World of Environmental Design Magazine

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Since I had the chance to live in a Chinese building for half of its lifetime (2 years), and witness some remarkable design and maintenance challenges, some unique to tropical environments, I thought I would highlight some.

Concrete, Thermal Mass, and Cold Humid Winters
In the winter humid months of January and February, the high humidity weather fronts that are pushed north from the China Sea, 300 km to the south, the concrete buildings that have cooled to the ambient temperature (~5-10C) become permanent condensation surfaces. Moreover, the ceramic tile floors and stairs are a real hazard for descending.

Air Conditioning, Single Pane Windows, and Concrete Thermal Mass

Mould

Flat Roof Leakage, Stairway Rivers

Ants

Loud Internal Environment
Concrete walls and ceiling with ceramic tile floors makes for an incredibly loud interior environment. Add on a continuously loud exterior environment due to construction.

Energy Consumption !!! ???
Our energy consumption was 10000 kW over 9 months or about 1100 kW/month. The interior space is about 750 sq.ft. In Calgary, we consumed about the same in a 1,700 sq.ft. home.

Dust and Air Quality

Over the past 6 years I have had the opportunity to visit and work with the Jorg and Helen Ostrowski (owners) of the Alberta Sustainable Home/Office (ASH - http://www.ecobuildings.net) on a number of occasions.

Each visit to the house in suburban Calgary is an enlightening experience that leaves you driving home with green designs for your own home in mind. Perhaps the greatest pleasure is an Eco-evening when the opportunity presents itself to sit on the edge of the centrally located masonry heater (fireplace) in the dim evening light, listening to radical new ideas about environmental design and the reorganization of a sustainable society.

I have been particularly intrigued with the quintuple pane window system, the cold climate passive solar design, the refrigerator free kitchen, the composting toilet, and the rainwater collection system.

From August 2003 until July 2005, I had the opportunity to live and work in the southern autonomous region of GuangXi, China. The capital city Nanning is a good example of a part of the world that is undergoing dramatic change.

2 years in southwest China

unexpected observations, unusual conclusions, so lucky to be Canadian

Over the nearly 2 years spent in this region, I have come to some conclusions about China's environmental design future.

First, is the apparent disregard for the impact of one's own actions on others. Before arriving in the most populous country (see image right - enough people to reclaim every brick in a multi-story building) on Earth, I hypothesized that with so many people living so densely, the Chinese must be culturally attune to dealing with large crowds effectively. To my surprise the exact opposite is true! After being nearly spit on and experiencing people and cars stopping really wherever they please completely unaware of anyone around them, I have only to say that people here really do not think about one another. If that is fact, then how on Earth can one expect people to stop and think about their environmental impacts!

One visit to a bank or for that matter nearly any cashier lineup and the reality is forcefully evident. And the pattern of "fending for yourself" is characteristic of the larger flow of society. Although I'm sure many Chinese would suggest helping a person (or for that matter animal/plant whatever) in need, they would finish the sentence with the implied conclusion that it must be somehow their (it's) fault and not their or "the government's" responsibility.

Second, the cultural acceptance of the "party line" is so unbelievable for any country at the beginning of the 21st century (only further illustrating the absolute closure and disconnect with the rest of the world until recently). This has translated (see image right of cookie wrapper - translation is not a strong point but perhaps honesty and realization of the changing modern world that is tilting manufacturing towards China is?) into a fantastic billion strong conglomeration of energy and work to build a modern country. Ironically, it may also one day be called upon to "fix" the many environmental problems that are being created in the first wave of development. Likewise, it cannot be ignored that the "development" may actually produce net positive results in population control and environmental destruction...the latter is still unclear.

In conclusion, I have confidence that although there appear to be some significant cultural and behavioural hurdles to overcome, the government (if intact after all of this) may have remarkably more control and power over the people of this vast country that any other western counterpart and thus may be better prepared to deal with environmental degradation than many other parts of the world.

Northern Yunnan

a trekker's paradise - dam it though!

On two different occasions (2 National May Holidays), I had the fortune of travelling by train, bus to northern Yunnan province. And both times, I was blown away by the open space and undeveloped wilderness. It seemed impossible that any space could be left in China, but the eastern tail of the Himalayas has remained a formidable barrier to development thus far. On long bus rides north to ZhongDian, my eyes followed numerous ridgelines and watersheds that could easily be traversed as the treeline is relatively low or sparse (rainshadow) and the snowlevel is high enough at least in May.

The second visit to this region (2005), did reveal the coming storm however. What only a year earlier were dangerous but entertaining roads that followed topography often in steep river valleys had been blasted to make way for high level mountain roads and numerous dams. The pristine mountain sides scarred only by herding trails was quickly being carved up by construction roads. Unfortunately, the geology and steep terrain is also leading to excessive erosion of these new routes. Although the view is incredible being up on top as opposed to in the valley, sadly I think ZhongDian, once an outpost will soon become a dense tourist denizen similar to LiJiang to the south.

My goal for my second visit to ZhongDian was to touch some snow (Canadians need that fix every so often eh!) and so I decided to spend some time up in the snowpeaks surrounding ZhongDian to the west. I also hoped that I could get a glimpse into the next valley. It was a great 3 days and I finally got to test out my Chinese made tent, which effectively repelled rain, snow, and frost. While walking high up, I met a variety of Chinese tourists being guided on foot. What a pleasant site to see locals enjoying their own nature.

