A New Vision For Sustainable Urban Housing Combines Technology With Open Spaces
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By Michael J Coren,Michael J Coren
As long as sustainable housing meant hay bales and off-the-grid, it was never going to inspire the masses. Now that sustainable is stylish, ubiquitous, and (increasingly) affordable, green housing is becoming a bit more mainstream in cities and suburbs: Just look at Britain's "transition towns," LEED-certification, and the spread of passive homes.
The Canopea project from France is looking to take this trend further by marrying the high technology aspects of sustainability--smart grids, super-efficient heating and cooling, and sustainable mobility--with the natural advantages of earthen walls, rooftop gardens, and indoor vegetation.
Canopea's "nanotower" design (which won Europe's Solar Decathlon competition), essentially stacks modular small single-family homes on floors with plenty of open spaces and vegetation. It tries to combine the efficiency and convenience of urban living with some of the lure of leafy suburbs. The nanotowers' co-housing-style dwellings offer personal sleeping and bathing quarters, with shared cooking, laundry, garden, and recreation spaces. The design maxes out at 10 floors, to keep things dense yet manageable.
So far, the prototype--just the top housing floor and a common-space level have been built--has taken top honors in European competitions. But the Canopea team from the French region of Rhone-Alpes is set to see how far it can take it.
The biggest catch may still be the cost. Like many homes pushing the sustainable envelope, it doesn't come cheap. Although the team hasn't released the costs of Canopea's construction, similar projects such as the Leaf House ran around half a million dollars. A response to these high prices (generally in connection with large national competitions such as the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon) has been a new breed of competitions for sustainable homes that make cost a primary consideration. To wit, the Rocky Mountain Institute is now launching its own solar home competition, to encourage permanent green homes, at affordable prices, in cities around the country. Sustainable houses won't mean much if only a few people can live in them.
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Copyright 2012 by Fast Company. Reprinted with permission.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat to see this type of article. We are attempting this on a very small scale at our Victorian, brick built retrofit ecohome in Nottingham UK. We have just completed the retrofit of the our entire plot - we call it USING THE PLOT. We now manage all rainfall on site - sending nothing to storm drains. We have reduced our personal water use from national average of 150l pppd to just 50l and that includes the personal care of my elderly infirm mother, 6 year old daughter and our lodger.
We have set our small garden to permaculture growing, the rabbits provide us with mulch and organic fertilizer from their poo, the garden is disabled accessible and we are even experimenting with edible aquaculture. We forage and store food from our local environment and buy local for food and second hand for furniture. White goods are the most efficient we can afford.
Our home was the first radical eco retrofit in the UK. We reduced our CO2 emissions from 19t down to less than 1/4t.
14 years on, we are still experimenting with what it means to live sustainably in the urban landscape. Our aim is to immerse the built environment in an edible urban landscape.
Beyond our work on our home, I am also developing a social impact bond for vulnerable communities to alleviate food, water and fuel poverty by the community, for the community. Bond also includes community trading of carbon savings.
My husband Gil Schalom is an architect specialising in advanced low energy design and has several passiv retrofits in his portfolio.
We are delighted to be shortlisted for a Government Award - Retrofit Pioneers of the Year - we find out 31 October.
If you would like to feature our project please let us know. We are featured on Architecture 2030 website as a case study.
Kind regards
Penney Poyzer
Nottingham ecohome and urban permaculture garden.
its actually pretty amazing what a little PV power can do for passive solar/geothermal hvac. 49% of the power bill could be free(sort of)....
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