First International Conference on Harmonisation Between Architecture and Nature (ECO-ARCHITECTURE)
Venue: Ashurst Lodge
Location: Southampton, Hampshire SO40 7AA, United Kingdom
Event Date/Time: Jun 14, 2006 | End Date/Time: Jun 16, 2006 |
Description
Eco-Architecture makes every effort to minimise the use of energy at each stage of the building's life cycle, including that embodied in the extraction and transportation of materials, their fabrication, their assembly into the building and ultimately the ease and value of their recycling when the building's life is over. The design may also take into consideration the use of energy in building maintenance and changes in its use, not to mention its lighting, heating and cooling, particularly where the energy consumed involves the emission of greenhouse gases.
Substantial savings can be achieved by passive energy systems, especially natural ventilation, summer shading and winter solar heat gain. Solar energy may be used in panels of pipes for heating water and photo-voltaic cells.
The development of Eco-Architecture is driven by the depletion of natural resources, specially fossil fuels and the need to preserve the balance of nature. The extensive use of steel and glass and the built-in problems of discomfort from solar over-heating and winter heat loss, has led to the widespread use of mechanical systems resulting in problems such as"sick building" syndrome.
Eco-Architecture, wrongly seen by many as dull, inelegant and mundane, is providing instead imaginative and expressive solutions driven by a generation of highly creative designs. It has important cultural as well as architectural impacts.
Eco-Architecture is by definition inter-disciplinary; it requires the collaboration of engineers, planners, physicists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and other specialists, in addition to architects. The aim of the conference is to provide a forum for discussing the many relevant aspects of Eco-Architecture including, but by no means restricted to, those in the list of topics below.