Environmental performance and sustainable architecture a critical review in the context of singapore public housing 1

Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Prelude More than ever, sustainable development has become a prevailing issue, addressed in architectural literature, education and practice. Evolving from a long history and having large scope of coverage, sustainable architecture embodies issues of multi-dimensionality that involves various professions, i.e. architecture, building science, ecology, sociology, economics, politics, etc. This has inevitably led to fragmentations and discrepancies in sustainable architecture practice. This chapter forms the background for the research, by (1) tracing back the root of sustainable architecture, (2) reviewing housing design in sustainable development movement, and (3) recognising the increasing popularity of environmental performance from the practice of building environmental assessment methods. 1.2 1.2.1 Sustainable architecture – issues of multi-dimensionality Tracing the roots The quest for environmental value in architecture, for a harmonious balance between man and his surroundings, is not new. For centuries, and particularly in domestic and vernacular architecture, people adopted this approach out of necessity. (Gauzin-Muller, 2002) The root of environmental concerns in architecture lies on the relationship between human and the environment, and can be traced back for centuries (Gauzin-Muller, 2002), even to the 'hunting and gathering civilization' (Zeither, 1996). The resonance of these practices can be still be found in the primitive and vernacular buildings/shelters that still remain in the less developed parts of the world (Jones, 1998). The characteristics of these buildings/shelters are the needs to work with nature, to harvest the positive aspects from the ambient environment for survival purposes. David Lloyd Jones (1998) noted that 'early so cieties lived close to nature. Their lives were ruled by the seasons; they depended on benign aspects of the seasons, augmented by their own endeavours, for survival.'Along this early evolutional process of human being, it is observed that 'Our forefathe rs were intelligent enough to invent tools. They were capable of art and war. They formed societies and developed a distinctive culture in each. They were certainly clever enough to recognise a basic fact of ecology - that not all parts of the environment were equally hostile nor equally advantageous. Certain places, particularly those that were near water bodies, are especially propitious. Here, in such places, they had easy access to plant food and water. Small animals that came to drink and feed there were easy prey. The humans had only to protect themselves from attack from predatory animals or other human tribes and their future would be ensured. Here, in such places, they did not have to find sustenance, the environment supported them. (Ong, 1998) This relationship between human and environment, however, has changed in accordance to the change in human'scapability and world view. David Lloyd Jones documents that this movement is evident in the belief of 'Man is the measure of all things' (Jones, 1998uoting q Protagoras) – a statement that manifests the spirit of the Renaissance. Human beings, with their intellect and increase in physical prowess, have the desire of power over their natural environment. This world view and spirit shift was amplified in the Industrial Evolution, when humans started to exercise resource- and energy-intensive activities for profit. The Modern Movement has neglected many aspects that, when sought to address, form 'a prelude to supporting a diversity of architectural insight and experimentation aimed at twenty-first century environmental needs and priorities' (Porteous , 2002). In the midst of Industrialisation and Modernism, the notion and practice of ecological architecture, however, did not totally come to an end. The architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright adheres to the principles of integrity and of working with nature as a living organism that is continuously responding to its environment and occupants (Wright, 1954). Paolo Soleri, in the 1960s, invented the term 'ar cology'to describe the concept of architecture being consistent with ecology, and to guide his commitment in architectural and urban design. The formal and often-documented starting point of the green movement in architecture is the 1970s, during the oil crisis. The event triggered energy consciousness to the public at large, 'not through an awareness of the environmental issues involved, but through the realisation that limited energy supply would have a major impact on the way of life to which we had grown accustomed' (Jones, 1998 ). Environmental issues have made their way back to architectural discourse, not by rising out of necessity as in the past, but by rising out of the awareness of limited natural resources. The event triggered the search for energy conservation strategies, alternative energy, and subsequently the growth of solar homes (Zeither, 1996). On the other hand, the green movement also triggered dialogues between two schools of thoughts: the rationalist and the arcadian. While the rationalist puts his faith and thus efforts in technology development as a mean to overcome the environmental (energy) crisis; the arcadian school calls for a return to nature or a lifestyle of harmony living with nature as in a pre-industrial, ideally pre-urban state (Hagan, 2001). The application of the green concerns to architecture at this period gave birth to the term 'enviro nmental architecture',which refers to the deployment and application of environmental control strategies – e.g. orientating the building, building forms in response to climatic context, facilitating natural ventilation, providing sun-shading devices, and use of light shelves – in architectural design. 