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Ecological Building is both a design process and the structure that is a result of such a design process.
The ecological building design process is a modern architecture variant of
permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...
design.
An ecological building is a structure that is ''designed to create and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with all of the elements of its local
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
''. A building's local ecology, or environment, is made up of particular physical and biological elements and their interactions.
The
abiotic
In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them under ...
, or physical elements are defined by the local
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
and the local
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...
. The local geology is defined by the soil type, substrata, local
land use
Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long h ...
, and water patterns of the site and its surroundings. The local climate is made up of the weather patterns, wind patterns, solar patterns, and pollution patterns for the site and its surroundings.
The biotic or living elements are all of the local
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
and local
ecosystems
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
- including humans and urban ecologies - that interact with the site.
This concept is distinctly different from
green building
Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...
, or
sustainable architecture
Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...
where the goal is to "minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings". Ecological building is a positive design goal that sets out to increase beneficial interactions, whereas green building is a negative design outlook that seeks only the reduction of negative interactions. Inherent in green building is the assumption that any human interaction with a site is unavoidably negative, and that mitigating these negative impacts is the best that is possible. With ecological building, the designer acknowledges that humans can play an integral, beneficial role in improving and sustaining the health and vitality of their local ecology.
See also
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Ecological design
Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products and services that gives special consideration to the environmental impacts of a product over its entire lifecycle. Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan define it as "any form of de ...
*
Regenerative Design
Regenerative design is a process-oriented whole systems approach to design. The term "regenerative" describes processes that restore, renew or revitalize their own sources of energy and materials. Regenerative design uses whole systems thinking ...
Stadthaus
Stadthaus is a nine-storey residential building in Hackney, London. At nine stories (30 meters/98 feet), it is thought to be the second tallest timber residential structure in the world, after the Forte apartment complex in Melbourne, Austral ...
*
sustainable architecture
Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...