Sustainable Design

Perhaps the most common reason sustainable living is so difficult to achieve is because it’s damn near impossible to achieve on your own, at least that’s what I’ve picked up through the course of the quarter. The key seems to lie in cooperative living or some kind of strong community effort to live sustainably. That appears to be the goal in both of the designs for Village Homes and West Village. Both designs encourage a strong community organization of some sort, from narrowing streets to eliminate traffic congestion and heating costs to encouraging biking as the main mode of transportation.

This sense of community and cooperative living can really only be achieved if everyone participates on an individual effort. The communities that were discussed emphasized a strong biking system, a natural draining network, and an interactive community area. One idea that I found interesting was house most of the homes face south to cut back on heating costs. The careful consideration for resources are hardly ignored on the basic of levels; which is more than one could say about the inner-city’s resource functionality. Pulling examples from last lecture, it’s difficult for cities to accommodate bike friendly lanes and cities also don’t share a community mentality that benefits the overall neighborhood.

The difference between the Village Homes and West Village to me is the overall goal of the house projects. After reading the Corbett article, Village Homes seemed to center around a democratic city organization determined to really make best use of their resources while West Village seems to be a “Commercial Green Town.” I’m not entirely sure what it is but the overall point of the design seems to be an attraction or as stated a “green city.”