Shaping Sustainability in Structural Design | Matter

We took a deep dive into ‘Shaping Sustainability in structural design. The critical value of Sustainability in the Building and Construction Industry comes from its bidirectional significance between the designers and the design. And naturally, there are two sides to this coin - firstly, sustainability as a quality of the design solution, and secondly, sustainability as an approach to uniting a team of designers to collaborate and co-create throughout the design process.

In this blog, we’ll be addressing three main questions: What is Sustainability? What are its key facets? And finally, what does sustainability mean in global and local contexts?

What is Sustainability?

The sustainable design aims to improve building performance by reducing negative impacts on the natural environment and the health and comfort of building occupants. The primary goals of sustainability are to limit non-renewable resource use, eliminate waste, and promote healthy, productive ecosystems.

What are its key facets?

Sustainable structural design solutions aim to achieve positive impact and/or reduce negative effects across three main facets of the built environment - environmental, social, and economical.

Environmental sustainability as a facet encapsulates a structure’s response to climate change by minimising carbon footprint, mindful material resource use, minimising waste, and enriching ecologies and heritage. Furthermore, it also speaks to the design’s impact on improving air quality, land use, and water discharge, as well as regenerating the flora-fauna species around the building/involved in processing the building materials.

Societal or social sustainability through structural design primarily concerns the health and wellbeing of the people and communities interacting with the places - this manifests in many ways, all the way from stakeholder satisfaction to social responsibility, equity, and access to amenities as facilitated by the design.

Finally, economic sustainability extends to the product, service, and operations ecosystem involved in the structural design and the supply chain of the materials, skills, and assets involved in the production cycles.

What does sustainability mean in global and local contexts?

Global Cities, their peripheral built environment, as well as their numerous components, must all be built and implemented sustainably. Cities, housing, and infrastructure are included in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established in 2015. Goal 11 often calls for cities and human settlements to be inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. In the meanwhile, Goal 9 calls for individuals to create resilient infrastructure.

In a local context, we have a responsibility toward our society as designers, engineers, and decision-makers to provide the finest solutions feasibly. Existing engineering design progressively reveals that it does not reduce life cycle costs in terms of economic and environmental effects. Future engineers will need to create a more holistic approach to engineering design, sometimes known as sustainable design, to improve this predicament. A concerted effort by practitioners, academics, and educators is required to achieve more sustainable design. What does it mean to design for a sustainable future? It’s all in the approach that drives an entire team to work together - this will be explored in greater detail in the next blog.

Do you want make your project sustainable?

We can design a bespoke, low-carbon foundation solution for your project, and recommend tried-and-trusted piling contractors. If you would like to learn about sustainable footing options for eco-friendly builds, simply get in touch with us.

You can also read more about our alternative approach to sustainable structural engineering design that benefits people and planet, for stronger communities with a brighter future.