Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
stricter building codes to ensure that new homes are more energy efficient and environmentally
sustainable. Stricter building codes are allied to generous tax rebates and subsidies for the installation
of solar panels in housing and environmentally sustainable water heating systems. Such systems are
not cost effective for average income earners to install without a subsidy. In essence governments
have positioned environmentally sustainable housing as a merit good. It is a good that is not
efficiently provided by the market, at least not in the quantities that will make a difference to climate
change, but nevertheless has significant social merit, thus attracting a subsidy from the state.
Affordable housing and sustainable housing might fall under the common rubric of a merit good in
Australia and are increasingly considered in a single context. However, this raises the question of how
might affordable housing be made sustainable in a practical sense to achieve congruent social, cultural
and environmental objectives?
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Ecocents Living Project
The Ecocents Living research project was undertaken to identify a suite of built forms for housing that
are both affordable and environmentally sustainable. The project was supported by the South
Australian Department of Families & Communities and the Hindmarsh group of companies.
Innovative housing solutions were to be investigated which might have valuable demonstration
potential and could contribute to a diverse portfolio of responses across a number of target groups,
tenures and locations.
The main aim of the research was to identify relevant building systems from a suite of affordable and
sustainable housing projects that are consistent with South Australian government policy. At the
outset of the project, it was agreed that certain aspects would be considered in the research such as:
• Environmentally sustainable housing including energy efficient design, sustainable materials,
water conserving technologies and life cycle approach
• Innovative procurement and construction methods such as prefabrication techniques and
efficiently manufactured building systems
• Adaptability to changing life cycle needs and different target groups, tenures and locations
with particular relevance to rental housing.
The research methodology was to triangulate data on affordable and sustainable building systems
based on the best international and national knowledge and experience. This included:
• A review of the international and national literature on affordable building systems
• A review of the international and national literature on sustainable building systems
• Inspection of identified affordable/sustainable building developments of interest
• Identification of key performance indicators
• Consultation with key informants on affordable and sustainable building systems
• Identification of systems that are both affordable and sustainable in the Australian context and
targeted to include rental housing projects.
Comparison of existing examples of affordable and sustainable housing
The early findings from the review of literature had indicated certain characteristics of affordable and
sustainable housing and it was necessary to test the relevance of these using recent and/or progressive
housing developments. This would contribute to the following aspects of the methodology:
• testing of the characteristics and, where necessary, supplementation so that they more fully
represented affordable and sustainable housing
• development of the essential characteristics into a range of performance indicators
• introduction and development of metrics into the performance indicators
• formation of benchmarks indicating current and future levels of performance