Idea House: Future Tropical Living Today Paperback - 2011 - 1st Edition

The book is a chronological journey in the creation of the first carbon zero house in SE Asia. Chapter One, entitled "Team," gives due consideration to the particular effect the sustainability agenda had on both the client and architect in the creation of a ground breaking green residential prototype. It goes further to define the brief and how it was born out of an interdisciplinary collaboration amongst a broader consortium of built environment professionals. The role of the architect, as a conduit to these different built environment professionals, is explored in order to highlight the increasing importance of a style of project leadership that embraces a broader interdisciplinary understanding of the pertinent issues facing the design team stakeholders. This similarly allows for an exploration of the process of design, and in particular the role of the interdisciplinary workshop in its ability to optimize project efficiency and minimize waste. The importance of being able to demonstrate the prototype's sustainable credentials permits a brief overview of some of the global assessment methods that can act as prompts for thinking during the design process as well as being credible green marketing tools. It also covers the reasons behind why particular assessment methods were chosen. It is balanced by an overview of why more quantitative measuring criteria (Le., carbon foot printing) are needed in order to further calculate and demonstrate a development's environmental impact through more objective means. The importance of understanding the social and spatial intricacies of the residential typology through similarly objective means is also explored.