An assessment on design criterias of sustainable housing facades: The case of England

Concern about being environmentally and sustainable in architecture is one of the current issues of recent years. Being aware of the fact that construction activities cause serious destruction in the world, starting to think about what will be inherited by future generations necessitates the integration of sustainability into architecture. Housing is an architectural unit that has a lot of influence in the sector due to its large number. Sustainable building certifications, one of the ways to build sustainability awareness in professions in the construction industry, on students and in field related individuals. They have been widespread in developed countries and entered the literature. In the scope of the study, the United Kingdom was considered as a pioneer country, the items of a sustainable housing assessment regulation from the UK were examined and evaluated on the basis of a residential project in London. The facade is considered as an architectural element that is most relevant to user comfort and has a significant effect in energy consumption and has been seen as a determinant in analyzes. In the second part, the concept of sustainable development is given, and some definitions within the scope of sustainable architecture are mentioned by emphasizing the relation with architecture after describing the data to guide the study and defining the identified problems, defining the objectives and targets, and providing information about the tools used with the method of work. Since the type of building to be considered in the scope of the study is residential, the relation with the sustainability of the dwelling is examined by social, economic and environmental dimensions and some examples are given. The third part of the work is devoted to sustainable building assessment methods. First, sustainable building certification systems that are widely used around the world are described, followed by the UK-based sustainable housing regulation 'The Code for Sustainable Homes' and nine categories. At the end of the chapter, there are sample housing projects which are assessed holistically under the sustainable housing regulation and which achieve certain conditions, score and level. The sustainable building evaluation certificates in the study included LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in the United States, DGNB (Deutshe Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen eV) in Germany, Greenstar (Enviromental Rating System for Buildings) in Australia, CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency) in Japan and the BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) established in the UK. BREEAM is the first among these certifications. The reason for the last place in the explanations is the fact that the UK's sustainable housing code, a sub-version of BREEAM, has been detailed in the scope of the study and its link with BREEAM has been made more clear. The UK's sustainable housing regulation, The Code for Sustainable Homes, is a method for assessing and validating sustainable design and construction in new homes. It has been developed to reduce CO2 emissions and to create homes designed with a more sustainable understanding by 2006. It is a part of an organisation that some organisations such 'Building a Greener Future' and 'Planning Policy Statement: Planning and Climate Change' are also included to the same one. The use and application were managed by BRE Global. According to the directive, the new houses are evaluated in the nine main categories in design, construction and process management and in the subheadings of these categories. In 2015, regulation has been imposed on the necessity, according to this order the first level is mandatory according to the construction regulations and considered as a construction necessity. In order to obtain the first level of housing, it is necessary to obtain a total of 36 points from the categories. 48 points for the second level, 57 points for the third level, 68 points for the fourth level, 84 points for the fifth level and at least 90 points for the sixth level. Assessment categories are energy and CO2 emissions, water, material, surface water, waste, pollution, health and comfort, operation and ecology, respectively.The fourth section contains the assessments of a residential project completed in London through the sustainable housing regulation The Code for Sustainable Homes. These assessments have guided your health and comfort, materials and management categories, and have been associated with interior user comfort, finishing materials and the planning of the design process. The facade is addressed in this section with the requirements that the user must meet in order to provide comfort and how these requirements will affect the residential facades. The health and comfort category gained importance by providing sources for the daylight values that must be provided according to the indoor characteristics and requirements. The material category gained importance by helping to identify and evaluate the finishing materials to be selected. The management category gained importance by supervising the proper construction of the sustainability evaluation process between design and construction according to RIBA principles. In the UK, the sustainability principles of the construction process are explained and the relationship of the work with the analysis process is emphasized. The evaluation process, which started with the examination of the architectural project, continued with the determination of the number of sunny days and the solar reception of the climatic data of England and London. In terms of these datas, the orientation of the existing window sizes and the location, number and directions of the solar control elements on the facade have been tested with simulation programs. It was decided to orientate the most suitable solar control element according to the situations where the results do not overheat the interior and provide optimum daylight values. After determining the most suitable alternate, the two conditions in which the sun control element is not used and the most suitable sun control element is selected to investigate the effect of some commonly used facade finishing materials on the interior comfort of the user. In the conclusion section, the most appropriate alternative has been determined in terms of the analysis results. It is suggested that this analysis can be made with the same variables according to different climate regions in Turkey and a guide in the design of sustainable residential facades could be made on this issue by being considered as a country where single oceanic climate is observed due to being a UK an island country. It has been emphasized that the systems that present the evaluation of housing only in Turkey are quite new and that it is important to put the materials selected as the evaluation criterion into consideration in terms of work in order to speed up the works with this regulation by the regulations of the municipalities.