The recent development of 'intelligent' features and techniques for buildings' skins are intended to meet certain energy targets. These targets are rarely looked at in an integral way. Research in this area aims to reduce energy consumption as a consequence of using certain intelligent features. The importance of such features in a wider environmental scope is often ignored. This paper attempts to set criteria based on the energy flow principles in integral natural systems to evaluate the energy performance in an intelligent skin and relates to a certain definition of 'intelligence' in buildings' skins, drawing a list of features that can reflect this definition. A list of 23 carefully chosen buildings has been prepared as case studies to check the developed criteria. Different weights for different criterion are calculated for various features based on the ecological energy principles. The conclusion refers to the variations in adopting certain intelligent features in different parts of the world.
Serving as the pillar industry of domestic economic as well as the main consumer of social energy, construction industry plays a critical role in the sustainable development of China. To comprehensively and quantitatively understand the level of energy consumption and environmental loads of Chinese construction industry, this study figures out the ecological efficiency of construction industry and its correlated industry by adopting the input-output life-cycle assessment (I-O LCA) model. The boundary of ecological items covers 8 types of energy and 4 sorts of environmental emissions. Results show that the energy consumption structure of the construction industry is unbalanced which mainly relies on fossil energy and thus becomes pollutant-intensive. Besides, the enhancement of ecological efficiency of construction industry dependents heavily on the ecological improvement of correlated industry sectors.
This critical update of the experiences of one individual with intellectual disabilities living within Serviceland considers the impact of poor support on the status, behaviour and cognition of a woman and her support team.