ARCH 4200 Chapter 3: Reading 3- HistoricallyGreen-WhatMakesExistingBuildingsGreen-Carroon

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Architecture Theory/History
• Course: ARCH 4200
• Professor: Mariana Esponda

Document Summary

Reading 3 - historically green - what makes existing buildings green - carroon. Embodied energy is the description of energy used directly and indirectly in raw material acquisition, production of materials, and the assemblage of those materials into a building. An attempt to quantify one significant part of this debt. Tearing down a building wastes the energy used to construct the building. A new building requires more energy and more raw materials to construct. Reuse of buildings is imperative to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Even the most energy efficient new building cannot offset its embodied energy for many years. Un energy programme estimates that the embodied energy of a building is 20% if a building is operational for 100 years. This is 2 to 4 times longer than most buildings are in service. The shorter the service life, the greater the ratio of embodied energy to operating energy.