Revisiting the role of architectural design in creating green buildings - critical review of green building rating systems

Abstract

In the context of drastic requirement of efficient use of resources and reduction of the adverse impacts of their blatant use like greenhouse gas emissions, contemporary architectural design is being driven by the paradigms of sustainable architecture & green building design. These theories are supplemented by codes comprising of categories & parameters like energy efficiency, water efficiency, materials and resource use & waste management, using which rating/certification systems have been developed that provide a certification/label of ‘greenness’ to the building. For the purposes of economic incentive and for complying with policies on local and global scale, almost every new building is aspiring for a ‘green’ certification based on the amount of credits that it accumulates as specified by the rating systems. An initial study reveals that many of these ‘credits’ can be achieved by employing efficient active systems or by using upgraded technology systems. The results vary depending upon the use, type, design & the location of the project resulting in variations in investment, performance results and efficiency. A detailed study of certain certified buildings has been carried out and it was found that very few buildings attempted the credits mentioned for overall efficiency through a passive design approach. The manner in which these rating systems have been formulated reveals that the scope for the architect to use architectural design as a tool to achieve a green/sustainable building design has been constrained. This paper studies and compares the categories available for rating systems and compares weightage of credits towards categories. As a conclusion, the paper tries to reinvigorate the significance of architectural design and highlights the inclusion of credits for architectural design in the rating systems.