Green building isn't jusr for Hobbits...

Think of the phrase ‘green building’ for a moment. What comes to mind? Maybe something frightfully cutting edge with solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine in the back garden. Or perhaps you are more rustically minded and instead think of a new age paradise, one that incorporates nature into the home like a modern day Hobbit hole complete with a grass roof. 

 A green house…

 

I’ll bet you didn’t think of a road. Surely there is nothing ‘green’ about the ribbons of black asphalt that on a physical level cut up the natural world more than anything else we build. However in Vancouver things are a little different. The city has recently started building what have dubbed ‘greenroads’ using asphalt made entirely from recycled plastic and a ‘warm mix’ method of laying it. The essence the warm mix method involves adding a wax (itself made from the recycled plastic) to the asphalt resulting in the temperature at which the mixture achieves the correct viscosity for spreading to fall by between 50 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This can result in a reduction in fossil fuel use (usually gas) during the process of up to 20%. 

Vancouver City Council has indicated it is keen to roll out the method (no pun intended) from the current test trial section of roads and according to Karyn Magnusson, spokesperson for the city’s engineering service Vancouver would ‘love to embrace this as the norm rather than a special mix’, especially if a local source of wax can be found. Rarely has a city seemed so enthusiastic about what a relatively small change in policy can do, although when you consider Vancouver’s aim to be the world’s greenest city by 2020 it is perhaps unsurprising they’re keen.

A green road…

It isn’t just roads that can provide somewhat unusual examples of green building. The Malaysian government sparked a few headlines recently with its plans to build the world’s first ‘green city’ to house three million people by 2025. This new ‘smart metropolis’ will be fuelled entirely by renewables, have a comprehensive public transport network  and be full of open ‘green spaces’ to encourage social interaction and break the concrete jungle mould of most modern cities. Although on a completely different scale from Vancouver’s road project it is still far removed from the green building projects of most other countries where the best the government can do is offer subsides to help individuals bolt solar panels onto their roofs. 

Plans for Iskandar. What a green city looks like.

Green building then certainly isn’t just the preserve of eccentric individuals with money to burn and it doesn’t have to be expensive or even cutting edge (warm mix asphalt has been around for years). Simply applying technology smartly to make construction more efficient can go a long way towards making a building more energy efficient. It may look nice by having a grass roof isn’t everything when it comes to being green.