1.2.2 From environmental to sustainable architecture In the 1980s, numerous global events and treatises, starting from the concern of environmental sustainability, have developed the notion of sustainable development, and have recognised it as a prominent issue globally. In 1987, the 42nd United Nations Congress marked the emergence of an official definition of sustainable development in Brundtland's Report . Here, sustainable development is defined as ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987) Following from the UN Congress, the rising awareness of global warming in the early 1990s has paved a pathway for a number of other important global events – i.e. the Montreal Protocol (1990), the Rio Earth Summit (1992) and Kyoto Protocol (1996) – in which Green House Gases, CFCs, HCFCs, and rain forest destruction are among the main concerns. Agenda 21 – the development plan for the 21st century – was drawn up from the Rio Earth Summit to recommend a set of integrated principles, reaching both social and economic dimensions at the local level, to warrant sustainable development. These global events and the progressions made towards sustainable development have had implications to the development of the built environment. It is understandable, as the built environment is an envoy between human (and their activities) and the larger natural environment. The term 'sustainable architecture' has also emerged in architectural literature as an evolution from the concept of 'environmental architecture' . Unlike ' environmental architecture' which refers to architecture that isresponsive to the environment, 'sustainable architecture' implie s a larger coverage that includes the responsibility of sustaining not only the natural environment, but also the social, economic and other human related factors, all at the same time. As Dodds (2000) points out from analysing the WCED'sdefinition of sustainable development, ‘we not face the choice between ‘environment’ or ‘development’, but rather the challenge to find ways of integrating these to achieve ‘sustainable development’. The three major themes have become the hallmarks of the sustainable development literature: concern for the well-being of future generations; recognition of the need to integrate social, economic, and environmental analysis and policies; affirmation of the need to improve living standards’ (Dodds, 2000). The movement from 'environmental architecture' to 'sustainable architecture' has also brought up many new challenges to architectural theory and practice. These resulted from an attempt to include of the 'soft side' of social and economic factors, on top of the existing ' hard side' of environmental science facts and environmentally responsive techniques and technologies. The dialogue between the rationalist and the arcadian schools has been extended to the more complicated dialogues with the emerging concept of eco-centricity, as opposed to egocentricity. The concept of ' eco-centricity' , or 'ecosophy' is developed by Naess (1989) in his book 'Ecolo gy, community, and lifestyle: outline of an ecosophy', to describea philosophy of ecological equilibrium, that thrives for the diversity of both human and non-human life forms on earth. This concept opposes the ego-centricity that is prominent in sustainable development. It is noted that the widely-accepted definition of sustainable development by WCED does not deny the demand of human development, and considers sustainability is a need for future human generations. The practice places human beings at the forefront, and can be considered as being ego-centric at the same time. The diverse and contesting viewpoints in 'sustainable development' and thus 'sustainable architecture' practices not end with the dialogues between the rationalist and the arcadian schools, and between ego-centricity and eco-centricity. The evolution of 'sustainable architecture' has led to more complex and competing schools of thought in contemporary discourses. The next section engages in these discussions. 1.2.3 Plurality in concept, reduction in practice As the concept of sustainable architecture emerged with its overarching coverage of many aspects in life, the practice has been open to many interpretations, forming different schools of thought. The issues of diversity, disparity, and fragmented views of sustainable architecture have been discussed in many recent literature related to the field (Pearce & Vanegas, 2002). Seen as an extension from the dialogue between the rationalist and the arcadian schools and between eco-centricity and ego-centricity, Guy & Farmer's analysis , (2001), based on the social constructivist theory, shows that in contemporary practice there are six ' contesting environmental logics' . They are eco-technic, eco-centric, eco-aesthetic, eco-cultural, ecomedical, and eco-social logics. Referring to these environmental logics, Williamson, Radford & Bennetts (2003) talked about the three contrasting images of sustainable architecture – natural, cultural and technical. In the natural image, the principle of sustainable architecture is to work with, not against, to understand, to exploit with sensitivity, and to avoid damaging, nature and natural systems. In the cultural image, the genius loci are rendered as the focus, which sustainable architecture must respond to, be bound with, and sublimate. In this way, the cultural connectedness of people to a place provokes a sense of belonging and thus caring for the local environment. In the technical image, the scientific environmental facts and technologies are the major sources for understanding and solving environmental, even social and economic problems. Thus, 'sustainability is a matter of developing technical devices that neutralise or make benefits out of what may temporarily appear to be problems (social, economic and environmental).' Overlapping imagesare also noted to be often found in practice, where 'architects play many agmes at once, using many images'.(Williamson, Radford & Bennetts, 2003, pp.25-39). Williamson, Radford & Bennetts (2003) continue by making reference to Guy and Farmer's view to the different logics and images in sustainable architecture as represented by corners of a triangle, where the discourse is focussed on the dominant image so that sustainability can be structured into narrower domains. This act, in fact, has led to fragmentation in sustainable architecture design approaches. Explanation for such an act lies on the application of reductionism, a prevailing thinking mode in modern living, in the attempt to acquire an understanding of sustainable architecture (Williamson, Radford & Bennetts, 2003). 