What are sustainable office buildings?
Sustainable office buildings or even eco friendly office buildings are made to contain office spaces demand a great deal of investment, futuristic viewpoint and long term willingness to improve health. This strategic alliance is formed between green interior experts, teams of several different architectural niches and urban designers - all aligned to create a better working environment that can benefit to all its users.
Our purpose is not to collide with architecture or interfere in the process of construction, but we are inclined to bring nature indoors, integrating biophilia (the love and need for nature) into 21st-century urban interior design and creating sustainable office buildings and spaces.
How do we succeed in making eco friendly office buildings?
By incorporating the everlasting principles of nature-derived materials, healthy surroundings that improve mood, with a sustainable way of reusing materials - we are given all the key factors needed for a good and sustainable office building to grow.
Biophilic design and vernacular architecture symbiosis
Vernacular architecture is a completely autonomous field of study, made due to the present socio-cultural context focused on the bad influence of the industrialization and globalization, and the use of suitable and natural materials from the local environment.
This concept assumes a building activity without a project and without technical representation, but still establishing a perfectly integrated empirical knowledge based on local tradition.
Chalets made of bamboo in South-East Asia or evolved examples of Scandinavian or alpine vernacular architecture that reflect the characteristics of the local environment, climate, culture, natural materials, technology are the best examples of sustainable buildings at the moment.
The embodiment of sustainability
These principles developed for centuries in different communities can be the future reflections of how sustainable office buildings should look like and what are the principles of their constructions.
Biophilic principles are also evident in vernacular architecture, where buildings are constructed in a way that reflects the landscape around them. This particular type of architecture combined with biophilic interior design allows people to form bonds with the natural world around them in a more profound way.
These two have to be in some form of symbiosis to work out the problem called sustainable office buildings primarily, and later on - the apartment building and houses.
Non-toxic materials for green office buildings
Transforming your office building into a more sustainable office building of a harmonious collection of natural elements will boost your mood, productivity and sense of wellbeing.
To make a sustainable office building we need to use sustainable, earth-friendly materials such as wood, bamboo, cork, marble, granite, limestone, porcelain, as well as natural patterns, colours, textures and finishes, also made in a sustainable process and through the use of renewable energy.
You can include natural lumber, clay, straw and mortar - all-natural materials that do not contain glues, dye coatings or processing chemicals that can release toxic gases.
A lot of business spaces claim to have sustainable office buildings but this easy labelling can be sometimes questionable when it comes to environmental friendliness.
How can you distinguish a genuinely sustainable office building?
1. Sustainable floorings and elevations give impeccable acoustics
Sustainability in office buildings comes from unique and natural materials.
Sustainable flooring materials should be also produced from sustainable materials and by a sustainable process that reduces demands on ecosystems during its life-cycle. This includes harvest, production, implementation and later disposal in the eco friendly office buildings.
Bamboo flooring eco friendly office buildings are not wood but is very easily found and obtained and is harvested under cultivated conditions. Cork is an important renewable cash crop harvested from Mediterranean cork oak trees.
Salvaged wood planks make great material for floors, lending them an antique charm and are often used to replace large wood planks. Meanwhile, some places in sustainable office buildings can be made of recycled rubber - fabricated from recycled rubber products, such as old tires. Rubber flooring tiles or rubber sheet flooring can be a great choice for recreation or workshop spaces.
What does FSC wood plants mean?
When you buy flooring products for your sustainable office buildings that are labelled as FSC certified, you can be assured that it has been harvested with the best interests of both forests and citizens in mind.
2. Walls and ceilings made for sustainable office buildings
Drywall panels, wood framing and salvage parts are made with as much almost 80 per cent recycled materials and can be a greater option for wall or ceilings.
Leaving these parts of your sustainable office building in concrete look will also add to the ecologically conscious environment, and concrete is also very attractive and interesting contemporary material that gives that industrial, minimal look to office buildings.
A variety of countertop materials and wall and floor tiles are available that make use of pulverized and recycled glass and wallpapers can be grasscloth based.
What about the roofing in a green office building?
Recycled metal for roofing panels made from recycled aluminium, steel, copper, or alloys that combine different metals, or even stone roofing that are chemical-free can be a great choice for a green roofs solution on green office buildings.
Sustainable office buildings with good lighting and clean air
For sustainability in office buildings, natural light is the essential building block of a healthy, green indoor. Circadian lighting systems follows the body’s natural rhythm with amber tones early and late to avoid sleep disruption, while blue-white tones in the middle of the day can help improve productivity, especially when combined with individual task lights on office desks for example.
Wellness lighting is an instrument in extracting some of the most potent physical wellbeing benefits of biophilic design.
Water and air purifying systems
The biophilic design also incorporates nature-based components such as fresh or purified air in sustainable office buildings, combined with the healing powers of herbal aromatherapy, soothing nature sounds, and more - to transform any workspace into a sustainable office building where people like to spend their time in.
Putting air-purifying plants we improve CO2 levels, as fresh and clean air is one of the first things we notice when in nature - and one of the first things that make as leave someplace if we get the sensation of too much heat or asphyxiating air.
Water is also an important element that we subconsciously associate with nature, wellbeing and sustainability in office buildings. Keep lungs and bowels happy and healthy by clean deploying air and water, preferably one with a HEPA filter. This helps restore air and water supplies to its natural state by removing pollutants.
Plants as a source of healthy air in a sustainable office building
Plants are instrumental for harnessing the benefits of nature in biophilic design, which is why integrating plants into interior spaces of sustainable office buildings is a fundamental tenet of interior design.
Floral designers can create artworks and sculptures in both natural and, when appropriate, artificial plants for long-term installations. Natural wall murals showing scenes of prospect and refuge are known to have stress-reducing properties; nature-inspired wallpapers as an abstract alternative well suited to homes and offices.
The decision about using sustainable materials for flooring, ceiling and other amenities in the making of sustainable office buildings has become a worldly popular idea and the number of sustainable office building is constantly growing.