CHALLENGES AND VISIONS IN THE BUILDING SECTOR

In most graphs showing sector-by-sector energy use, buildings do not appear to have themost dominating role. But it has. Contrary to this, buildings probably account for almosthalf of the global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, if we include the productionof building materials, the energy needed during the building process, the life span energyuse of buildings and the energy demanding demolishing phase.As a result, the building sector will be put more and more in the centre. The pressure onthe building sector to develop a smarter energy system will increase. At its core will beenergy efficiency or rational use of energy, offering the same service using a fraction ofenergy in buildings, industry and transportation, supplemented by renewable energy.One of the most challenging themes is the irresponsible use of huge glass areas as anarchitectural trend. It is documented that the weak point in the building envelope is thewindow. In cold climates a window is like a hole in the wall in an energy leakage contextand we have to react accordingly by reducing the window, the glass area and introducehigher insulation quality windows.