1.2.4 The three domains Parallel with the unresolved dialogues as described above, strategies and approaches towards sustainable built environment have progressively evolved and developed. The nature of these strategies and approaches is diverse, and from time to time, inconsistent with one another, the phenomenon of which create a maze of fragmented strategies to the development of sustainable architecture. As a general observation, strategies and approaches derive from three main fields of knowledge – Science (Building and Ecology), Sociology, and Architecture, which engage directly in sustainable architecture. Respectively, they form three domains with different approaches to sustainable architecture: – Environmental performance – Socio-economics (including other aspects relating to users) – (Conventional) Architectural design The domain of environmental performance, through the emerging practice of building environmental assessment method, has recently gained momentum and become more and more popular in the practice of both building design and policy making. Strategies and approaches from the environmental performance domain are techno-centric, render the technical image, and aim at rectifying environmental damage as understood through scientific studies. Meanwhile, strategies and approaches from socio-economics domain are often egocentric, render the cultural image, and aim at motivating people to be benign towards the environment. The strategies and approaches from architectural design domain can be any of, or even a mix of eco-centric, ego-centric and/or techno-centric. They render any of the three sustainable architecture images, or the overlapping images of, natural, cultural, and technical. Similar to the analysis of Guy and Farmer (2001) and Williamson , Radford & Bennetts (2003) about contesting images, the three domains (as identified in this thesis) compete with one another in promoting and make dominant their own belief, interpretations and strategies towards sustainable architecture. Furthermore, each domain engages in different persuasions, interests, and agendas in their own field of knowledge. For example, approaches from the environmental performance domain include promoting the strategic role of science and technology in the endeavour towards sustainable built environment, and aim to make environmental performance the ultimate objective for building development including design, construction and occupancy (see Chapter 2). Meanwhile, the approaches from architectural design domain have its own agenda of making sustainable design a mainstream in architectural design and discourse (Hagan, 2001). As a result of the analysis above and the contestation between the three domains, the approaches towards sustainable built environment from the three domains are often fragmented, inconsistent, and in conflict with one another. 1.3 The quest to define sustainable architecture In 'Ecological Design' , Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan (1995) state that we have entered the second phase of the green design movement. The first phase involved evolving green theories and writings in the separate areas of the design professions. The second phase was the overall compilation and coordination of these theories into one unified vision of sustainability for all the design professions. Since then, there have been many developments that bring the discourse of sustainable architecture well into this 'second phase'. Authors – such as James Steele with 'Su stainable Architecture: Principles, Paradigms and Case Studies (1997), Andrew Scott with 'Dimensions of Sustainability: Architecture, Form, Technology, Environment, Culture' (1998), Smith et al with 'Greening the Built Environment' (1998), Williamson et al. with 'Understanding Sustainable Architecture' (2003), Guy and Farmer with 'Reinterpreting Sustainable Architecture' (2004), .etc – have contributed progressively to the knowledge of sustainable architecture. The convergent issue addressed in these books is the call to bring together various fragmented theories sustainability and incorporating them to form a holistic understanding of the field. From current literature, the vision of sustainable architecture may be apparent, but a robust model and framework to achieve this vision still needs much work. The problem lies with the disparity of different mentalities in approaching sustainable architecture. Pearce and Vanegas (2002) stated that Despite the evolutionary history of the concept, the range of perspectives on how sustainability should be defined and operationalized with respect to the built environment is extremely broad and sometimes conflicting. Although there are differences in approaches and objectives among the three domains – environmental performance, socio-economics, and architectural design – all are relevant and have certain validities to sustainable architecture. The scope of coverage of sustainable architecture must include all the above domains and importantly the interrelationship among them. Christopher Day highlighted that: Ecology is, after all, about relationships – hence essentially about wholeness – the harmony of diverse and interacting relationships. Wholeness has cultural as well as biological and technological dimensions. It involves underlying spiritual values and aesthetics as well as engineering. In anything whole, anything living, these can not be separated (Day, 2002) Christopher Day continues that it is because of the ' separation'that has led to the crisis of our time, which is not only about ecological but also social and economic – 'a crisis of spirit and life as much as one of material resources' (Day, 2002). This crisis undoubtedly refers to unsustainable development. Clayton and Radcliffe also highlight that the literature on sustainability from different professional perspectives are, on the one hand extremely pertinent to the issue, on the other hand ‘disparate and often fail to connect to