Building Materials A Sustainable Design And The Place Of...

â€Å"Buildings consume more resources than necessary, negatively impact the environment, and generate a large amount of waste.† U.S. Department of Energy, 2003 The challenge, today, is to build intelligently, so that buildings use a minimum of non-renewable resources and produce a minimum of pollution and wastes, while increasing the well-being of the occupants. This paper is an effort to understand the importance of building materials’ selection in sustainable design and the place of traditional materials in the contemporary sustainable architecture. Building activity rapidly consumes finite resources and uses energy-intensive materials, while the construction demand increases. In order to meet the future needs, we need to switch to more†¦show more content†¦Designers should not overlook their qualities and capabilities, and sometimes their supremacy over their energy-intensive counterparts during the material selection phase. The research methodology of this study is based on review of literature written on the concept of sustainability in constructions, the sustainability of building materials, as well as the sustainable benefits of using traditional materials. Subsequently, it examines different approaches in the use of traditional materials, through the presentation of successful examples of architecture from around the world. It demonstrates that materials perceived as outdated or insufficient, can be used in a contemporary way to minimise a building’s environmental impact. It should be mentioned from an early stage that the selected case studies focus only on addressing sustainability through the selection or use of the examined materials and their contribution to the improved performance of the construction; this paper does not take into consideration whether these buildings acquire other sustainable attributes or utilise sustainable systems, although several of them perform exceptionally. Dissertation Outline This paper is structured in a way that aims to be easy to navigate and understand. It is structured in the following chapters, gradually focusing to the role of traditional materials in sustainable architecture. In Chapter