from using a substantial amount of recycled materials, Crater Lake also adopted passive means of cooling and ventilation by building large verandahs around the accommodation and dining areas that offer cool shade in summer but being high enough to allow the winter sun to warm the dining areas in the cooler months. Louvers have been installed above windows and doors in the accommodation areas to allow fresh airflow into the rooms from the cool verandahs and are high enough so they won’t cause an obstruction to people walking along the verandahs, plus high enough not to pose a security risk.

The majority of commercial and some residential sites that were constructed by Crater Lake have been installed with Wastewater Treatment Systems and more recently with solar hot water heating systems. We are always on the look out for positive means of reducing the impact construction has on the environment by incorporating smart and efficient technology.

These are but a few of the features that we will continue to adopt were it is practical, but there are many more avenues that offer similar benefits when Building Green.