Low Tech = Highest Rewards
While a lot us us can get really excited about the next gen tech rolling out, its important to remember the low tech and often forgotten ancient ways of building usually have the biggest impact on energy efficiency. The average american seems to think that if you put a solar panel on a building, you’ve gone green—and those are too expensive so green living is out of reach. But actually, as architect Peter Pfeiffer points out in the video below, the low tech solutions that cost the least are the most effective and the most expensive tech solutions are the least effective. (Start at minute 3 in the video below.) For example, shading a window can save more energy in a year than solar panels will produce.
Passive Solar
This is the way people have been designing with nature forever. Using sun, wind, earth, and trees to heat and cool their homes.
Passive House
Passive House is a newer refinement of the passive model that focuses primarily on creating a sealed envelope around the home.
In Tight Community
It’s not enough to build isolated units of even net-positive buildings. We have to build dense clusters of these buildings so that people don’t have to use cars.
The book A Pattern Language is a fantastic study on building to the human scale and includes guidelines for building at the level of individual home, village, town, and city. Very helpful to consider.