The Idea House: Southeast Asia's first carbon-zero home
With climate change raging in the region, there’s no better time to start thinking about living a more sustainable, environment-friendly life.
When we flick a switch at home or in the office, to turn on a light or an air conditioner, rarely do we think of the impact this has on the environment.
And yet with millions of people doing this every day around the world, these simple actions produce a tremendous amount of wastage and result in tons of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
Household plumbing systems too use more water than we actually need, drawing on precious reserves that in many parts of the world are already struggling to sustain demand.
But people need these amenities, and unless someone comes up with a viable and environmentally sound solution, we are going to carry on using what is made available to us.
Well, someone just did.
Professor Jason Pomeroy, an architect at sustainable-built environment specialists Broadway Malyan, built -- in a record eight weeks -- in Denai Alam, just outside Shah Alam in Selangor, The Idea House.
Commissioned by Sime Darby, The Idea House is an environmentally perfect house that leaves no carbon footprint on this planet.
It generates more energy that it uses, which means that it is more than a carbon-zero house, it is a carbon-minus house.
Drawing from the principles of the traditional kampong house, the Idea House features high ceilings, deep overhangs and windows that open fully, which allow for shade, protection from the sun and rain, and natural ventilation.
Rainwater is harvested as the primary source of water, while used water from showers and taps is recycled. Smart faucets reduce water usage by as much as 50 percent. Solar panels generate energy, and it is estimated that the Idea House at its optimum uses only 80 percent, feeding the excess 20 percent back into the national grid, thus actually creating power rather than just eating it up.
“Exploring technologies to harness what the natural environment provides, be that wind, water or sun, provides further opportunities to reduce our reliance on the finite sources,” says Pomeroy. “Solar technology, harvesting of rain and gray water and the incorporation of greenery to reduce ambient temperatures are immediately applicable to make for a greener urban habitat –- now, and for future generations.”
Flexible interior spaces can be moved and adapted -- no need for labor and material intensive renovations -- around one’s family’s and lifestyle needs. It blends into its landscape, sits well on the contours of the site’s topography, and grows only indigenous plants in its garden.
“Reinterpreting the past building traditions of a region that draw upon the climatic and socio-cultural conditions of a place inherently helps root the development into the environment,” says Pomeroy.
"It makes it less ‘alien,’ and more likely to foster a sense of community.
“Such an approach allows for the essence of a people, an economy and a climate to be retained whilst exploring innovative, cutting-edge sustainable building designs.”
Is The Idea House so ideal that it could only exist in its perfect carbon-zero bubble?
Perhaps, though elements of it are already being applied to another sustainable housing development in Denai Alam, and being extended to many future projects.
“If design and construction teams, authorities, clients and end users all contribute to the same agenda of reducing energy and water consumption and try their level best to preserve natural resources,” says Pomeroy, The Idea House is actually globally applicable.”
To find out more about The Idea House read Prof. Jason Pomeroy’s recently published book "Idea House: Future Tropical Living Today" (S$50) is available at all major bookstores.
