Since 1972 with the release of the “Limits of Growth”; published by the Club of Rome, the world becomes aware of the serious concerns of consuming natural resources. That report; which was written by a team of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the start and motivation for many further studies, presented a forecast for 100 years addressing 5 major global concerns including dependence on nonrenewable resources and their accelerated depletion, and concluded that “if the growth trends in world population and industrialization continued unchanged, the model’s limits to growth would be reached sometime within the following one hundred years (around 2072), with the most probable result being a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity to meets our needs.” They then encouraged finding alternatives that “ensure the well-being of the human communities while being respectful of the life-sustaining ecological equilibriums”. This paper considers the current global concern in saving energy and using renewable natural resources. The paper presents a comparison between the properties, advantages and disadvantages of traditional materials used in Koya residential units during the early 20th century represented by limestone and gypsum, and its currently common materials in building residential units represented by concrete blocks and plaster, in terms of heat gain and thermal consumption in Winter and Summer.

Keywords: Energy Consumption, Traditional Materials, Limestone, Contemporary House

Published: June 2020

DOI:10.14500/krc2019.Gen261

http://dx.doi.org/10.14500/krc2019.Gen261