Designing an environmentally conscious retirement village : potential, constraint, and lessons learned

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

This paper focuses on the design of a proposed Retirement Village. By concentrating on the socio-economic needs of the village, the design goal was to create a secure environment for retired people that provided comfortable and affordable accommodation within a landscaped setting whilst enjoying the benefits of communal services. The housing project was designed as an apparently conventional British development, but one in which alternative energy sources, energy and water conservation, and storm water management measures were integrated. During the development of the project, extensive information on new and alternative building services systems was gathered to enable evaluation and implementation of low environmental impact systems within the constraints at this particular project. A rigorous appraisal of “state of the art” environmental technologies has been incorporated into the design procedure, with consequent long-term advantages for the community. Most of the measures have been evaluated by using the Carbon Abatement Relative Balance Financial Assessment Methodology (CARB FA). Apart from simple financial analysis, the designers, consultants, and developer were able to evaluate quantitatively the actual cost of reducing carbon emissions. The design proposals also include an innovative water management measures scheme, which has been assessed by qualitative and quantitative analyses. The design decisions taken inevitably are related to country and location but the methodologies followed here have the potential to be used for projects throughout the world. The scheme provided information about the difficulties and constraints related to environmentally sensitive design. The capital cost of Zero Energy housing is very high, but a number of mechanical and architectural measures can be incorporated into developments with a reasonable pay back period. When considered in an overall economic sense, which attributes a value to avoided carbon emissions, the sustainability of such measures can be accurately assessed.