an underlying analysis that could link these suggestions together into a coherent rationale and programme for change’ (Clayton & Radcliffe, 1996). Contributing to the call for interdisciplinary practice, Susanna Hagan in her '5 Reasonsto Adopt Environmental Design' has identif ied that the intellectual reason, the practical reason, the technical reason, the economic reason, and the pedagogical reason are the five reasons that architectural design should not exclude, but should integrate, the contributions from environmental performance domain in pursuing sustainable architecture. As the awareness has been increasingly recognised, there have been many calls for stepping back from specific environmental concerns, and viewing sustainable issues in a holistic way. 10 of sustainable development requires a more open-minded and cooperative approach from all three professional domains. As pointed out by Samson (1995): Sustainable development can be successfully implemented only if each view makes its unique contribution to the solution. Since each represents only a part-truth, there is no single solution to a given environmental problem. In other words, sustainable development strategies cannot be attained through the dominance of a single view or by the exclusion of others; instead they require continual evolution and balance. (Samson, 1995). Therefore, in the endeavour to establish a framework for sustainable housing design and discourse, there are a number of principles to be considered: – Principle 1: All the three domains – i.e. socio-economics, architectural design, and environmental performance – are acknowledged in their endeavours towards sustainable performance. – Principle 2: For each domain, the distinctively operational characteristics, approaches and roles are clarified to understand their contributions as well as operational boundary. This can help to avoid over-confidences leading to cross-boundary assumptions that have implications to, and undermine, the actual contributions of other domains. – Principle 3: Although negatively cross-boundary domain assumptions should be avoided (principle 2), the positive ones or multidisciplinary approaches have to be acknowledged. Therefore, the multi-directional pathways towards sustainable housing development must be embedded in the framework. – Principle 4: The interconnectedness among the domains, the key principle of systems theory, is recognised as important attribute to reflect more truly the complexity and dynamism of sustainable housing development. Therefore, it helps to facilitate interaction of the three domains in a closely integrated manner. 98 Based on the above four principles, the diagram of various potential pathways towards sustainable development, insights to the existing models and frameworks from literature, and systems theory; the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse is established and is presented in diagram form as shown in Figure 5-9. 99 Contributing SOCIOECONOMICS Social & Economic Driving Forces ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN Contributing Input for designing Input for designing Incentive Education Restriction / Policy Resident Behaviours, Lifestyles, & Aspirations Sustainable Housing Performance Input for designing ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE Land use efficiency (Chapter 09) Spiritual Qualitative Contextual Input for designing Contribution Inclusive Quantitative Innovative Energy efficiency (Chapter 10) Structural Influencing Contextual Informing, & Setting Environmental & Sustainable Objectives Contributing Materialist Hierarchical Knowledge- Reconciling & Balancing, Exploring New Ideas, Revolution & Challenging Making more intentional accidental designs Feedback / Influencing Feedback / Influencing based Institutional, Incentive, Benchmarking, Safeguarding, Evaluating, & Inspiring Contributing Water conservation (Chapter 11) Material efficiency (Chapter 12) Experience of Home (Chapter 13) SUSTAINABLE HOUSING DESIGN Figure 5-9: Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse 100 5.4.3 The ultimate objective – Sustainable Housing Performance In the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse, 'sustainable housing performance' is considered as the ultimate goal of the systematic approach of the three constituent components, or in the other words, integrated domains – socio-economics, architectural design, and environmental performance. ' Sustainable housing design' is regarded as the process occurring in the overall integrated system (the dotted-line boundary around the three domains and their interconnectedness). ' Sustainable housing design' is no t seen as a product, but rather a process that continuously evolves. Meanwhile, 'sustainablehousing performance' refers to the specific achievements, which are temporal and spatial specific, reflecting through the domain of socio-economics. The term 'su stainable housing performance' is introducedto the framework as a differentiation not only with the term 'sustainable housingdesign', but also withthe concept of 'environmental performance' . Although the first criteria under 'sustainable housing perfo rmance'– Land Use Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Water Conservation, Material Efficiency – are similar to those under 'environmental performance', the principal difference among these criteria lie in the process to achieve them. In current practice, the term 'environmental performance' refers 'performance' to as a result of only building design techniques and technological application; whereas 'sustainable housing performance' means 'performance' as a result integrating of process among the three domains – socio-economics, architectural design, and environmental performance. In other words, 'environmental performance' is one of the constituent components integrated with socio-economic factors and architectural design under the 'sustainable housingframework'to result in 'sustainable housing performance'. In 'sustainable housing performance', the first four issues are selected based on the primary environmental concerns – land, energy, water, and waste – as results of interconnectedness of