Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The concept of ‘self sufficient housing’ is to develop a self-contained commune with a building unit designed to cater the needs of approximately fifteen to twenty families. The provisions will be made in these housing to enable the inhabitants to produce their own energy, grow their own agricultural produces for food, and recycle all the resources/waste. These units will be essentially located in rural areas. The building will be planned in such a way that it will use non-conventional energy sources totally and will not use any form of external energy source like electrical grid network or fossil fuels, etc. The main objective of this research is to explore and develop suitable architectural designs for self-sufficient housing units incorporating the necessary infrastructures, like equipment of energy generation. Energy is a burning problem of present era. The conventional centralized energy distribution network accounts for high transmission losses (ranging from 9% to 20% at times). The energy consumption in residential structures accounts considerably high than other buildings, also it is a recurring ever cost increasing phenomena. It is very difficult to remain in the city and save energy beyond a certain limit without compromising the present day materialistic lifestyle by the city dweller households.