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Nature and Society Sustainable Housing and Communities Our August evening seminar attracted a full house to the ANU Emeritus Faculty room. The crowd was treated to a comprehensive evening of information. One attendee commented later that he had come along with a list of questions but did not need to ask any of them, as the speakers covered every point he wanted to raise. Fiona McIlroy recounted her experiences establishing and living in an intentional community in a fairly isolated rural area of Victoria, where they had to deal with flood, fire and other physical problems. As she commented, fairly ruefully, human nature is also a problem. You may agree with your neighbours over nearly everything, but it is possible for things to go wrong over disagreements on the points of difference. There were debates about everything. Couples broke up. Arguments could go on for months, but they had to be worked through. Sometimes community could be formed out of great diversity: it was necessary to find a common purpose. Many people left. Fiona is pleased that her daughter, who spent her childhood there, has now gone back to resume that life. Craig Downsborough has been working towards the establishment of a Canberra Co-housing community for some years now. Such projects do take a long time to come to fruition. Co-housing is not a commune; each resident or family will have a private, fully equipped house. However there will be a common house, where residents have, say, a shared meal with shared cooking once a week. There would be space there for guests to stay, so that each individual dwelling does not need that extra space. Buildings would be eco-friendly and high quality. The common house is the heart of the community. The co-housing movement in the USA now lists several hundred such communities. There are ones in other countries too, eg Denmark. People say that you know you live in a successful co-housing community when it might only take you ten minutes to drive home, but it will take you 45 minutes to walk from the car to your house. The Canberra group is aiming to build fifteen to thirty houses. Their key objectives are to aim for social and environmental sustainability with a diverse, tolerant, caring and supportive group of people. Decision making needs to be participatory. Houses will be adaptable, suiting different ages and physical states; the group has received a grant to build six houses for people with a disability. Annie Mathers from ACTPLA spoke about One Planet Living, a project to build a showcase development in each of the continents. Each project aims to incorporate ten principles including zero carbon emissions, zero waste, sustainable transport and water use along with health, happiness and social equity for the human inhabitants and an environment suitable for wildlife. Annie showed pictures of BedZed, the Bedford Zero Emissions development in London. It looked rather odd to Australian eyes, and has not managed the zero aims, but has achieved very significant reductions in comparison with normal usage. It provides 92 homes, with 100 workspaces, with the housing divided about equally into private, government, and places designated for key workers (the ones we can’t live without). The BedZed people have been very good about sharing their experiences about what has worked and what has not, with others. This is useful information for ACTPLA who are looking at the feasibility of developing a similar project in the ACT. Petar Johnson dealt briefly with the idea of embodied energy. Every manufactured article has caused the expenditure of energy in mining or growing the material used, transporting this material, subsequent manufacture, more transport, etc. The embodied energy is a single measure that shows the energy cost for each product. It provides a convenient way of comparing the environmental load of different products, and enables purchasers to make choices based on that environmental impact. Petar then went on to describe his experiences with building a home and living at the Mt Campbell Estate near Googong. He pointed out that people need to prepare their mind, as well as their plans; many move to a rural subdivision without a clue about living in the bush. This can even apply to local government officers, such as the ones who could only offer exotic trees to the new settlers at Mt Campbell. This development is registered as a cooperative, but is subject to regulations, building codes and other institutional barriers that have slowed down progress. The public service attitudes of the management committee have also not helped. Despite this Petar said it is a wonderful place to live, but be prepared to cope with personal barriers and institutional ones. The last speaker was Derek Wrigley who wryly remarked that we must not depend on technology too much – his computer was in for repairs, so he had an old fashioned poster board. He also said that he does not think a house can be sustainable, but it can be self-reliant and that is what we need to aim for. We have to move from the electricity grid, gas pipes, water mains and sewers. To do this we have to understand the physics of our homes, but also the biology, which is very important. We are getting close to the distributive power system in which many small suppliers, even individual houses, are connected and can supply power to it or take power as needed. But to achieve this the planning of land subdivisions will have to improve enormously. The sun provides close to two hundred times the energy we need on any one suburban block of land, but if the orientation is wrong, which it usually is, utilising that energy is difficult or impossible. October-November 2006 edition accessible here ________________________________________________________________
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