Holistic Housing: Concepts, Design Strategies and Processes / Hans Drexler + Sebastian El Khouli

Written by Diego Hernandez
Published on October 17, 2012

“Holistic Housing: Concepts, Design Strategies and Processes” is a fundamental reference work on housing construction. The book deals with the issue of sustainability in a planning context but also analyses a building’s usage and ageing over its ‘life cycle’. A system of criteria specially developed in an accompanying research project can be used to compare and evaluate buildings. It can also be used as a tool for optimising the sustainability of buildings in development during the planning process. By contrast, most existing sustainability systems are conceived not as design and planning tools, but as instruments for evaluating finished buildings and completed planning.

15 practical examples explain the ways in which these criteria and other aspects of sustainable building can be implemented in sophisticated architecture and how these can then be experienced. A system developed from analysing the examples is used to classify and compare the buildings. The building’s significance as a lived environment is also not neglected here: sustainability develops in a dialogue between a building and its users, with an emphasis on residential usage.

-Housing construction for the future -Anchoring sustainability in the design and planning process -Specially developed system for direct comparisons and easy evaluation of buildings -Sustainability in a dialogue between a home and its residents

Content

008 Introduction 010 Positions

Part:1 Sustainable Architecture. Basics and Strategies 030 Fundamentals of Sustainable Design 044 The Buildings and Its Context 054 Architecture as a Process 070 Assessing Sustainability

Part: 2 Sustainable by Design. Projects 092 Das Dreick 108 Minimum Impact House 120 SunlightHouse 132 Quinta Monroy 144 Ecohotel in the Orchard 156 Wall House 168 Townhouse in Landskrona

178 Fehlmann Site 190 Lakeside House 200 Isar Stadt Palais 214 Rauch House 226 Loblolly House 236 Holzbox 248 Black Box 260 20 K Houses 272 Summary of the Analyses of the Projects 280 Table of illustrations and photographs