Sustainable Architecture

We’ve all heard a lot about the environmental impacts of the food and fashion industries, and surely you can think of a few ways to do your part in reducing your carbon footprint. You can avoid single-use plastics, upcycle your clothing to reinvent your closet, lower your consumption of dairy and meat products, and the list goes on. These are all common ways we can participate in a sustainable life, but have you ever considered how you can be more sustainable in where you live as opposed to how you live? Well, here’s your chance.

Image by Tadao Ando

Sustainable architecture is where you can find all the answers. Let’s start with the basics: green architecture is all about finding ways to create buildings with the lowest possible impact on the environment. This can look like building a house out of locally sourced wood, since wood is one of the least harmful materials that can be used. You could have a house powered entirely by renewable energy sources, like geothermal heating, solar panels, and wind energy. If you've been to the University of Guelph, you’ve maybe stepped foot into the Athletic Center on campus. Well, that is a sustainably designed building! The roof was Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified since it has a cooling roof. The roof reflects the sun into the sky to reduce the need for cooling systems in the summer!

There is a lot of focus on commercial buildings being green and having a green design, and it’s time we start thinking about including houses in that focus. The results of implicating designs like this into any building could make so much of a difference if people knew the positive effects. So here I am with the results:

· Green buildings use 25% less energy than your average building and 11% less water

· Reduced the pressure on local resources that are usually caused by population growth

· Green homes tend to have healthier residents due to the organic composition of the building (less harmful chemicals)

· Depending on where you live, you can claim tax benefits for going green!

Living a sustainable life can be practiced in many magnitudes, and any capacity of that responsibility is something to celebrate. While this idea may seem far away for us university students, we can still dream of and work towards one day owning a sustainable building. Until then, look for the forgotten or missed ways you can bring some green into your life and share it with others!