Research Article

Framework for capacity based sustainable design & development: towards resilient communities

  • Michaël Willem Maria Smits
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  • Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands

Received date: 10 Sep 2018

Accepted date: 07 Jun 2019

Published date: 15 Dec 2019

Copyright

2019 2019 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Abstract

The most fundamental struggle for realizing a sustainable built environment still lies in the use of non-renewable resources in its articulation. Although efforts have been taken to increase the use of sustainable materials the vast majority of the building sector still relies heavily on depletable resources. This article debates that the most fundamental contributors to sustainable development are the evaluation and incorporation of inhabitant capacities. Evaluating the available natural materials, inhabitant skills and tools could play a fundamental role in creating sustainable solutions. However, inhabitant capacity-models insufficiently cover all instrumental capacities into one model (both inhabitant and community). Therefore, this article describes: a framework for evaluating inhabitant capacities; how to map available resource capacities; how these capacities can be incorporated into sustainable housing development and planning. The framework was developed as a part of a support tool, which helps designers and engineers to evaluate inhabitant capacities. To describe the framework and support tool a rural Sub-Saharan community is used, as their capacities are relatively less complicated compared to a ‘western’ context. The article concludes that the framework shows great potential in reducing the use of unsustainable materials. Furthermore, that it could enable social sustainability by creating self-reliant and resilient communities.

Cite this article

Michaël Willem Maria Smits . Framework for capacity based sustainable design & development: towards resilient communities[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2019 , 8(4) : 498 -512 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2019.07.001

Outlines

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