C r e d i t s | P r e f a c e
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PREFACE
The ZEMCH 2012 International Conference was a first attempt to establish an intellectual
forum of interactive discussion on design, production and marketing issues surrounding the
delivery of low to zero energy/CO2 emission mass-customisable homes and communities
being built in developed and developing countries. The conference was run in collaboration
with ZEMCH Network and the International Energy Agency (IEA) Solar Heating and Cooling
(SHC) Task 40 & Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems (ECBCS)
Annex 52 joint implementing programme experts with the aim to solidify today’s diverse
expertise in the realm as elicited research paradigms for further exploration and delivery of
the homes that meet the wants and needs of individuals and society. Clustering the
worldwide expertise and confidence, the ZEMCH 2012 proceedings led to the creation of
new culture highly relevant to any stakeholders who are involved in housing research,
business, teaching, and policy making.
‘ZEMCH’ is an abbreviation of zero energy mass custom homes that encompass social,
economic and environmental sustainability as a whole. Indeed, housing is a system of
energy and environment and it is required to accommodate wants and needs of individuals
and society, which are usually considered to be diverse and dynamic. The 'needs' factor
often reflects minimum quality of end-user products (i.e. housing) and may embrace
'adequacy' being prescribed in conventional codes, while the 'wants' may be satisfied only if
they are defined clearly by stakeholders (e.g. house-users and builder/developers) at the
design decision making stage. 'Mass customisation' is an oxymoron or, perhaps, a paradigm
case of a systems approach to identifying the aforementioned wants and needs that should
be incorporated into the design of end-user products (or homes). The term is composed of
two opposite notions: mass production and customization. The notion was anticipated in
1970 by Alvin Toffler in his book entitled ‘Future Shock.’ In 1987, the term was eventually
coined by Stanley M. Davis in his book entitled ‘Future Perfect.’ Furthermore, in 1993,
Joseph B. Pine II profoundly systematised the general methods of mass-customising
products and services in his book entitled ‘Mass Customization.’ In 2009, Frank T. Piller and
Mitchell M. Tseng edited a ‘Handbook of Research in Mass Customization and
Personalization’ and compiled the R&D activities and outputs delivered by a variety of
industries across the globe.
One of the successful mass customisation approaches being applied to the housing industry
is the ‘modularization’ of building components. The total number of possible ordered pairs (or
combination) of given standard housing components can be quantified. In the approach, the
mass customisation (MC) has been systematised and visualised simply by making use of a
conceptual analogue model as follows: MC= f (PS). In this model, the service sub-system
(S) concerns communication platforms that invite house-users to participate in customising
their design output while the product sub-system (P) covers production techniques that aim
to encourage the standardization of housing components for mass production and
dissemination. Standardisation of building components seems to be a limited hindrance to
design customisation if communication platforms are well developed. Design-consulting staff
and appropriate communication interface are required to facilitate user choice of standard
design components. These fundamental design service factors can also be integrated into a
comprehensive model: S = f (l, p, t). In this model, the service sub-system (S) is supported
by the existence of the location (l), personnel (p) and tool (t) factors and they are necessarily
interrelated. Basically, building components can be divided into three categories: volume,
exterior and interior. These can be considered the essential elements of the product sub-
system (P) which can be explained by the following conceptual model: P = f (v, e, i, o). The
volume (v) components are used to configure the building’s internal space that determines
the size and location of each room while the interior (i) and exterior (e) components serve to
co-ordinate decorative and functional elements that customise a building. In addition, ‘o’
