CPC50220 Diploma of Building and Construction

Introduction:

Investment in the properties, especially when it comes down to the high-rise buildings and systems has attracted the investors in many ways. The idea that the value of the property can rise in future have resulted in the investors to lock their eyes upon the development of the multi-storeyed properties and estates. With every passing day and increasing demands of the people’s living situation, rapid urbanization is taking place. This is resulting in the development of the high-rise buildings as well. This has kept the construction sectors around the world busy as well. initially the high-rise buildings were developed for meeting the needs and demands of the business sectors. They were developed such that they can be used for the purpose of the businesses. The primary motive for the development of the buildings were completely economic in nature. But in recent times, the high-rise does not particularly have economic ambitions. Rather they are regarded as a necessity for generation of profit.

The sky scrapers, skywalks and others have become attraction for the investors who are prepared to develop them for their profits, without considering the impact it may have on the environment. As it is already known that the construction sectors of the businesses are some of the complex sectors which causes impact on the environment. However, with more high rises being developed around the world, there are increasing environmental issues. The water-adjacent lands, and cultivatable lands are even converted to the areas suitable for construction. With the increase in the development of the high rises, the requirement of the energy to run them is increasing as well. this is giving rise to the other critical issues as well. This paper aims at discussing detrimental effects of high-rise buildings in urban areas and try to determine the ways in which the sustainable development buildings and projects can be a boon towards reducing these effects and overall betterment of the environment.

The paper shall discuss the background of the topic of the research and the theoretical concept that can be obtained by reviewing the peer reviewed articles and journals. After this a brief choice of the research methodologies will be provided, which will let the readers determine the ways which has been considered for conducting the research. After this the detailed analysis of the findings of the research shall be performed which will help in obtaining the final results of the research. 

Aim:

 The aim of the paper is to determine the detrimental effects of the high-rise buildings on the environment and recommend the ways in which sustainable buildings can be effective in reducing the issues.

Objectives:

• To determine the impact of increasing high rises on the environment.
• To understand the ways in which the sustainable buildings can be effective in reducing the issues that are encountered while developing the traditional high rises.

Research questions:

1. What are the impacts of the high-rise buildings on the environment?
2. How does the sustainable buildings help in improving the environmental impacts of the traditional high rises?

The global population is increasing with every passing day. As per the statistic there are about 767.35 crores of people on the planet at present and as per 2019 and by 2023, it is expected to increase even further to around 800 crores. With the increase in population, there is a surge in the requirement of urbanization (Roser, Ritchie & Ortiz-Ospina, 2021). Construction of the high rises is one of the bi-product of this surge. The opportunity has been considered highly by the construction industry who has now been working for the development of the high rises and promoting growth of urbanization.

The construction industry spent as much as 12 trillion U.S dollars post pandemic in the year 2019 and this graph was expected to rise to 19.2 trillion by the end of 2034. Not only is that, as per the research performed by the United Nations, 80% of the global population is expected to reside in the urban areas by the end of 2050. Al-Kodmany (2018), discussed in their research that countries all over the world are adopting the initiatives to develop high rises. It is the uncanny capabilities of the high rises which helps in attracting investors, businessmen and tourists from round world. In fact, the businesses are willing to make investment in such high rises to gain profits out of them. This has increased the demands for the high rises. In places like Dubai, development of super tall structures with the help of cost-effective technologies have caught attentions of millions, who are willing to experience them, therefore helping the development of the businesses in such areas. However, building high rises have their own benefits and drawbacks as well. the negative effects of the high rises cause environmental issues, which can be fatal for the mankind as well (Singh, Singh & Mall, 2020).

The concept of sustainable building development has however helped in improving the impact that the high-rises have on the society and the environment (Hui, 2020). The technologies have let to the development of the smart cities and smart buildings which have further helped in the development of better, environment friendly solutions. In this research we shall discuss some of them in brief (Hong et al. 2019).

Statistics of high-rise buildings around the world:

According to de Best, (2021), a global statistic revealed the number of high-rise buildings that has been developed by the end of 2019. It showed that China is one of the countries which have highest numbers of high rises. Shenzhen has more than 15 sky scrapers with each building measuring up to 200 meters on an average. The Shanghai tower in China is amongst the tallest buildings of the world measuring up to 2073 feet along with Shenzhen's Ping A Finance Centre with a height of 1965 feet. This has left the cities like New York and Dubai far behind. However, the global impact of such sky scraper in all the countries is hazardous. Not only China, the countries like Dubai, New York, Kaula Lumpur, Mumbai and many others have developed a huge number of high-rise buildings which have affected the environment to a greater extent (Hong et al. 2019).  

