Abstract
Built environment encompasses the whole of human-made construction, from bridges, pipelines to office towers and residential buildings. The built environment is so omnipresent that we do not even notice it as a distinct entity within the larger natural environment that is the Earth’s biosphere. The present chapter will outline the origins of buildings and especially building envelopes as environmental mediators between the indoor and the external environment. Because building envelope is essential to the provision of appropriate indoor environment, it also directly influences the energy use as well as other sustainability aspects of buildings. Speaking globally, buildings consume vast amounts of energy, have an extremely large environmental impact and are, at least in the urbanised part of the world, our primary habitat. Therefore, it is crucial to design them in such a way that they enable more sustainable future for generations to come. However, buildings as such are not the problem but only the symptom of our society. Therefore, the understanding of the broader picture is needed in order to understand why and how we build.
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Notes
- 1.
Before Present (BP) is a time scale used for radiocarbon dating with commencement date set at 1st of January 1950.
- 2.
Climate change mitigation is a human intervention focused on reducing the emissions of greenhouse gasses and/or to increase their sinks. This concept is not limited to the greenhouse gasses but extends to other climate change inducing causes (e.g. black carbon) (IPCC 2014).
- 3.
Climate change adaptation is a process of adjusting to the actual or expected climate conditions. In general, adaptation to climate is focused on moderating or avoiding negative and exploiting beneficial effects of climate (IPCC 2014).
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Košir, M. (2019). Why Do Buildings Matter?. In: Climate Adaptability of Buildings. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18456-8_1
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