I wrapped up my short walk with a meeting of a herding Tibetan family. I offered them my cheese (they thought was really odd tasting) and a few apples. They passed on the banana chips. We ended up in their Tibetan Home made of 50cm diameter timber, sod thermal mass walls and facing southeast to capture some passive solar heat. I was offered some yak yogurt which was in no way pasteurized which lead to 2 weeks of diahorrea (I'm convinced that was it). I also ate pancakes and drank yak tea. The idea was to put ground buckwheat in your mouth (incredible when you're dehydrated) and then drink the tea. An experience.

I showed them my digital camera which from their reaction I am pretty sure they had never seen before. Watching their reaction, I was reminded about how the act of looking at yourself has changed our culture...

Here's hoping the barriers of the Himalayas north of ZhongDian win the day!

(I hope to be back in 2006 to walk a significant portion of this region)

Master's students course - Industrial Water Pollution Control

preparing a nation to go from 20% water treatment to 100%?

More to come...still living it and watching.

Alex Joseph
Canadian in Nanning, China

In the summer of 2000, I had the opportunity to visit Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka in search of examples of environmental hotels.

Thailand

empowering its people to protect the environment

I was based out of the graduate faculty of the Asian Institue of Technology in northern Bangkok. My impression of Thailand was of a people embracing new environmental thinking. It appeared that the King was helping to drive this and truly believes in empowering his people. A breath of fresh air in a region where dictatorship - prosperity for the ruling class appeared much more prevalent (see Cambodia to the east).

Cambodia

scratching out a living seem to fall well ahead of protecting the environment for a future meal

I went overland by bus, pickup to Batambang in south-central Cambodia. Our goal was to visit some hotels in Siem Reap, tourism base for the temple complex of Angor Wat. To get to Siem Reap, we were to cross the Tonle Sap lake (now designated as a UNEP biosphere reserve). On both ends of this water journey, we got to view first hand, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees living off the land (or more correctly the river delta). A low ecological footprint for sure, as it was one of my first opportunities to see people who likely had never really used electricity. They were 95% reliant on what the water brought them, and for many that meant fish. Apparently, the Cambodian government/monarchy had decided to conduct extensive logging around the lake which was leading to excessive sedimentation entering the lake damaging fish resources.

I also witnessed what is now a common sight in Asia, plastic bags and bottles. Fortunately, the bottles were often being reused.

Vietnam

thermal mass of concrete buildings provide very cool interior environments in the north

The first visit to Vietnam in the summer of 2000, I zipped quickly through the south with my destination Hanoi and in particular the northern part of Vietnam, Sapa region near the Chinese border. Not only was there 'the highest mountain peak in IndoChina' but a chance to see a small village and surrounding indigenous countryside being impacted by the new gold rush or tourism.

Malaysia and Borneo

the protected island of Mt. Kinabalu

Singapore

incredible amount of trees covering what seemed like 75% of the pavement in the country...oh yeah and clean for sure

Indonesia

dense, friendly, tourism development the real impact (Kuta Beach water pollution in with the tide)

Sri Lanka

poor nation (crippled by Tamil war and Tsunami) with the education system, forethought, and will power to make environmental design changes

The final third of my visit was a professional sojourn to Sri Lanka to assist the Confifi Group Hotels assess and shift their business practices to a more sustainable path. They saw the opportunity to have an "inexpensive" grad student assist them as more than worth it. Over 3 weeks I was offered the opportunity to look inside one of the largest hospitality companies in the country.

I began by trying to understand what was driving this company and in particular this Director (Mr. F. Ansar) to embrace environmental change and promote it as feverishly as he did. He admitted that his daughter was enthralled with environmental studies at school and that sparked his interest (concluding there is power in our children). But he also told me in not as many words that the Aitken Spence Group and in particular the Kandalama Hotel had changed the market for 5 star hotels in Sri Lanka. With the arrival of the much acclaimed Kandalama in the mid 90's, European tourists and even more importantly European tour companies were beginning to demand a minimum environmental standard in the companies that they dealt with. So in this case money was talking.

European vacationers were unknowingly changing an industry half a world away for the good. At the Confifi Group Hotels, although the environmental focus was to be the 5-star Eden Hotel, the trickle down effect meant that I was to examine the whole "fleet" of hotels and in fact other business units including a fish farm. To my satisfaction, not only did the director push for this holistic view of the company and the environment, but the people at the management and engineering level did as well!

In the end, over 100 managers, staff, and employees through to the gardeners and kitchen staff sat through 6 hour environmental workshops on two different occasions in 2000 and 2001. An environmental policy was developed and purchasing, engineering, and landscaping departments were beginning to formulate a management system to deal with environmental problems.

Unfortunately, the armed conflict with northern island Tamils and more recently the December 2005 Tsunami have likely slowed the evolution of the Confifi Hotel Group into a truly environmentally operated company although I have no doubt they have come a long way already.

NOTE: My thoughts are with the Confifi Staff after the first floor was inundated by the Tsunami

Alex Joseph

I have been fortunate to travel to at least 3 continents since I completed my Masters of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary. And my new perspective on life has altered what I see when I visit new places. Not only is their vast opportunity but just so much to see!

Here's to hoping I can write on environmental building design in New Zealand, Nepal, India, Africa (anywhere really), Mexico again, South America beyond Bolivia and Peru, sure why not western and eastern Europe, and Siberia would be great...

Alex Joseph
Elements Group Inc.
M.Env.Des.
LEED accredited professional