Impact of high-rise buildings on the environment:

According to Rahmawati et al. 2020, high rise buildings are the symbols of modernization in today’s world with every city developing them for residence, official use, hotels, shopping complexes and so much more. But, their impact on the environment is far from totally revolutionary and positive. On the contrary, there have been debates regarding the negative impacts of high-rise buildings and why they must be created more conservatively. Pollution is one of the major issues which is associated with such traditional high-rise construction projects.

They require a lot of planning and time which leads to accumulation of a lot of waste. As a result, pollutants increase like dust, carbon emissions, harmful construction materials and many more, all of them affecting water, air and land simultaneously degrading their purity. Another main issue with high rise buildings is the way they affect the climate of the region. The surfaces around retain a lot of heat during the daytime which can lead to increase in temperature around the area. Multiple large buildings placed close together can retain even more heat which reduces the oxygen content in the air around. On top of this, traditional high-rise buildings affect the aerodynamics of the region. It blocks air paths and diverts channels creating unfavourable environmental conditions around the places. Not only that but they can affect the non-high-rise buildings and other public places even more as they might block large amounts of airstreams making the area unfavourable. Giyasov, & Giyasova (2018), also stated that these traditional high-rise buildings are also prone to lightning strikes which might not be harmful always but at times can be problematic.

This has been supported by Hayati, & Sayadi, (2012), who said that the more are the number of high-rise buildings around the world, the more is the consumption of natural energy and natural resources. Majority of the buildings make use of fresh water and non-renewable sources of energy for functioning properly. With a greater number of tenants being the parts of these high rises, the more is the rate of consumptions. Not only is that, majority of high-rises make use of centrally airconditioned facilities. These are mainly used for providing luxury. However, the harmful CFCs that are released by the air conditions is one of the notorious ingredients of global warming around the world (Hone, 2017).

Benefit of sustainable high-rise buildings over the traditional high-rise buildings:

With the rise of global pollution and the growing crisis of energy and resources of living, the need for sustainability is everywhere. As discussed earlier, the high-rise buildings are also adding to the pollution and deteriorating the climate. Hence, the need for sustainable buildings is also growing. According to Balaban, & de Oliveira, (2017), sustainable buildings are those which cause less pollution compared to traditional buildings, protects the health and comfort of the users, has favourable opinion among the neighbours and also is viable economically (Jensen et al.2018). Hence, such buildings have a lot of constraints which make them better than traditional buildings. Alongside the structural advantages, these buildings may also be fitted with wind turbines or solar panels for production of pollution free electricity and further heat radiation (He et al. 2020).

Case study of the Swiss Re Building, London:

According to BEGEÇ & HAMÄ°DABAD, (2015), in order to identify the benefits of these sustainable buildings compared to the regular buildings, certain examples of sustainable buildings are necessary. One of the best examples of such a building is the Swiss Re Building, which is a commercial skyscraper of London located in the City of London itself and is a part of its primary financial district. This building is the first sustainable building in London and provides various benefits in terms of sustainability as compared to a normal building. The building consumes nearly half of the power which would be consumed by any other building of its size. There are gaps in every floor which are applied with six shafts which acts as a natural ventilation system (Palau Hernandez, 2020). These shafts are also designed to create a double-glazing effect which reflects out the sunlight in summer keeping the building cooler. The air also gets trapped between these multiple layers which insulate and regulate the heat further and most importantly, during winter, it keeps the building warm. The shafts also allow sunlight to pass through considerably which reduces nearly half of the lights required for keeping the place bright. All of these clearly proves how beneficial such sustainable buildings could be and how benefitted people could be with the increase in their numbers.

Other beneficiaries of sustainable buildings:

There are various other buildings which can benefit the people and the environment in various ways. As said by Pendergrass et al. 2019, these buildings can be used for renewable energy-generation and also for energy conservation by attaching correct applications. As already stated before, these buildings can be supplied with solar panels and windmills for utilizing solar or wind energy. High rising skyscrapers are ideal for these tasks. Greater heights result in greater speed of wind due to less obstructions which makes it better for windmill usage. The high rises also receive more sunlight, especially if designed properly which can then be used for generating solar power by attaching solar panels. They can even be used for rain water harvesting which could be beneficial in reducing the water requirement of the building. The advantages of heating, cooling and ventilation have already been discussed before and they work better in high rise buildings. Hence, it is clear that these sustainable buildings are the future of construction which is why they are growing in number across various countries around the world (Potekhin et al. 2018).

Methodology

Research methodology is one of the important parts of the dissertation which enables the researchers as well as the readers to understand the steps and stages which has been taken into consideration for the purpose of the research data collection and data analysis (Mohajan, 2018).

Research philosophy: Research philosophy is the part of the methodology which helps in gathering necessary information and details regarding the topic of the research. the research philosophy has helped in obtaining better insight regarding the environmental impact of high-rise construction and the benefits of sustainable high-rise buildings. The research philosophy can be clarified into three major parts and they are positivism, interpretivism and realism (Kumar, 2018).

