Novel Design for Less Usage of Ore-Based Materials in Building Construction

Mankind has spent majority of the non-renewable resources trying to manipulate the natural environment to better suit needs to their daily lives. Construction sector provides basic infrastructure facilities for human’s daily activities but nevertheless, environmental issues like global warming has occurred due to an increase concentration of greenhouse gases in our environment. Abundance of carbon dioxide is emitted due to the burning of fossil fuels to obtain energy in the construction activity. This study focuses on the researches on less usage of ore-based materials and aims to reduce the environmental impact of building materials in construction. Various alternative building materials include the use of recycled materials in concrete mixtures, the wood, bamboo and straw bale are identified, analyzed and evaluated in terms of their environmental impacts to achieve low carbon footprint in building construction. The conventional and alternative building materials are compared based on extensive literature review and a carbon calculator is used to determine the carbon-friendliness of the building materials. The alternative building materials which have lesser environmental impact are suggested to be utilized in an office building.