Every aspect of the CCD’s design has been finely tuned to prevent – despite possessing enough space for a performance hall, giant auditorium, and enough floor space for 8000 attendees. Engineers began with 6000 tons of low carbon concrete. A good start. From there, things take a turn for the higher-tech: sophisticated heating and cooling systems that that use minimal amounts of juice, all linked up to a central computer that monitors environmental conditions in real time and adjusts electricity consumption accordingly.
When the building is stuffed with guests, it even traps their radiating heat and water vapour to be stored for later use. The CCD even produces its own giant stores of ice to tap for a quick cool-off, no air conditioning required. And it doesn’t hurt that the place is pretty damn pretty, to boot. [Inhabitat]
The Joker
Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 1:32 PMZero carbon…..really? While I applaud the technology and effort that’s gone into this building to reduce it carbon footprint, last time I looked, glass, steal and cement making still requires a furnace, construction still required cranes, transport of materials to site still required trucks etc. etc. It’s a start and likely a pretty good one, but we have an incredibly long way to go to reach zero carbon emissions. Maybe Reduced Carbon would have been a better title.
Reuben Brickell
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 9:24 AMMy thoughts exactly.
olearymo
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 10:25 AMYeah, good points (it’s ‘steel’ btw). I guess it’s more a zero carbon while running thing, even if it’s not zero carbon construction.
Good for this kinda thing to be in style tho. Encourages others.
Jonathan
Friday, October 15, 2010 at 11:05 PM“Zero carbon” never refers to the building process itself. It’s impossible to create building materials without expending some energy, so all buildings, even ones described as “green”, created some CO2 while being created/built.
They mean that it is a net zero CO2 emitter during usage. This means that it emits a very small amount of CO2 and this amount is offset by carbon offset methods.