Rethinking Our Approach: Delivering Healthy, Comfortable, and Resilient Homes
I believe that homes of the future are homes that are simply healthy, comfortable, and resilient for us.
Let me show you why I believe this.
Project vs Human
If we picture the traditional project management triangle, we are always in a constant state of balancing trade-offs between “scope”, “cost”, and “time”. These 3 variables determine the “quality” of the delivered project.
Figure 1: The Project Management Triangle
If the “scope” increases, what are we going to choose to sacrifice: “cost”, or “time”?
If the “time” increases, what are we going to choose to sacrifice: “cost”, or “scope”?
As architects, managing projects successfully relies on our ability to balance these components skillfully.
Using this project management triangle analogy, I propose that homes of the future follow a similar but albeit a better and more human process.
Picture the project management triangle, but this time, instead of the constant state of sacrifice and trade-offs, improvements in one corner lead to improvements in the other, and vice versa.
Figure 2: The Future Homes Triangle
Instead, “health”, “comfort”, and “resiliency” are interdependent and feed off of each other.
If the “health” increases: “comfort” and “resiliency” increase.
If the “comfort” increases: “health” and “resiliency” increase.
This interdependent relationship between “health”, “comfort”, and “resiliency” is a net benefit to the project. The homeowners have a more human-centred home, the architects have delivered a project that far exceeds expectations, and together, we have created a more sustainable home.
Practical Steps
Let’s dive into some practical steps that can be implemented today that help you deliver healthy, comfortable, and resilient outcomes for your next project.
Delivering Health
We’ve come to understand that the world is moving towards all-electric homes already, but eliminating a gas stove is a critical first step in improving indoor air quality and the health of the occupants.
Did you know that “gas stoves increase the risk of asthma by 42% for children”? This is a damning statistic. While the family bears the consequences, we as a society pay for it in indirect public health costs.
The next step is going to be thinking deeply about our ventilation strategy. A ventilation strategy has a direct influence on the occupants' health within the home. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going straight to a Heat Recovery Ventilation system, but it does mean at a minimum we’re thinking about the potential of natural crossflow ventilation.
Did you know that mould is in 34% to 50% of our homes across Australia? With our increase to 7-Stars, the thermal envelope of our homes are naturally becoming more airtight and energy efficient, and as Peter Parker’s father said, with great power comes great responsibility, as the risk of condensation and moisture becomes something we cannot ignore.
Delivering Comfort
Remember how I said that increases in health also increase comfort?
Well, when you consider delivering healthy homes, comfort does increase because to make homes more airtight and better ventilated we’re using better components such as higher levels of insulation, and higher performance windows.
Let’s look into this example here, comparing internal temperature fluctuations between a 7-Star home and 10-Star home.
At 7-Stars, the time that the home spends between 18 and 27 degrees is 72.3%.
At 10-Stars, the time that the home spends between 18 and 27 degrees improves to 94%.
Figure 3: Internal Temperature Comparison
So, out of the 8760 hours that we live each year, 8234.4 of those hours are within a comfortable temperature range. Sure, you might choose to air-condition a home to 23℃ when it is 27℃, but the energy costs will be negligible. Crucially, when you turn the airconditioner off, the high-performance envelope will ensure the indoor environment remains near that comfortable 23℃ for many hours, effectively holding the comfort you’ve paid for.
As architects, these performance gains are not just about numbers, they also influence our design approach. From the thoughtful placement of windows for optimal daylight and crossflow ventilation, to the careful detailing of robust building envelopes, the pursuit of health and comfort intrinsically informs the form, materials, and spatial qualities of our architecture.
Delivering Resiliency
In the same way as above, now that we have delivered a healthier, more comfortable home, the home is now going to be far more resilient into the future.
To show this, we can project a home far into the future using NatHERS software. We do this by using 3 scenarios available to us called “Representative Concentration Pathways”, these “RCP’s” are showing 3 scenarios of the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere. It ranges from an optimistic scenario, to an uninhabitable scenario.
As we can see below, the 10-Star version is far more resilient than the minimum compliance 7-Star version of the home. It shows resiliency as a byproduct of delivering healthier and more comfortable homes.
Figure 4: Future Performance of 10-Stars
Figure 5: Future Performance of 7-Stars
Rethinking the Word Sustainability
It’s worth noting, that in this entire process, the word sustainability hasn’t been used once, nor has it been used in any conversations between the homeowner, architect, and consultant.
This is the critically hidden component of this process. By shifting our minds away from “sustainability” and towards “health”, “comfort”, and “resiliency”, we’re able to break through the limiting beliefs that the word "sustainability" has created.
Invariably, healthy, comfortable, and resilient homes are homes of the future, because they’re sustainable.
With this rethink, we answer the following questions:
Homeowner: What’s in it for me? You get to live in a home that really puts you and your family first. You’ll live in a healthy, comfortable, and resilient home for years to come.
Architect: What’s in it for me? You get to deliver a home that’s truly transformative beyond simply the architecture. A long-lasting legacy where every time the homeowner wakes up on a 2 degree morning, they revel in the fact their home is 20 degrees with no condensation.
But…
Just because the 3 components of a future home are interdependent and self-fulfilling doesn’t mean it’s easy work. It takes a commitment to building better. It takes a less is more mindset. And ultimately it means changing the very landscape with which we approach the built environment.
It’s also not always about achieving an idealistic outcome, say for example, 10-Stars. What we often find, is when we compare the minimum requirement of 7-Stars, and showcase to the homeowner the benefits of going beyond, say to 9-Stars, we find ourselves at say, 8-Stars. This is the core outcome we deliver at ARKATA, one where the homeowner is able to choose the level that is optimal for them. To us, this is the most sustainable outcome, one where the homeowner has bought in and had choice, leading to a happy, healthy life in their new home.
Of course, my 1 piece of ever-present advice is, seek advice early, seek to explore the possibilities early because you cannot fit these aspects into a home when you’re ready to seek development approval. It has to be a part of your concept design to planning approval process.