Positivism helps in the application of the logical ideas in the research for identification of those ideas with the topic of the research. the interpretivism helps in analysis of the social aspects of the world with respect t the complex structure of the topic of the research. Natural laws and related theories can be obtained from this philosophy of the research. the last one is the realism and this the combination of both the aforementioned theories. This helps in analysing the human interactions with the external or social world for identification of the aspects which are related to the research. this research is inclined towards the usage of the interpretivism philosophy of the research (Ryan, 2018). This philosophy has helped in obtaining the hidden facts related to the research, such that they can used for determination of the answers to the research questions.

Research design: Research design is that part of the research which helps the researchers by guiding them with a framework for the completion of the research effectively. there are three types of research methodology which can be taken into consideration and they are explanatory, exploratory, and descriptive research design. The explanatory research design helps in addressing and summing up the individual occurrences of the research. this makes the process of completion lengthier for the research. the next is the exploratory research design. This helps in exploring various aspects related to the research. the total time required for the completion of the research increases in this case. The last one is the descriptive research design. This design helps in identification of the most suitable information related to the topic of the research. However, the most suitable research design in this case is the exploratory research design. This has helped in exploring various aspects of the research. Exploratory research design shall help in gathering necessary details regarding the topic of the research, with which the data analysis can be performed (Hunter, McCallum, & Howes, 2019).

Research approach: There are two major approaches towards the conducting the researches. They are inductive and deductive approaches. The research approach guides the researchers with the necessary steps for completing the research in an organized manner. The inductive approach is used for the development of the new theory which is necessary for meeting the needs of the research (Benitez-Correa, Gonzalez-Torres & Vargas-Saritama, 2019). The second one is the deductive approach. Here a problem statement is developed such that the solution to the problem can be attempted to be identified at the end of the research. In this research we have considered the deductive research approach. Here research questions have been identified which has helped in forming the literature review of the research. This method has helped in performing an in-depth analysis of the information that is gathered for the research and obtain the necessary result from the analysis as well.

Data collection

Secondary data collection method has been used for the purpose of the research. There are two major ways in which the data can be collected in the research. One is the primary and the other is the secondary data. the primary data are the ones which can be gathered from the interviews and surveys of the research. However, for this research, the secondary data collection has been taken into consideration. Collecting data during the pandemic situation can be challenging (Wilson & Kim, 2021). Thus, the secondary sources of the data, that are mainly obtained from the peer reviewed articles and journals are the ones which shall be considered for the purpose of the research. The availability of such information is quite high and they can be accessed from the online libraries as well. The existing researches that are present online, performed by the researchers on the same domain has been considered for this research. This has helped in obtaining detailed insights regarding the topic of the research. The data analysis has been done based on that as well. Primary sources of information cannot be used in this research as it will be much more time consuming and expensive in nature.

Data analysis

From the information that has been gathered from the research there are two major data analysis techniques which can be performed. The first one is the qualitative data analysis and the second one is the quantitative data analysis technique.

The qualitative research data analysis technique is the technique for analyse the data theoretically (Lobe, Morgan & Hoffman, 2020). This technique helps in performing in-depth analysis of the data that has been collected for the research based on the topic of the research. The other type of data analysis technique is the quantitative data analysis technique. This research data analysis technique is performed when the data is collected in the numerical forms. It is regarded as a statistical form of data analysis. For the purpose of this research, the qualitative data analysis technique has been taken into consideration (Mertens, 2018). This has helped in gathering detailed insights regarding the topic of the research. The case study data analysis methods have been considered for this research. this helps in obtaining various themes related to the topic of the research, which helps in obtaining the answers to the research questions, that has been developed right in the beginning of the paper. The global pandemic has restricted the access to various areas which has also limited the possibilities of investigating with the help of primary data and thus have also limited the possibilities of quantitative analysis of the data. Thus, secondary data is the best option in this case (Sarvimäki, 2017).

Results

As a result of the research with the help of the secondary data and qualitative data analysis a huge range of information has been obtained and studied and summarised. The detrimental impact of the high-rise building of the environment has been discussed briefly in this research. After conducting the data analysis of the research information, it is observed that China is one of the countries with the greatest number of high rises. However, it is the fact that the high rises that are developed over there at present follows the norms of the sustainable building. For example, the Peal tower. The research helps in determining the objectives that has been developed at the beginning of the research. After conducting the research, the answers to the research questions “What are the impacts of the high-rise buildings on the environment?” and “How does the sustainable buildings help in improving the environmental impacts of the traditional high rises?” has been obtained. From these two themes of the research has been obtained which helps in reaching a conclusion of the research. The following section discusses the results of the analysis in details.

Discussion

After completing the development of the theoretical context of the research there are certain themes which can analysed.

