Eco-Architecture Takes Hold In Thailand Too?

Recently the Sleuth came across an interesting article on eco-tourism which made reference to the Ocean One condominium project in Pattaya....

From the article in the WSJ by Jennifer Chen

Mention Pattaya, and most people think of the Thai resort town's seedy nightlife, drag-queen shows and bedraggled beachfront. But Bruno Pingel, a German real-estate developer, wants to change the landscape with Thailand's first environmentally friendly high-rise.

In the next few months, Mr. Pingel's company, Siam Best Enterprise Ltd., plans to begin building Ocean One, a 91-story, 611-unit beachfront condominium and commercial development with a $245 million price tag. When completed -- the target date is 2010 -- the tower will be able to tout not only its slick design and views of the Gulf of Thailand but also its ecofriendly credentials.

Ocean One's creators say they are taking steps to lower the building's water and electricity consumption through green technology. Green technology often costs more, especially in a developing country like Thailand, where the latest eco-friendly gadgets have to be imported. Mr. Pingel says Ocean One residents will save as much as 30% on electricity bills because of energy-efficient air conditioners.

According to Woods Bagot, the Australia-based architecture firm that designed the project, 80% of the water used in the building -- where condos will sell for about $3,000 a square meter -- will be recycled. Tap water will be fed back into toilets, and then treated and used for the grounds and gardens. A highspeed elevator will zip visitors to an observation deck, generating enough electricity as it descends to light the deck at night. Solar panels on the roof of an adjacent commercial building will power shops and restaurants. Woods Bagot says it hopes the panels will generate excess energy that will be fed into Thailand's national electricity grid.

Asia generally lags the U.S. and Europe as far as the green-buildings movement goes. But there are signs that green architecture is starting to move more into the mainstream.

"The movement toward green design (in Asia) has been advancing a lot faster in the past five years, probably because of the influence of foreign architects," says Kenneth Yeang, a Malaysian architect who has been practicing green design for three decades.

Ocean One's Mr. Pingel, an 18-year Pattaya resident, acknowledges he hoped to make the building more palatable to city officials by incorporating green design features. But he also was motivated by a sense of social responsibility: "I look at Pattaya as my hometown now. That's simply made me think and believe that we have to do something nice, not only for our pocket but also for all our neighbors."

It's a sentiment some environmentalists hope will grow in Asia, where massive populations, breakneck development, poor governance and simple ignorance have resulted in extensive environmental degradation, the consequences of which have become more evident in recent years. Every year, extensive deforestation in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia is blamed for landslides. Ultramodern cities such as Hong Kong now contend with sharply deteriorating air quality. Parts of China, Australia and India have experienced severe and prolonged droughts in recent years. Global warming is potentially an even bigger issue in Asia than elsewhere, with a number of studies raising alarms. Meantime, China's race to industrialize could soon propel it ahead of the U.S. as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide -- the greenhouse gas believed to be driving up temperatures world-wide.

In the U.S.and Europe, anxiety about the environment galvanized noted architects such as Sir Norman Foster and Renzo Piano to create buildings that have minimal ecological impact. Some of the techniques they and other architects pioneered in the 1970s include employing technologies that reduce water and energy consumption, constructing with recycled or sustainable materials and designing with natural light and ventilation in mind.

Such moves could make a difference: according to the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that promotes sustainable design, buildings consume 65% of the electricity in the U.S. and churn out 30% of its greenhouse gases.

With the exception of Japan -- where environmental awareness as well as sophisticated design are on par with Europe and the U.S. -- most architecture firms in Asia aren't quite there yet, architects and urban planners say. One problem: No one can agree on what a green building is. Malaysia's Mr. Yeang scoffs at current stabs at environmentally friendly architecture in Asia.

"A lot of architects do "greenwash." They put in some gadgets and call themselves green. Being green is a lot more complex than simply having recycling systems," he says.

Sean Chiao, Asia regional director of EDAW, a U.S.-based architecture and environmental consulting group, pins responsibility for Asia's slow start in green architecture on governments that have yet to revise antiquated building codes. But, he adds, "When your environment is lousy, it doesn't help you, as a society, to live in your green buildings."

The biggest obstacle by far, however, is the reluctance of developers. "It's all about speed and cost in Asia. This is still a developing region," says Mr. Yeang. Desmond Spencer -- Harty, Ocean One's architect, says environmentally-friendly design adds 15% to construction costs -- a fact he says most developers in Thailand still find hard to stomach.

Still, certification systems for eco-friendly buildings -- mostly initiated by developers and architects themselves -- have been set up in India, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, where the number of certified buildings has climbed to 130 from just four in 1996. By comparison, more than 700 buildings have been certified under the U.S. system since 2000.

Architects and urban planners blame the difference on the fact that, unlike in some U.S. cities, there are few official incentives such as tax breaks for developers in Asia to go green.

Some Asian governments, though, are actively promoting eco-friendly architecture. Government buildings in Taiwan have to meet green criteria, while the Hong Kong government is looking to increase energy-efficiency requirements. And China's government announced in January it is raising energy-efficiency standards for all existing and new buildings in an effort to cut pollution levels and lower demand for resources. Beijing even threatened to revoke developers' business licenses if they failed to comply.

Buildings that feature water-recycling systems, improved insulation, energy-efficient appliances and solar photovoltaic cells are starting to crop up throughout Asia. Most are government offices, academic institutions or public buildings such as Singapore's new National Library, designed by Mr. Yeang.

However, an increasing number of ecofriendly buildings are residential. In the Bangkok suburb of Bang Na, a new residential compound features 28 houses with specially designed roofs that absorb minimal heat and increase ventilation. Hong Kong developer Swire Properties Ltd. built the Orchards -- two 38-story residential towers in city's Quarry Bay area -- by using waste-reducing methods and installed green features such as a water-recycling system that captures rainwater and uses it to irrigate the gardens and wash balcony floors. New environmentally minded, residential high-rises also are going up in other cities including Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Nanjing and Shanghai.

Outside Shanghai, municipal authorities are planning an entire eco-city, called Dongtan, or "Eastern Beach" in Mandarin, which promises to rely almost solely on renewable energy and produce minimal waste. Transportation will include solar-powered boats and buses with hydrogen fuel cells. If all goes as planned, Dongtan, which is being built by Arup Group, the British engineering firm, will be home to as many as half a million people.

Advocates of green architecture say these flirtations with eco-friendly design need to be seriously stepped up, especially in Asian cities. Cities cover just 2% of the world's land surface, but they use three-quarters of the world's total resources, says Usha Iyer-Raniga, an expert on sustainable buildings at the Centre for Design at RMIT University in Australia. While Asian cities currently have a smaller ecological "footprint" -- the amount of land and water needed for a population -- than cities in the West, that could change as the region's urban centers attract more people and economies continue to grow, she adds. According to Chinese government statistics, over the past decade China's urban population has swelled to 44% from 30%. And China is now home to 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, says Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based research group.

Mr. Yeang is blunter about the need for green architecture: "There's going to be a major (global) environmental disaster that will force us to react, but then it will be too late... . There needs to be a quantum leap in green living in the next five to 10 years."