Ecologically Regenerative Building Systems through Exergy Efficiency: Designing for Structural Order and Ecosystem Services

Katharina Hecht (), Abraham Ortega Reboso, Michelle van der Vegt, Jaco Appelman and Maibritt Pedersen Zari
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Katharina Hecht: Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Abraham Ortega Reboso: Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Michelle van der Vegt: Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Jaco Appelman: Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Maibritt Pedersen Zari: School of Future Environments, Auckland University of Technology, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland 1010, New Zealand

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: Regenerative design is being increasingly explored in urban environments to counteract and adapt to the changing climate and degradation of ecosystems. A critical success factor for the implementation of regenerative design is the evaluation of urban and building systems in relation to ecological performance and benefits. In biological ecosystems, the availability of high-quality energy, called exergy, and structural order can be used as indicators of the efficiency of on-going ecological processes. Structural order refers to the organization and systematic arrangements of biotic and abiotic elements within an ecosystem based on the available space and interactions with the goal to form a functional system. Ecological processes use the available exergy and generate ecosystem services (ESs) upon which human survival and that of other living organisms depend. In this article, structural order and ESs generation are proposed as indicators for exergy efficiency and accumulation in building systems, respectively, which can evaluate to what extent they are ecologically functional and regenerative. Based on this insight, design strategies are derived from the functioning of ecosystems that describe how buildings could become habitats that host living, non-living, and hybrid systems with optimized thermodynamic efficiency and that can generate ESs. This research suggests that when buildings improve structural order (an ecological concept) and implement ESs generating processes similar to biological ecosystems, they can facilitate regenerative processes more effectively that consume and generate resources and, with this, destroy but also accumulate exergy.

Keywords: regeneration; building systems; exergy efficiency; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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