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Creating Your Ecological House: Introductory Remarks

Philip S. Wenz
JANUARY 2003

Natural ecosystems are stable over time only when they establish a strong pattern of nutrient recycling. They must use and reuse the same chemicals in order to achieve the efficiency needed to counteract entropy.

Human systems on different scales—global, municipal, neighborhood and house—are roughly analogous to the natural ecosystems of the biosphere, bioregions, ecosystems and sub-ecosystems such as a pond or grove of trees. For human systems to stabilize, or become sustainable, they must emulate the same efficiencies adapted by natural ecosystems and proven workable over the 3.6 billion years that life has survived on this planet.

A house can, and in fact, must be modeled after an ecosystem in order to perform its role in the maintenance of the planet. The class that I teach at the Building Education Center in Berkeley, California explains how ecosystems work and how houses can be made to operate on those same principles.

In this Ecological House department of ECOTECTURE: The Online Journal of Ecological Design, we will provide articles about how "ecological houses" work. Our first article will be on line within a few weeks of our January, 2003 relaunch of the journal. Meanwhile, I am providing the "mind map" (original inspiration) and outline of my Building Education Center survey class as food for thought and as a general introduction to the topic.

CREATING THE ECOLOGICAL HOUSE (MIND MAP)

• Ecosystems and Human Systems
• The Sun
• Solar Map
• Location of the Sun
  
• Passive Solar Principles
• Principles
• First Principle: General Circulation Model
  
• Second Principle: Difference between Niches and Habitats
  
• Third Principle: Balance of Uses
• Ecological design of your own living space
• Remodeling vs. new construction
• General Building Configuration and Building types for Different Climates
• Energy
  • Minimize energy usage
    
  • California’s Title 24 Energy Code as a General Guideline for Housing
    
  • Daylighting and Energy
• Biodiversity and Providing Natural Habitat
• Water:
  • Use of Water in Design
  • Secondary Water Systems
  • Gray Water
  • Black Water
  • Composting Toilets
  • Ground Water Collection
• Community

WELCOME and INTRODUCTION
SLIDES and TALK: Ecosytems and Human Systems, Ecological Performance
EXERCISE: Site/Floor Plan -- Site/House Section
TALK: Climate Design
EXERCISE: Ecological Site Analysis
TALK: Water and Food Production
EXERCISE: Ecological Redesign of Living Space
TALK: Material—Consumption and Recycling / Community and Alternatives to Excessive Materialism