Study on Relationship Between Beijing Residential Building Insolation Standards, Improvement of Residential Environment and Urban Ecological Benefits

Abstract

Chinese residential building insolation standards were developed according to the geographical latitude, climatic characteristics and the size of the city, with the purpose of ensuring the health conditions of the indoor environment of residential buildings. The current standards were established in the early 1990s considering the social development situation in China, with reference to related specifications in other countries. Since the implementation of the standards, the residential environment in China has been more or less improved. However, after three decades of reform, massive changes have taken place in our social development situation, and it is necessary for us to rethink the relationship between residential building insolation standards, improvement of the residential environment, and urban ecological benefits in order to improve the urban living environment and achieve sustainable urban development.

In megacities such as Beijing, large population concentrations and rapid increases in land values have caused us to pay more attention to land development intensity, ignoring the creation of a living environment. On the one hand, there are a large number of closed “negative spaces” with limited access to sunshine within the communities; on the other hand, the Beijing government has allocated a lot of land for the construction of public green space. This causes a contradiction between underutilized land and an urgent demand for land. Current insolation standards were unable to solve this problem.

This paper illustrates the development history of domestic and international insolation standards and their impacts; analyzes the contradictions and problems between Beijing’s residential building insolation standards and the creation of the residential environment; performs a comparative analysis of the possibilities of improving the residential environment in different insolation standards; discusses the relationship between insolation standards, improvement of the residential environment, and urban ecological benefits; and puts forward a solution which considers modifying the current Beijing residential building insolation standards, removing the “lost spaces” in residential areas, and increasing the “active spaces” for the purpose of improving the ecological benefits for the whole city.