Sustainable Architecture

What is Sustainable Architecture?

Sustainable architecture can be defined as designed to limit humans' impact on the environment according to Spruce.com’s Kristin Hohenadel. Fostering the future, sustainable architecture is rising in popularity across the world. Cities have begun to integrate new technologies that are carbon-zero, created from reclaimed materials, and built for harsh natural environments. Today, cities across the world are increasingly using sustainable technologies in the development of intercity infrastructure. To be classified as a sustainable city, cities have to excel in the following categories: energy efficiency, clean water, waste management, air quality, and ecology. 

Local Sustainability?

Down by the lake in St. Joe, you can spot the green roof of The Curious Kids Museum attached to the carousel. According to the Curious Kids Museums website, some of the benefits of the green roof include waste diversion, stormwater management, improvement of air quality, and energy efficiency, to name a few. In freshman honors biology taught by Mrs. Froelich, students are assigned a green roof project.

“Essentially the project was that you had to take a shoe box and create a green roof with different layers. Then we poured water on the roofs to measure how much runoff there was. We were simulating what a green roof can do for a building and the benefits it has.” Mrs. Froelich, said.

Sustainable Cities Globally

To reach an acclaimed title as one of the most sustainable cities, San Francisco has addressed city-wide and neighborhood-scale environmental issues to commit to the long-term sustainability of the city. As for cities being built as 100 percent sustainable, Saudi Arabia is in the process of building a city called the Line. Advertised as an environmentally positive utopia, the Line will be revolutionary in sustainability. The Line is one of many large scale projects Suadia Arabia is building to make their economy less centered around oil. Off setting the damage that the mining of natural resources does to the environment, this project and others like it will allegedly help off set the damage.