The Ultimate Sustainable House: Off- Grid and Affordable Solutions, Auckland, New Zealand (As per The Living Building Challenge)

Abstract

As another decade passed away, the Earth has inched another mark close to the predicted, global warming point of no return. The extreme situation demands the architectural community to be more innovative and provide ground breaking proposals to face the enormous challenge of receding the global warming phenomenon in this century. It is necessary that the present aim of designing a sustainable built environment be evolved beyond simply reducing the consumption of resources, in order to have a net positive and beneficial impact on the prevailing environment conditions. In New Zealand, of the 40% energy consumed by the building sector, the residential sector uses up almost 10%. Each year 20,000 new residential units are proposed for construction. It is necessary to control the quality of these homes. It should be mandatory for them to be sustainable in design, construction and maintenance. This major step alone would account for impacting up to 10% energy consumed by the country. This research thesis stresses on the possibility and the vehement need of affordable and self-sustainable housing in the Auckland region. The paper begins with an introduction and history of the housing typologies that have evolved overtime in New Zealand, and on analysing them assesses the best possible typology for the present. The thesis goes onto conducting an investigation on popular sustainability assessment tools and recognises the one system that goes beyond just the reduction and consumption of resources; a system that helps realise the limitless scope and the true meaning of a sustainable built environment (i.e. Living Building Challenge). The final section of the research shows how a self sustainable dwelling can be designed and realised in the Auckland region as per the chosen sustainable rating standard. This would provide a solution for not only improving the quality of a dwelling structure but have the desired positive impact on the environment, reducing dependency on non-renewable resources and public infrastructure systems. The result is an economic model with local recognition that can not only self-sustain but also return back to the environment, functioning in harmony with nature, much like any other living organism.