An Analytical study on sustainability in urban architecture with special reference to residential buildings in Colombo

Abstract

Although man seems a much-developed creature from his days of the jungle, he still is a part and parcel of a natural order of things. Man's development is reflected through his construction and technological improvements. Yet these in the long run has incurred damage and lost to the environment. Therefore the 20th century, foreseeing a future crisis and already arisen problems, became much aware of the issue of sustainability. This is an attempt to understand the broad scope of sustainable design. This study is a distillation of existing sustainable design theories, strategies, principles and guidelines with a focus on an urban Residential Buildings. A holistic perspective on this topic result in a much clearer understanding of the concept of sustainability, as well as a better grasp of how to steer the design industry towards more sustainable practices. It is important to note here, that this study is focused on sustainable design applicable to urban context and Residential Buildings. In the actual situation, the designer can never hope to reach absolute sustainability, but must strive to approach it to the limit of his capabilities. This analogy underlines one of the main goals of this study, that is, to take the existing knowledge of sustainable design, which has so far been applied in bits and pieces, and combine them all to create the most complete strategy possible