We recently participated in the highly-esteemed Future in Review (FiRe) conference outside Los Angeles, where the topic of one lively panel was “Tomorrow’s Sustainable Housing Today.” The panel featured Hank Louis from the University of Utah’s College of Architecture and Planning’s DesignBuildBluff project, and Mark Foster, a Partner at ZGF architects.

Mark, who dwelled on material and design choices, said that, in an integrated design approach, “a cascading set of uses” is key. In other words, components should serve more than one function. By way of example, he showed a roof design that shades the building, captures and stores thermal energy, and captures rainwater for use in the fire safety system and toilet flushing. We like this concept a lot, and apparently so does Mother Nature: In biology, multifunctional adaptations are called exaptations, and they have proven to be an effective innovation tactic for everything from birds’ feathers to fishes’ bladders – and now buildings.

Hank noted that 48% of U.S. energy consumption goes to making and maintaining buildings, and said that “50% to 80% of the energy use can be eliminated with material and design choices, such as proper use and installation of insulation, and orienting buildings to control the effect of solar heating.” He talked about the need to educate students not just on materials and design, but on use, as well: “Most kids entering school today come from a house with more bedrooms than people, and struggle with the idea of sharing a bedroom with anyone, much less a stranger. Old dorms only have one plug!” Since a lot of sustainable housing is necessarily multifamily construction, dorms provide a living lab for students to experiment and develop their ideas. Universities looking to expand architecture programs should make live-in labs an explicit part of students’ work. Importantly, this would encourage them to think not just of new buildings, but retrofits, since older buildings constitute the vast majority of living and working space globally. One open question remains: Should the students get a rebate on their housing fees?

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