socioeconomics, architectural design, and environmental performance. These primary concerns coincide 101 with the main criteria in the first two environmental issues of Green Building Challenge – 'resource consumption' and 'environmental loadings' (Table 2-2). These two environmental issues are in fact considered to be the ultimate environmental impacts. As explained by Raymond Cole (2001): The notion here was to consider resource consumption and loadings as the environmental cost of providing 'services' such as human health and comfort and other amenities such as adaptability, controllability etc. Furthermore, in observing that 'environmentalists have not considered the significance of the idea of 'home' as a key to understanding and overcoming ecological problems', Bhatti (2001) suggests from sociologist point of view that 'the 'home' is a key dimension in shaping people's relationship with the natural world. The 'home' must then be located within an overall shift towards an environmental culture.'This research identifies that creating or facilitating experience of home is a crucial task in sustainable housing design, and therefore is one of the sustainable housing performances. Experience of home means to reflect the interconnectedness of: – understanding socio-economic settings and resident behaviour, – creating opportunities for sustainable living to happen through creating 'home' through architectural design, and – safeguarding comfort living environment through the considerations of environmental performance. The above will be further discussed in Chapter 13. The selected sustainable housing performances – land use efficiency, energy efficiency, water conservation, material efficiency, and experience of home – are concise and necessary to cover all the current major aspects related to sustainable housing. Table 5-5 illustrates the correspondences of issues in 'sustainable housingperformance' andall 'environmental performance' criteria in GBC. It is noted that the issues insustainable ' housing performance' only correspond to, but are not equal to, the environmental performance criteria in GBC 102 framework, due to the lack of integration with socio-economics and architectural design domains of the later. How these environmental performances transform to sustainable housing performance will be discussed in Part III of this thesis. Sustainable housing performance Corresponding all environmental performance criteria (as in GBC framework) Net area of land used for building and related development purposes Land use efficiency Change in ecological value of the site Impact of construction process or landscaping on soil erosion within or adjacent to site Energy efficiency Primary energy embodied in materials, annualized over life-cycle Net primary non-renewable energy used for building operations over the life-cycle Embodied emissions of materials, annualized over the lifecycle GHG emissions from all energy used for building operations over the life-cycle Emission of ozone-depleting substances Emission leading to acidification from energy consumption for building operations Emissions leading to photo-oxidants from energy consumption for building operations Reflectance of horizontal building surfaces and hardsurfaced site areas All criteria under Air Quality and Ventilation All criteria under Thermal Comfort All criteria under Daylighting and Illumination Adaptability to future changes in type of energy supply Capability for partial operation of building technical systems (HVAC and lighting) Capability for control over heating and cooling systems in primary occupancies Level of building automation appropriate to system complexity Provision of leak detection system covering all main gas supplies. Monitoring of key system performance parameters 103 Impact on access to daylight of adjacent property Impact on solar energy potential of adjacent property Access to direct sunlight from principal day-time living areas of dwelling units. Net consumption of potable water Storm water flows disposed of on site Water conservation Thermal emissions to lake water or sub-surface aquifers due to the use of ground source heat pump system Sanitary waste water flows disposed of on site or on-site grey water re-use. Provision of leak detection system covering all main water supplies. Material efficiency Retention of an existing structure on the site Off-site re-use or recycling of steel from existing structure on the site Off-site re-use of materials from existing structure on the site Use of salvaged materials from off-site sources Recycled content of materials from off-site sources Use of wood products that are certified or equivalent Avoidance of solid waste from clearance of existing structures on the site Hazardous wastes resulting from renovation or demolition wastes Avoidance of solid waste resulting from construction process Avoidance of solid waste resulting from tenant and occupant operations Ease of adapting technical building systems for changing occupant requirements in non-residential occupancy Suitability of layout for structure and core for major changes in future uses Suitability of floor height for major changes in future uses Floor loading capacity for other uses 104 Protection of materials from destructive elements (rain penetration and moisture-laden air) when outdoor temperature is under 00C Potential to maintain performance of building systems All criteria under Air Quality and Ventilation All criteria under Thermal Comfort All criteria under Daylighting and Illumination All criteria under Noise and Acoustics Experience of home Electro-magnetic pollution Visual access to the exterior from primary occupancies Visual privacy from the exterior in principal areas of dwelling units All criteria under Quality of Amenities and Site Development Adverse wind conditions at grade around high buildings Note: The issues in sustainable housing performance are only correlated, but not equal to, the corresponding environmental performance criteria in GBC framework, due to the lack of integration with socio-economics and architectural design domains of the later. ng performance' to 'environmentalrformance' pe criteria in GBC. Table 5-5: Correlation