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interior and exterior environmental conditions. This information is accessible to the
inhabitant via a web application that allows them to view data in many different
combinations, at different timescales in breakdowns related to household activities and
weather patterns. This system is intended to both educate and support evolving patterns
of sustainable human behavior (Velikov et al 2012).
Projecting Possible Futures (a conclusion of sorts)
In outlining the various and cascading set of concerns, considerations and ambitions of
the Latitude Housing System, several questions for consideration emerge that in their
very essence, demand a reconsideration of the manner in which we conceive of the
house – and in particular, the potential role of net-energy producing housing. The degree
of sophistication and integration of technology and material assemblies of such buildings
demands a precision of construction, commissioning and craft that can only be delivered
by high tech industrial processes such as mass-customized manufacture. This
fundamental transformation in the manner in which housing can be delivered produces a
range of potential impacts at a regional scale that include new types of corporate
alliances in the high-tech manufacturing and research space and the democratization of
energy production and access. Latitude attempts to develop a housing system that is not
only tailored in its performance to the specific climate conditions, political and real estate
pressures of a region, but as a participant in emerging regional economies.
While the plausibility of implementing such a system has yet to be verified, the cascading
synergies described in this initial research suggest a transformation in value that extends
regionally in the reduction of infrastructure costs, more compact occupation of serviced
lands, stimulation of emerging technology sectors that suggests that the value and cost
of such housing may need to be rethought, and that the motivations for its development
lie outside of the interests of manufacturer and homeowner alone and possess larger
societal value. Quantifying these values, whether accounted for in GHG and CO2
emissions, economic benefit, or in the industrial ecologies of regional manufacturing
transformations would constitute a basis for evaluating the impacts of such a system,
beyond the conjecture outlined here. Furthermore, the evaluation of the potential for
digital and haptic interface tools that transform resident’s awareness and decision
making processes with respect to sustainable living patterns, and in particular, those of
energy consumption are required in order to assess the long term impacts of such
housing types, not only in terms of specific energy performance as utilized, but in terms
of their capacity to impacts broader behaviors. Expanding the consideration of the
breadth and scope of impact and metrics for measurement and evaluation across this
set of considerations would enable a more comprehensive approach to the delivery of
housing. While the historical failure of such proposals to emerge as culturally significant
and substantive in the past is well documented, we may find ourselves at a moment in
time, where the manner in which we conceive of larger systems as ecologies, the
manner in which we assess impact and the means by which we assign value, offers new
modes by which to discuss the merits of architecture’s involvement in the conception and
design of whole housing delivery systems – and the possibility of such systems
themselves.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the individuals and team members that have contributed
to both the development of the Latitude Housing System and the North House prototype.
A full listing of team members and roles can be accessed via:
and
