Material transitions and associated embodied energy input of rural buildings: Case Study Of Qinyong Village in Ningbo China

Abstract

From the early 1980s onward, construction practice in rural China has shown a gradual transformation from using locally available materials to urban-like and highly processed modern building materials. This transition may have a significant impact on a building's environmental performance, such as its indoor thermal comfort and embodied energy intensity. This paper examines three types of houses built in a village in China in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. The research indicates that replacing traditional materials with modern ones has not improved the indoor thermal comfort equally with the increase of embodied energy input. Dismantling traditional houses to give way to new houses with modern materials is not the way to improve indoor thermal comfort. The buildings completed in the 1980s and the 1990s in rural China require special attention in future thermal retrofitting plans.