the first issues in 'sustainable housi 5.4.4 The three domains In the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse, each of the three domains of socio-economics, architectural design and environmental performance has its own contributions, distinct approaches and roles in the process towards sustainable housing. Socio-economics This domain provides a general background and socio-economic context of a particular place at a particular time with particular problems. Sustainable objectives or goals constructed in this context are expected to not be imposed ones, but be appropriate and acceptable locally 105 and temporally. They are not alienated from the normal practice, and thus are not beyond the achievability of the local society, residents, as well as existing institutional settings in a specific time. Within this domain, there is a dialogue between socio-economic driving forces (as settings) and the resident behaviour, lifestyle and aspirations (as individuals). Through this dialogue, the following understandings can be acquired: (1) the locally and temporally dominant socio-economic factors that influence certain resident behaviour, lifestyle and aspirations; (2) the common resident daily activities that collectively forms certain trends to the local socio-economic settings; and (3) the implications of (1) and (2) to sustainable housing development both positively and negatively. The attainment of the above understandings can then be use to derive appropriate socioeconomic approaches. These include: – nurturing and encouraging the socio-economic factors and resident daily activities that have positive implications to sustainable housing, and – for the negative aspects, applying socio-economic strategies – i.e. social incentive, economic incentive, education, and policy making – to influence the resident behaviour and lifestyle towards more sustainable ones. The operational roles of socio-economic domain include informing the architectural design and environmental performance domains the contextual background, to form suitable environmental and sustainable goals, as well as to motivate residents towards more sustainable lifestyle through various socio-economic strategies and approaches. 106 Architectural design Due to the function of housing as an envoy between its residents and the natural environment at large, the domain of architectural design holds dual responsibilities. On the one hand, architectural design needs to respond to the socio-economic forces and to meet resident aspirations. On the other hand, it is required to answers to the implications of built environment to the natural environment. On the one hand, the built environment and thus architectural design is accused for causing damage to the natural environment. On the other hand, it is also identified as the root and starting point for the solutions. There is the usual optimism among architectural professionals that architectural design has the ability to solve current environmental crisis. Although there are criticisms towards this over-confidence, there are also reasons for architectural professional to have such a belief. These reasons lie in the strengths of architectural design approaches as analysed in Chapter 4. These approaches are summarised below: – Spiritual approach to bring spiritual rewards of being environmental benign closer and visible to residents as a mean to motivate residents towards a more sustainable lifestyle; – Qualitative approach to promote the value of nature to the mind of residents, and to enrich their diverse experiences in environmental-friendly housing; – Contextual approach to make full exploitation of the potentials of the context's geographical and socio-economic conditions, and to call for searches to overcome the contextual limitations by various design techniques; – Inclusive approach to explore and exploit the reciprocities behind the appear-to-be conflicting aspects in sustainable housing development, in order to avoid trading-off one or more environmental performances or even social and other user-related qualities; and – Innovative approach to continuously invent new solutions and explore new possibilities to design more sustainable housing, and to continue the evolutionary process of sustainable housing development. 107 Although the above approaches give confidence to architectural professional in tackling environmental issues, it is more reasonable to admit that there is an operational boundary that architectural design is limited to. Therefore, there is a need for architectural design domain to integrate with socio-economics and environmental performance domains. The roles of architectural design in the integrated framework are identified as: – Reconciling and balancing the different interests and requirements from the various factors under socio-economics and environmental performance domains; – Exploring new ideas, built forms, design techniques and strategies through trial and error, with the objectives to continuously renew, make fresh, and make revolution to the endeavours towards sustainable housing development. In this way, existing practices, assumptions and beliefs of the three domains are also continuously challenged by the new understandings; and – Making more intentional accidental designs (coming into sight through the unexpected resident use of spaces) that contribute to sustainable housing performance. Environmental performance The environmental performance domain contributes to sustainable housing performance with more tangible and technical manners. The contributions lie on its main concern of environmental issues. The practice of building environmental assessment is also a mean to interact with socio-economics and architectural design domains in their pathways towards sustainable housing. Similar to architectural design, there is also confidence in building professional that the practice of building environmental assessment is able to solve the environmental crisis associated with building activities through scientific understanding and technical solutions. From there, the solutions can extend its contributions to sustainable development. Although 108 this mentality has