Quigley, D; Heaney, G and Odeyinka, H (2012) Factors of sustainability in building design: Establishing their relative significance. In: Smith, S D (ed.) Proceedings of 28th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2012, Edinburgh, UK.
Abstract
There has been a growing movement towards sustainable building in the past number of decades and in that time a variety of terms have evolved to describe this design ethos such as green buildings, passive buildings, carbon neutral buildings, low carbon buildings, all of which are different but all of which are striving for similar outcomes. For a building to achieve any of these status the design must take into account a number of different factors. The aim of this research is to establish the factors of sustainability relevant to the evaluation of sustainable buildings and to establish the significance placed on individual factors of sustainability in buildings. This was done by firstly identifying in a holistic manner everything which could be considered a factor of a sustainable buildings. These were then presented as a questionnaire to construction professionals with experience in the design and procurement of sustainable buildings who were asked to indicate the significance they have placed on each of the factors. The results of this exercise showed a) that while for many of the factors there was broad agreement as to their relevant significance, for others opinions varied greatly and b) not all factors are of equal importance with some being scored consistently lower than others. This suggests that among the group surveyed there is no overall consensus as to the significance to be placed on the factor contributing towards the design and procurement of a sustainable building.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | design; green buildings; sustainability |
| Index terms: | movement, exercise, building design, low-carbon building, green building, questionnaire, construction professional, sustainable building |
| Subjects: | design practice, professional development, sustainable construction, data collection methods, health behaviours and lifestyles, architectural design |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Information Management, Research Practice, Health and Safety, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here