Green buildings -- the planet's savior
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Over in downtown Kuala Lumpur -- the GTower is set to become an iconic green landmark in the busy capital.
The 1.5 million square feet (some 139,354 square meters) GTower is a combination of two 30-floor towers with offices, a hotel and a club all under one roof.
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The GTower, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [File photo] |
The social club has the biggest club floor in Southeast Asia, spanning over 12,000 square feet (some 1,114 square meters).
Colin Ng, GTower executive director, said that being green was not about planting a few trees and turning off the lights and stop using water.
Instead, it was about recycling energy and minimizing wastage, Ng told Xinhua.
"That was all waste materials, but we saw it not as being waste materials because they could be reused in a different way.
"The wood on the floor were previously used in our old office, so its 15-year-old wood that we used. The furniture was from an old restaurant which is going through a retrofit -- they were about to throw them away.
"The waste oil from the kitchen, we turn them into organic soap. The waste vegetables from the kitchen are turned into bioenzyme cleaners. So waste materials are valuable," said Ng.
GTower uses about 28 percent less energy compared to other structures of similar sizes, and almost all features in the tower are recycled or reusable.
Ng added that the waste heat from the air conditioner system is used for hot water generation for the hotel, heating up also the swimming pools.
The building uses double glazed glass panel with a layer of vacuum trapped in between that cuts down on heat transmission.
"The areas with more direct sunlight, less glass. Areas where there are more indirect sunlight, more glass. That helps reduce the building's cooling load by five percent," said Ng.
To Ng, building a physical infrastructure is half way of the path of going green, and making sure the building is maintained and there is no wastage is an on-going process.
She said that its staff, as well as its guests, are encouraged to think green and make full use of the recycling bins located around the building.
Green buildings like the Malaysian Energy Commission Headquarter and the GTower are new in Malaysia.
But with the Malaysian government's recent announcement of a green building index to push for sustainable constructions -- both buildings may just set the standard on how buildings should be built in the country.
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