Is Energy and Water Monitoring Important and Are They a Design Problem?

In today’s society a building’s energy and water use can be monitored with several of the tools, equipment and systems that have already been developed and continue to be over time. This is important because “according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Nations estimates that the world’s population will exceed 9 billion people by 2050 and that the number of people living in urban areas will double, to more than 6 billion,” as stated by Paula Kehoe and Sarah Rhodes as part of the Vision 2020 in “Water Efficiency”. With the population increasing dramatically the resources available to us will begin to diminish and we must find smart ways to manage, supply, preserve and reuse these resources we have. One way to do this is by monitoring a building’s usage which will allow us to analyze the resources needed to operate a building throughout the year. With this information we can determine the necessary building design(s) that can be incorporated to improve the buildings efficiency. A new educational facility at Vancouver Island University in Canada is an example of how keeping track of a buildings usage can help improve resource efficiency. “During the design process, VIU stressed the importance of continued energy monitoring and verification to allow optimization of the building’s annual energy and water consumption,” stated in a 2013 ASHARE technology award case study article Strategies for Sustainability. This provided and will continue to provide analyst the necessary information, that permits them identify the issues, correct (enhance) the buildings performance and verify its operating efficiently in the years to come.

As mentioned previously it has become clear that the consumption of energy will increase more and more due to the growth of earth’s population, the first measure we can take as designers to slow down the rate of energy usage, is we must acknowledge this as a major factor that has  an impact on the environment around us. With the first step of acknowledgement underway designers are able to begin thinking through how to optimize the building(s) operation and energy savings. “High-performance design, including energy efficiency, is becoming as fundamental a design service as meeting basic programmatic, budgetary, and life-safety needs. A deliberately multidisciplinary approach to building performance—including energy performance—coordinated and managed by the architect, should be embedded into every project team’s workflow,” was expressed in An Architect’s Guide to Integrating Energy Modeling. There already exist several measuring software’s to begin approaching a building design by generating a model so that designers may make major informative decisions and receive feedback throughout all of the project stages of design and construction . Ultimately designers will be able to develop continuous studies and find the best design that will provide building energy efficiency with the comfort, health and welfare for the building occupants in mind.

Energy is not the only resource we need to keep in mind as designers, water a critical natural resource is another. Water, is a design problem, and as its supply decreases less and less will become available with the worlds widespread growth, management strategy importance will increase. There have already been a number of designs that been incorporated by designers in buildings to help preserve and reuse water with alternative water sources especially in urban areas. Knowing that there are ways to help slow down the rate of consumption of these resources, that are only two of the many we use, designers must continue incorporating these ideas and systems in future designs as we have a major influence on how much of these resources are used to operate.