Summary

I. Preface
__A. Rural areas in the United States have been infested with mass developments
____1. Toll Brothers
__B. Land and animal habitats have been replaced by cheaply built, high energy consuming housing which pay no regard for orientation or passive strategies.
II. Program
__A. Should be oriented in a small but growing community
__B. Development of land is inevitable with the growing population and migration of people from the city to the suburbs
__C. Toll Brothers housing
____1. They Build houses which use low end materials and design and sell them at high end rates.
______a. Why do consumers buy these houses?
______b. Many of these houses begin to break down(Fall apart aesthetically and functionally) after about 5-10 years. Why?
____2. Construction methods
______a. Use bare minimum of materials
______b. Use most inefficient heating and cooling systems
__D. Why are there not more houses built sustainable?
____1. People are uneducated (more so in rural areas)
____2. More expensive initial cost (can’t see long term)
______a. Is there a way to compete economically?
______b. What would make people want to pay more for quality and sustainability?
____3. Developers don’t care about sustainability, only economics and profit.
__E. How can the public be educated?
____1. By Creating a community space which will demonstrate advantages
______a. Why a community space?
________1. Constant daily flow of people
________2. Along with visual representation and extended personal experience, it could also provide information, classes and seminars for learning about sustainability.
__________a. This approach may cause people to begin to shun inefficient developments and houses.
__________b. May cause a conscious move towards sustainability.
______b. A house prototype would only bring in people with direct interest, community space forces people involuntarily to visit the building.
____2. Use passive and active strategies to create a comfortable temperature range for the users.
III. Site
__A. Option 1: Green site
____1. Positive attributes
______a. Relates directly to rural and suburban houses and developments
______b. Give direct visual interpretation and maximizes strategies available.
______c. Allow for close placement to growing community.
______d. Allows for strategy in extending landscape into building and relating to nature.
____2. Negative attributes
______a. Loses point from LEED for not using gray field
______b. Uses up non-renewable land. But if land is going to be developed in time, by using this land, new ideas can be brought up to change the way developments use land.
__B. Option 2: Grey field
____1. Positive attributes
______a. LEED point for reusing built land
____2. Negative attributes
______a. People will relate building to commercial or city building and not to rural and suburban housing
________1. Will not relate to people
________2. Might not get message across
______b. Doesn’t relate to nature
______c. Can’t directly solve rural problems of development.