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Conceptualizing Sustainable Design

One of the driving forces of Western capitalism is the concept of the unbounded frontier, this mythic belief that the future will always be better than the present. It’s an important driver in our society, but it has consequences. One of those consequences is that a lot of our current development - from suburbs built for cars rather than people, the 3,000 square foot single family home, and the 10,000 mile Caesar Salad may not be sustainable in a world where energy resources get more expensive, or where land usage becomes an issue.

Addressing what changes need to be made to society, including architecture and industrial design, to reduce the human impact of a modern lifestyle is the bête noire of sustainable design. In a nutshell, sustainable design is about improving efficiency, about building homes and neighborhoods around using local resources in a low impact way, and focusing on ways to bring life and home balance back together.

Sustainable designed and architected developments range from urban re-development to new housing projects, like the ones in the Wasatch Range in Utah. The aim is to make housing developments that are all within a short walk of both a communal parking facility, and a light rail facility. It’s zoned in a way that permits small businesses and homes to intermingle, so that going grocery shopping can be done on foot or by bicycle, rather than loading up an SUV. High quality broadband connections are usually integral to the design model, to encourage residents to telecommute.

The homes themselves tend to be on larger lots, and arranged so that back yards group together to form a park; the homes themselves are smaller, and are built extensively around sustainable design principles, like solar water heaters, and integrated air filtration. Many have integrated first stage sewage treatment built into the home itself, a hallmark of sustainable architecture. Landscaping is structured around providing shade and sunlight in the right amounts, before the house is placed and the foundation is laid.

The areas are built around pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and are an example of new urbanism; the developments are structured around bicycle and walking paths, and around having schools within walking distance of the majority of home owners, so that the need for school buses is minimized.

Other elements of modern sustainable architecture include an emphasis on energy efficiency, good insulation, and innovative ways to use solar thermal and mirrored ’sun tubes’ to provide indoor lighting; all of this is meant to keep the building easy to maintain.

Even in home construction, sustainability is becoming key. More and more homes are being made from pre-fabricated components, often made from recycled materials; there are competitions to turn used shipping containers into sustainable homes, and to help deal with the several million of them piled up and rusting near the ports of the United States. This emphasis on reusable components and prefabricated components cuts down.

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