The traditional skyscrapers are developed with the help of the ingredients which have the ability to the cause pollution. Firstly, for developing any building, environmental resources have to be cleared off. These is inclusive of the filling of the water sources, deforesting and many other. These are sources which helps in keeping the environment cool. Upon development of such high rises, they themselves trap heat within them, consume energy, and even releases harmful heat waves and CFCs in the air. However, the sustainable buildings and high rises helps in keeping the energy consumption and heat in check. The advanced technologies used in those buildings helps in keeping the building as well as the surrounding area coolers. Majority of the sustainable buildings makes use of the sustainable sources of energy for the purpose of their functioning. This lowers the consumption of the energy, reduces the heat produced and also helps in restoring the damages that is done to the biosphere due to usage of the harmful non-renewable sources of energy.

Theme 2: Impact of sustainable buildings on reducing the effects of high-rises and sky scrapers.

From the above research it is evident that the high-rise buildings are one of the greatest sources of pollutions in the environment. With the rate at which the global population is increasing alongside the requirement of the people, the need for the high rises have increased as well. But this demand can be fulfilled with the help of the sustainable building development. The researches performed by the fellow researchers has shown that the high-rises are one of the most energy consuming sectors of the world. Sustainable buildings have the ability to produce energy with the help of the technologies which can be utilized by themselves as well. Buildings like Swiss Re Building in London, have made use of the advance use of design techniques such that they can help in saving energy consumption. The design that has been utilized is even capable of regulating the building temperature which helps in keeping the building warm during the winter and cool during the summer (BEGEÇ & HAMÄ°DABAD, 2015). This reduces the utility of the air conditions and heaters during the respective seasons. Not only is that, the traditional high-rise buildings and sky scrapers have a tendency to retain heat during the day time. However, when it comes to the sustainable buildings, they are capable of utilizing this energy.

The sustainable buildings which are developed nowadays, are equipped with technologies like solar panels and wind turbines such that they can produce a part of energy which they can utilize for their building functions and operations. These are some of the benefits which has been discussed in the research. By exploring further on the topic numerous other buildings with various features can be observed. Bahrain World Trade Centre Building has turbines producing wind energy which are consumed by the tower itself. The Pearl River tower is one of the high-tech designed towers which is designed and developed in China (BEGEÇ & HAMÄ°DABAD, 2015). The 214,000-square-meter tower has openings at the mechanical floors which helps in pushing the winds, therefore initiating he turbines which produces energy for the entire building. Solar panels and other facilities are present within the tower making it completely sustainable tower with clean energy sources (som.com, 2021). Thus, it can be said that, the high rises which were initially the mark of energy consumption and causing pollution, have reduced due to the development of the sustainable buildings.

Limitation

There are certain limitations which has been faced while conducting the research. the first one if the lack of time. Every research is bound to the time resources which is required for the completion of the research. Thus, a little more time could have helped in the entire process of research and investigation on the topic of the research. This has also led to the discarding of several research methodologies and designs, which could have been effective for the research. the other most important aspect of the secondary research is the identification of the right information for developing the thematic analysis of the information. Majority of the information that are used for the development of the research are obtained from the internet resources, hence the reliability of the resources is at times questionable. However, for this research we have considered making use of the resources from Google Scholar, IEEE Explore, Research gate and similar others, such that only the relevant ones can be used for the purpose of the research. Lastly, as a student, cost is one such constraints which cannot be avoided completely and hence, it is one of the limitations for the research as well.

Conclusion:

From the above-mentioned research certain aspects can be concluded. The high rises are one of the major causes of the environmental pollution. Majority of the materials that are used for the high-rise building development causes environmental hazards, air and water pollution. After the constructions, these buildings run on energy and natural resources, exhausting them. With the development of the sustainable buildings this has however being reduced to an extent. The sustainable buildings make use of techniques which helps in making use of the natural, renewable sources of energy for functioning correctly. Sustainable buildings are those which cause less pollution compared to traditional buildings, protects the health and comfort of the users, has favourable opinion among the neighbours and also is viable economically.

Such buildings have a lot of constraints which make them better than traditional buildings. Alongside the structural advantages, these buildings may also be fitted with wind turbines or solar panels for production of pollution free electricity and further heat radiation. Thus, it can be concluded that the impact that the high-rise buildings have on the environment can reduced with the help of the sustainable building solutions. This has been confirmed with the help of case study of the London based Swiss Re Building. The design benefits and environment friendliness of the tower has made it one of the remarkable high-rise buildings with sustainability. From the research, it is evident that although there are technologies in countries which make the construction easier and the countries are making use of the same for deriving benefits from those buildings as well, making people aware of the necessity of the sustainable high-rise buildings is essential. As, in the coming years, the rate at which the population is increasing, and the need of high-rise buildings are increasing, if sustainability is not maintain, a severe crisis in the natural resources and diseases due to the pollution will increase.

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