How to design a sustainable building?

 

Does anyone use “sustainability” as a concept? If we say we want to design a sustainable building, how can we start and how can we evaluate? These questions are kept in my mind for our final project. We know we have COTE 10 to evaluate the building, and it influences us to follow a sustainability guide and brings out similar sustainable solutions. For example, many projects this year will use the combination of heavy timber and polycarbonate, a rain collection system, and a solar panel roof. But all of them seem to be an attached extra system which is used by us to make our building sustainable. It is like a model we applied to each building. Another dilemma comes: is the cost to build a sustainable building really sustainable?  Or if it conflicts with economics and aesthetics, will we give up sustainability? I haven’t figured out the answers yet, but what I am glad is that at least we realize that sustainability is more than visible green roof and solar panels, it can happen in the construction process, the future maintenance, the deconstruction process, we may have more freedom and become closer to a real sustainability.