been criticised, revealing its incomprehensiveness and limitations from sustainable housing perspective (Chapter 2), the belief from this practice is logical. It is because the notion of sustainable issues nevertheless is rooted in scientific phenomena, facts and data (e.g. global warming, lost of biodiversity, natural resource deficit, air and water pollution, acid rain, and many more). For this understanding, in the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse, the contributing aspects of this domain's approaches – materialist, quantitative, structural, hierarchical and knowledge-based (predefined) – are acknowledged. – Materialist approach: to tackle environmental problems from source, which is the physical aspect of building – e.g. the use of recycle and low embody-energy materials; – Quantitative approach: to provide bases for comparing and monitoring the improvement process, as well as for better understanding and enriching qualitative analysis in design or discussion of housing built form (Figure 5-10); – Structural approach: to facilitate an overall framework for understanding and designing environmental-friendly housing. The framework can be used as a backdrop for integrating with other considerations in sustainable housing design and discourse; – Hierarchical approach: to facilitate decision-making process when facing the ultimate conflicts (beyond any reciprocal solutions); and – Knowledge-based approach: to facilitate precedent studies and references to further improve existing knowledge and to avoid precedent mistakes in heuristic process. It is noted that the term 'knowledge -based' approachhas replaced the term 'pre -defined' approach (as analysed in Chapter 2) with the intension to indicate the thesis's attempt to seek for positive aspects in the Integrated Framework. 109 Figure 5-10: Incorporating quantitative environmental performance with qualitative architectural design in the analysis of thermal performance in relation to the temporal occupants’ activities of a day of Le Corbusier's Sarabhai House (Source: Ubbelohde, 2003) In order to further ensure the positive aspects of above approaches is applied in the process towards sustainable housing, without falling into its limitations as analysed in Chapter 2, the roles of environmental performance domain need to be re-clarified. In the Integrated Framework, these roles are: – Being an institutional setting to raise awareness of building environmental issues to the public and to provide economic incentive to different players in design and construction sectors in delivering environmental-friendly housing; – Setting benchmarks for building environmental practice to safeguard the minimum performance standards, and evaluating housing design against these benchmarks; and – Providing a platform for inspiring new designs, ideas and technical solutions. The restraints of environmental considerations, although are often considered as hindrance to architectural design, can be a stimuli for innovative design (Hagan 2003). 5.4.5 The interconnectedness The three domains in the Integrated Framework act in an integrated manner in their pathways towards sustainable housing performance. As embedded in systems theory, the interconnectedness among the constituent components is crucial in addressing complex system. There are kinds of connections to form the interconnectedness in the Integrated Framework– direct and minimum connection, forward accumulative connection, and the backward influencing connection. 110 The direct and minimum connection happens in the socio-economics and architectural design domains, where a number of strategies within each domain have direct contributions to sustainable housing performance without incorporations or engagement with other domains. Pathway 1, and in Figure 5-1 have direct and minimum connection. This type of connection implies the speciality of the host domain or the operational limitations of other domains in contributing towards sustainable housing performance. The forward accumulative connection reflects the relationship, in which one domain, after working out the contributions, provides inputs or information to facilitate the other domains to further process and accumulatively contribute to the ultimate sustainable housing performance. This type of connection implies the co-operative links, on which the contribution of one domain (e.g. socio-economics) is the foundation for the other (e.g. architectural design) to operate or to make further improvement. The backward influencing connection is the provision of feedbacks and influences from the later domain (e.g. environmental performance) to the earlier one (e.g. socio-economics or architectural design) in contributing to sustainable housing performance. 5.4.6 The sequential order of the three domains It is noted the three domains in the Integrated Framework is intentionally arranged in the sequential order of socio-economics, architectural design, and environmental performance respectively. This sequential order is opposite to that of the implied pipeline framework towards sustainable housing by the practice of building environmental assessment (Figure 24), in which environmental performance takes the lead to be objectives for housing development, followed by architectural design as a respond to achieve those objectives, and 111 finally resident behaviours as a good co-operation. With the new proposed sequential order, the Integrated Framework implies a process, in which: 1. The socio-economic settings and resident culture and behaviour need to be first analysed and understood to gain insights to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to sustainable housing performance. 2. Secondly, through the above understandings, appropriate strategies can be set in architectural design so that strengths will be preserved and enhanced, weaknesses will be minimised, opportunities will be exploited, and threats will be aware of and prevented. At this stage, the knowledge of environmental performance can contribute in terms of knowledge-based inputs and inspiration for architectural design. 