Skyscrapers are a sight to see whenever one is in the middle of the urban jungle. Those tall buildings with a whole five floors all covered in glass should be banned from being constructed. Environmental enthusiasts as well as engineers and architects are calling on the banning of such aesthetically pleasing structure. They say that instead of reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it simply adds up to the carbon emissions. They are just too difficult not to mention that they are too expensive to cool.
"If you are building a greenhouse in the midst of the climate emergency, it is pretty odd to even think it is something you ought to do," said Simon Sturgis, an advisor on the environment the the Greater London Authority (GLA). "If you are using the standard glass facades, then it only means you are using up more electric energy to cool these structures done. This usage of such amount of energy often leads to more carbon emissions."
Glass front in most offices as well as offices in high rise buildings are all build with surrounding offices getting most of the view and beautiful lighting. It is also the part that requires more energy consumption. Such aesthetic design became popular among architects and their clients because the glass walls created a fantastic view of nature. Also, the goal was to help the office make good use of natural lighting. However, what designers often forget is the fact that with natural light came with heat and no sealed building will be able to resist such heat.
In order to avoid the greenhouse effect in these glass buildings, business owners turned to the use of air conditioning to help them solve a problem. However, this fact is in itself problematic. The International Energy Agency gave an estimate that about 40% of the global carbon emissions come from heating, construction, cooling and the demolition of buildings. The problem with air conditioning is that it is badly needed by industries. In fact, there has been a survey that show that the cooling requirements of the world have doubled since 2000. It basically accounts for 14% of the total energy used all over the world.
In April, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, expressed his intent to ban the construction of an all-glass buildings and will force developers to retrofit their existing building structures to make them more energy-efficient. Although the term "ban" was later clarified to mean just the excessive use of steel and glass.
"To be able to mitigate the amount of energy used to cool these buildings, a really complicated facade of the building might worry them," he said. He also added that the facade needs to be double glazex or laminated. But whichever ends up to be the better choice, as long as it needs to be replaced in the future, it may not be a good idea.
