Technical Approach to Environmentally Sustainable Architecture in Jordan

Abstract

Sustainable architecture is a major subject in glow of the environmental degradation that the world faces today. This paper disputes that there is a need in Jordan to expand the technical understanding of sustainable architecture to integrate the socio-cultural features in its production. The need appears in which that Jordan architects have failed to distinguish the worth of the social dimension in facilitating the improvement of sustainable trends. One of the end solutions have been urbanized to improve the energy effectiveness regarding to construction that require high initial venture and are based on technical issue. Furthermore, end low cost techniques like old mud architecture were developed which don’t fit in with the goals of the upward movable urban population such as Bedouins. Technical issue is then seen as the only way of addressing environmental poverty. The role of society such as consumers, customers and decision makers for sustainable architecture has been ignored.  The outcomes are important as this issue is of certain relevance for developing countries for instance Jordan that are still in the process of industrializing but are so far to meet the high costs of development. Both urbanization and housing expansion take a heavy charge on the environment and the need of suitable techniques and sustainable construction suggests that the architectural vocation has failed to distinguish the vital need for developing socially suitable sustainable architectural practices for Jordan.

Keywords: sustainable architecture, energy efficient constructions, and social sustainability, Jordan