Nine sustainability aspects

Taking our views on sustainable construction as a point of departure, we have formulated a number of aspects that together determine the sustainability of a specific building. Thanks to increasing insight into the issues at hand, in due time certain aspects will disappear or actually be added to the list, and points of specific interest will shift. For the Zuidkas, we have decided to focus on the following nine aspects, which at this point in time we believe to be particularly relevant for this project – for this assignment.

CO₂ emissions: aim for minimum CO₂ emissions, including by limiting traffic movements through combination of functions.

Health: a comfortable interior climate, sufficient daylight and view promote people’s wellbeing and health.

Lifetime: flexibility of function and layout of the building offer the possibility for modification in the future. The materials should also be selected with an eye to their expected lifetime, adaptability or re-use based on the cradle to cradle principle.

Connectivity: connectivity means that the building is connected with its surroundings in a logistical and sociocultural sense.

Beauty: beauty contributes to the appreciation of a building by its users. People will take better care of the building. They will feel better in it.

Surroundings: because of increasing building density in urban spaces, landscape areas do not have to be sacrificed to low-density urban developments.

Energy flows: by combining energy flows, among other things, light, heat, cooling and ventilation can be handled intelligently and efficiently.

User value: people must be able to make a building their own. For this reason, functionality and adaptability are important points of concern.

Innovation: new (technological) developments will lead to new concepts (of work), in the same way that ICT has led to flexible workspaces, for example. Anticipating new developments is therefore important.