Providing sustainable living arrangements for a burgeoning global population is a tough proposition. Engineers around the world are asking themselves how do you bring the most benefit to the world without draining its resources? Housing has an amazing potential to impact the overall level of sustainability of a region, the more efficient a community is at using its local resources the lower their ecological footprint. One way to make homes more efficient is to provide home makers with an efficient starting point for construction, to that end designers could work to create construction elements to serve as that starting point. It is my opinion that these starting points should be the kitchen and/or the bathroom. The rational for these rooms serving as the starting point stems from the additional mechanical complexity required for rooms that have plumbing. If someone building a home had a wall that contained all of the necessary elements for moving water, electricity and if needed natural gas, the cost of building the home should be drastically reduced. At this point I have an under constrained design space, which can be rather overwhelming as you start to consider so many different possibilities.
Possibility 1) A really bare bones system with connection points for water (hot and cold), electricity, and drainage. This provides a strong starting point that you could attach either a kitchen sink or elements from a bathroom. Possibly the cheapest of the concepts.
Possibility 2) A total of 3 wall segments folded into a single flat packed element that allows for power and water distribution between the 3 walls, this would allow for builders to have a very easy starting point, that so long as it was unfolded along specified configurations, would also be rather stable, even before the rest of the house was completed.
Possibility 3) Go more high tech and integrate electrical storage into the wall elements, helping to smooth the home's energy demands, varying tiers could be designed for different budgets, The intro model ships with a 200 watt solar array and embedded into the walls enough energy storage capacity for 1 kilowatt hour of electricity. Not a large amount of energy, but it would allow for the lights to stay on during power outages. Higher tiers could store more electricity and provide for larger electrical draws.
Possibility 3 b) Integrate additional lighting fixtures, considering modern LEDs are expected to have life expediencies of around almost 20 years, with some clever design work you could make a home where the lights wouldn't need to be changed for generations. (there are some trade offs that may make this a terrible idea, but hey, we're talking theoreticals now)
The rational behind designing individual wall elements with all of this integrated equipment as opposed to creating a flat pack home stems from the belief that this technology should be used to empower local communities, not mitigate the benefits of local labor and resources. With these panels, home designers could choose to make something akin to an Earthship, a more traditional American Cape-Cod, or a home design whose name I don't know. Ideally such designs should be open source or at the very least, like shipping containers, there should be standardized dimensions and design constraints to ensure safety. Examples could include making sure the wiring and socket elements can accommodate the various AC standards found around the world.
Possibility 1) A really bare bones system with connection points for water (hot and cold), electricity, and drainage. This provides a strong starting point that you could attach either a kitchen sink or elements from a bathroom. Possibly the cheapest of the concepts.
Possibility 2) A total of 3 wall segments folded into a single flat packed element that allows for power and water distribution between the 3 walls, this would allow for builders to have a very easy starting point, that so long as it was unfolded along specified configurations, would also be rather stable, even before the rest of the house was completed.
Possibility 3) Go more high tech and integrate electrical storage into the wall elements, helping to smooth the home's energy demands, varying tiers could be designed for different budgets, The intro model ships with a 200 watt solar array and embedded into the walls enough energy storage capacity for 1 kilowatt hour of electricity. Not a large amount of energy, but it would allow for the lights to stay on during power outages. Higher tiers could store more electricity and provide for larger electrical draws.
Possibility 3 b) Integrate additional lighting fixtures, considering modern LEDs are expected to have life expediencies of around almost 20 years, with some clever design work you could make a home where the lights wouldn't need to be changed for generations. (there are some trade offs that may make this a terrible idea, but hey, we're talking theoreticals now)
The rational behind designing individual wall elements with all of this integrated equipment as opposed to creating a flat pack home stems from the belief that this technology should be used to empower local communities, not mitigate the benefits of local labor and resources. With these panels, home designers could choose to make something akin to an Earthship, a more traditional American Cape-Cod, or a home design whose name I don't know. Ideally such designs should be open source or at the very least, like shipping containers, there should be standardized dimensions and design constraints to ensure safety. Examples could include making sure the wiring and socket elements can accommodate the various AC standards found around the world.
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