Developing regionally specific environmental building tools for China

Despite the creation of a variety of environmental building tools, it remains difficult to select existing tools or to develop new tools to address specific needs in many regions. This is largely due to insufficient transparency and complexity surrounding existing tools as well as the vague understanding of regionally specific conditions and requirements. An approach is proposed for developing regionally specific environmental building tools for China. Two new conceptual frameworks are established to classify environmental building tools and their related factors. Based on the new frameworks, a survey was conducted to understand local Chinese architects' perceptions about the relative importance of environmental building factors, and their expectations about the character, orientation, function and styles of environmental building tools in China. Based on these results, a suite approach to developing regionally specific environmental building tools is proposed and the implications of their applications in China are considered.