3. Environmental performance will then be applied to assess the architectural design to ensure the good environmental practice and to safeguard the minimum environmental standards. 4. The iterative process between building environmental assessment and architectural design will be carried out. This means the environmental performance results will be used as a feedback form to inspire architectural design for improvement. 5. In an indirect process, the knowledge of environmental performance will also be feedback and influence to the socio-economics domains. 112 5.5 Conclusion Through the acknowledgement of strengths and potentials, as well as the awareness of weaknesses of the three knowledge domains, i.e. socio-economics, architectural design, and environmental performance, this chapter has integrated them into an Integrated Framework to serve as a foundation and methodology for sustainable housing design and discourse. In order to establish the significance of the Integrated Framework, it is necessary to: (a) Analyse existing Singapore public housing design with a building environmental assessment method to establish: i. How existing housing designs perform under environmental performance criteria; ii. Whether the environmental performance results reflect actual conditions, i.e. is there any real savings in terms of energy efficiency, etc. (b) Establish the limitation and scope of environmental performance domain. (c) Establish the role of socio-economic factors (d) Establish the role of architectural design These will be studied in details in Part III of the thesis. 113 [...]... up, the raising awareness of sustainable development has challenged the thinkings and practices of professionals The values of being environmental friendly and of balancing nature and human relationship have been added into the objectives of architecture; posing different questions, thinking and approaches towards sustainable architecture practice In response to this new challenge, there are many different... for the terminology definition) These strategies will be formed through the application of the Integrated Framework for Housing Design and Discourse, and the supported case examples found in the practice and observations of the 30 case studies of Singapore public housing Assessment criteria of sustainable housing performances as well as factors influencing the sustainable performances will also be included... domains; – Shift the discussion from the strategies to achieve high 'environmental performance' to the strategies to achieve 'sustainable housing performance' based on the application of the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse; and 21 – Shed some thoughts to assessment criteria of sustainable housing performance and highlight factors (from all the three domains of sustainable. .. sustainable architecture) that can influence sustainable housing performance Chapter 14 concludes the thesis by reflecting how the research hypothesis has been addressed, and discussing the validity and contributions of the research This is done through positioning the critical review of the practice of BEAMs and the established Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse into the larger... system in response to each individual design Take natural ventilation and acoustic performances of a building as an illustration In a scenario that the building is located in tranquil site, the building can adopt a permeable design with ample and large openings, allowing the user to enjoy natural ventilation and serenity of the area Both natural ventilation and acoustic performances are greatly achieved... building environmental assessment method – BEAM BEAM was an academic exercise to develop a tool for evaluating the environmental performance of Singaporean public housing The framework of BEAM is organised based on BREEAM model, in which environmental criteria are arranged in accordance to 3 scales of a building’s environmental impact – global, local, and indoor issues The benchmarks for criteria in BEAM are... research in itself – The main objectives of the thesis is include o to identify the negative implication and weakness of building environmental performance and BEAMs; o to reveal the significant impacts of socio-economics and architectural design on building environmental performance; and o to establish theoretically and substantiate empirically the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and. .. analysed in the previous 3 chapters and form the Integrated Framework for Sustainable Housing Design and Discourse In this process, the chapter also reveals the multidirectional pathways towards sustainable housing, and acknowledge the importance of interconnectedness among the three domains Part II of this thesis constructs the primary empirical data – the environmental performance of public housing through... viewpoints from the architectural professional For some, these environmental concerns are merely additional values assigned to the conventional architectural practice, and thus the practice of sustainable architecture is all about providing and adding in a number of additional 'environmental' features such as sun shading devices, solar panels, etc For others, sustainable issues in architecture (e.g the. .. recognising the disintegrating and contesting phenomenon among different domains, this thesis attempts to look into the causes of the issue, and by doing so, to seek for a way to integrate positively the approaches of all the three domains into an integrated framework for sustainable housing design and discourse In this integrated framework, the roles, contributions and scope of influence, of each domain are . – all are relevant and have certain validities to sustainable architecture. The scope of coverage of sustainable 10 architecture must include all the above domains and importantly the interrelationship. domain have its own agenda of making sustainable design a mainstream in architectural design and discourse (Hagan, 20 01) . As a result of the analysis above and the contestation between the. systematic approaches to sustainable housing performance issues, their criteria and influencing factors; and (e) To promote &apos ;sustainable architecture& apos; being in line with 'good architecture& apos;.