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Net Zero Housing: The Architects' Small House Service Bureau and Contemporary Sustainable Single‐Family House Design Methods for the United States
Author(s) -
Tucker Lisa M.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of interior design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.229
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1939-1668
pISSN - 1071-7641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1939-1668.2011.01067.x
Subject(s) - engineering , sustainable design , architectural engineering , sustainability , single family detached home , service (business) , interior design , intergenerational equity , civil engineering , economy , political science , economics , law , ecology , biology
Perhaps, the single biggest issue facing the design professions in the United States, and interior design in particular, is consumption. According to Phil Harrison, President and CEO of Perkins + Will (2010), architects today can easily handle the challenges of sustainable materials, water, and site using known technologies. The major challenge to sustainability is to produce a zero energy use, carbon‐neutral solutions. Harrison argues there is no excuse for architects and designers in the twenty‐first century not to use the easily available innovative water strategies, nontoxic, renewable, and recyclable materials and apply common knowledge about how to best site a building to maximize natural daylighting, prevailing winds, and sun cycles for thermal heating and natural cooling. This paper addresses how the approach of the Architects' Small House Service Bureau (ASHSB) to single‐family houses during the early twentieth century offers a significant model for addressing some of the challenges of net zero carbon housing solutions and sustainable houses in the United States. The ASHSB incorporated in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1919 in response to the need for affordable small houses that were also designed well. The principles upon which the ASHSB defined design excellence inform today's need for sustainable and smaller single‐family house design. Members of the ASHSB dedicated themselves to the production of small house designs that maximized materials, minimized waste, and capitalized on synergies with manufacturers and builders. The members believed in social equity, economy, and ecology—the three‐part approach informing twenty‐first century sustainable design, including residential design efforts. Thus, the organization and its members' designs provide a template for how to approach this daunting issue.