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“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (architect)

Unit 8

GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS

Figure 8.1. LEED Green Buildings

1 Explain how the following words and expressions are connected with “green building”:

nanotechnology, sustainable, environmentally friendly, self-cleaning coatings, energy-saving production, air purification, lower water consumption.

2a) Transcribe the following words:

Urgent, issues, acidification, conductivity, nano-enhanced, energy-

conserving, versatility, toxicity, nanoparticles, unique, convergence.

b) In what context do you think the following words and phrases will appear in the text?

• thenano era • at the molecular level • nanotubes • nanotechnology

• a boom • accrue • coatings and insulating materials • purification

•declining coast

c)Read the text and check your answers:

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NANOTECHNOLOGY IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

Green is a nice color. It also is a buzzword that’s being used rather freely whenever people want to claim that their product or service is environmentally friendly.

Sustainability means designing structures that take advantage of technological advancements to create eco-friendly products.

Green building is one of the most urgent environmental issues of our time. But for the building industry to achieve its potential as the leader in sustainable development, new materials are urgently needed. A new frontier is opening in building materials as nanotechnology introduces new products and new possibilities.

By working at the molecular level, nanotechnology opens up new possibilities in material design. In the nanoscale world where quantum physics rules, objects can change color, shape, and phase much more easily than at the macroscale. Fundamental properties like strength, surface-to-mass ratio, conductivity, and elasticity can be designed in to create dramatically different materials.

Many nano-enhanced products and processes now on the market can help create more sustainable, energy-conserving buildings, providing materials that reduce waste and toxic outputs as well as dependence on non-renewable resources. Other products still in development offer even more promise for dramatically improving the environmental and energy performance of buildings. Nano-enabled advances for energy conservation in architecture include new materials like carbon nanotubes (can be up to 250 times stronger than steel and 10 times lighter, as well as electrically and thermally conductive (Fig. 8.2) and

insulating nanocoatings, as well as new processes including photocatalysis. Nanomaterials can improve the strength, durability, and versatility of structural and non-structural materials, reduce material toxicity, and improve building insulation.

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Nanoparticles have unique mechanical, electrical, optical and reactive properties distinct from larger particles. Their study (nanoscience) and manipulation (nanotechnology) also open up the convergence of synthetic and biological materials.

The examples of some of these materials are aerogel, thin-film insulation, self-cleaning coatings, air purification, and water purification.

Current nanomaterials and nano-products show demonstrable environmental improvements including energy savings and reduced reliance on non-renewable resources, as well as reduced waste, toxicity and carbon emissions. Some can even absorb and break down airborne pollutants. The benefits of nanotechnology for green building will accrue first from coatings and insulating materials available today, followed by advances in solar technology, lighting, air and water purification, and, eventually, structural materials and fire protection.

3Read the text again and answer the questions that follow (1–8):

1.What does sustainability mean?

2.What level does nanotechnology operate?

3.What happens to objects in the nanoscale world?

4.What is the role of nano-enhanced products and processes?

5.Nanomaterials can increase material toxicity, and improve building insulation, cannot they?

6.What do nanoparticles open up?

7.Can you give the examples of nanomaterials?

8.What do current nanomaterials and nano-products show?

4Match the columns:

1) nanotechnology a) describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time, a necessary precondition for human well-being.

2) sustainability b) provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

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5 a) Find the synonyms in the text and rephrase the sentences using the given expressions:

Progress, crucial problem, to be in great demand, yearly, modern ecological difficulties, to give new chances, basic features, exhaustible resource, to make heat isolation better, obvious betterments, advantages, rapid increase in numbers, to decrease cost.

6Explain the words in bold from the text and make up sentences of your own. Use English-English dictionaries to help you.

7Give the English equivalents to the following and use 5 of them

in small situations:

Не наносящий ущерба окружающей среде; совершенствование технологии; насущная экологическая проблема; устойчивое развитие; присущий в некоторой степени; на молекулярном уровне; открывать новые возможности; зависимость от невозобновляемых ресурсов; снизить токсичность материала; уникальные механические; электрические; оптические и реактивные свойства; совмещение синтетических и биологических материалов; тонкопленочная изоляция; демонстрировать очевидные улучшения состояния окружающей среды; принимать новые технологии; увеличение нанотехнологической продукции и материалов.

8 Fill in the gaps with derivatives of the words in capitals:

AEROGEL

Brown University 1) _____ has several aerogel CURRENT technologies available for licensing, including one that can be

used as a coating to permit 2) _____ on materials that PRINT

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Marunouchi Building in downtown Tokyo, the General Hospital in Carmarthen, UK, and Herzog & de Meuron’s Bond Street Apartment Building in New York.

9Group work: choose five questions from the list below, find and presentinformation:

1.Whatis “greenbuilding”?

2.What makes a building “green”?

3.What are the benefits of green building?

4.How is green building related to smart growth and sustainable development?

5.How do buildings affect natural resources?

6.How do buildings affect climate change?

7.What is the history of green building?

8.What building types can be green?

9.What are the examples of a green building in the area you live in?

10.How to I incorporate green building concepts into home?

11.Is there federal or state legislation related to green buildings?

12.What are the economic benefits of green or sustainable building and development?

13.Are green buildings more expensive to construct and operate?

14.Where can one find more information about the components of green building, like energy efficiency or reduced waste?"

15.What standards exist for green building?

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WORD LIST

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Учебное издание

Быкадорова Екатерина Сергеевна Веселова Снежана Александровна

English for Builders and Architects

Английский язык для строителей и архитекторов

Практикум для самостоятельной работы студентов строительных специальностей

Печатается в авторской редакции. Компьютерная верстка Ю.В. Борцовой

Изд. лиц. ЛР № 021277 от 06.04.98 Подписано в печать 27.11.2013

3,0 печ. л. 2,6 уч.-изд. л. Тираж 100 экз. Заказ № 2723

Издательство Сибирского государственного университета путей сообщения 630049, Новосибирск, ул. Д. Ковальчук, 191

Тел./факс: (383) 328-03-81. E-mail: bvu@stu.ru

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