Evidence-based design and research approaches rely on actual or synthetic data revealing various environmental performance qualities of integrated design elements.
Evidence-based design approaches demand adequate reasoning based on fundamental principles of building physics and it demands for coherent arguments and rigorous standards of evidence rooted in design honesty.
Evidence-based approaches are the best course of self-corrective action against “green washing” and even “green-splashing” practices in the building industry.
Evidence-based approaches destroys the fallacy of magic list of prescriptive high-performance design solutions (promised to be applicable to any context - climactic, social, cultural or performative).
Evidence-based design helps us to continuously question what is obvious or as expected and offers us a self-correcting mechanism to our own mistakes or preconceptions.
Evidence-based approaches is that it prevents us to impose our own needs and wants on the final research or design product but instead it helps us to humbly interrogate our theories and take seriously what we find.
Greenwashing: An artificial claim to being green. Superficial claims of being green. It is defined as an artificial claim to being green without the measurable delivery of green features, such as lowering energy use or minimizing the use of harmful volatile organic compounds in finishes.
Green-splashing: The design of conspicuously green buildings that nominally are green or that even certified to be green, but that are inefficient because of their excessive surface or window area, excessive use of artificial light for show, or a single, conspicuously green improvement. Complex and inefficient shapes.
Omer T. Karaguzel, PhD
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