The Reactive House

Embodied Carbon

One of the most significant trends in recent 'green' design is the appreciation of the role of embodied carbon. Heretofore, the focus had been almost exlusively on reducing carbon produced after a house was built - it's operational footprint. But we are now beginning

Challenge

Waste Management

We generate vast amounts of waste in ordinary living, and most home designs do little to minimize, mitigate or manage this waste. Let's consider a few examples: Human bodily waste is perhaps the most egregious case. Modern homes either connect to a public sewage

Home Tech Radar

While many dimensions of the reactive house do not directly require or presuppose advanced technology (often the opposite, viz. a reframing of needs to avoid needless tech is more appropriate), it is clear that in energy management and other areas, technology will have a

Electrical and Thermal Storage

Our calculations thus far have studiously avoided the largest component of BMR and building energy use generally - hot water and how to make it. We know in addition to the previously noted need for 30+ gallons of hot water for showers or other

Building BMR

Can the reactive house be built? Rather, can it be built today (with current technology), at reasonable cost? Most analyses would suggest the answer is a resounding no: the off-grid requirement and reliance on only intermittent (renewable) energy sources would seem to argue that

Principle

Principle 6 - Salubrity

Many of the principles enunciated so far concern energy: minimizing, locally sourcing, decarbonizing, etc, and wise energy use is doubtless a major pillar of sustainability. But it is not the only pillar. Our houses are homes for living beings, situated in a living environment.

Principle

Principle 5 - Parsimony

Equitable sustainabilty on a planet with finite resources demands we greatly shrink our 'ecological footprint' - the amount of resources, including energy, consumed to provide for us. Domestic life accounts for a substantial part of this: our homes, how they are built, and how

Principle

Principle 4 - Vigilance

A considerable amount of energy produced and consumed in homes is wasted - i.e. it fails to deliver occupant value. This has many causes, including grossly energy-inefficient systems, poor usability or operator controls, etc. But one salient cause is the lack of home

Principle

Principle 3 - Resilience

We rely on our homes to be bastions of comfort (or at least security and safety) in adverse conditions as well as fair, but their design frequently fails to keep this promise on many levels. For example, in climates where extended sub-freezing temperatures are

Principle

Principle 2 - Carbon Neutrality

Since the reactive house is autonomous, it must produce most of the energy consumed in it. Most, but not all: notable exceptions include considerable embodied energy in many 'imported' goods consumed in the house (food, clothing, etc). It is well beyond the apsirations of

Principle

Principle 1 - Autonomy

The reactive house - a term meant to invite comparison with passive house (passivhaus) - is autonomous (in roughly the sense described by Brenda and Robert Vale in their 1975 treatise on the same): the only 'grid' connection it possesses is to the information

Sustainable Living

The imperative to radically decarbonize how we live (and reduce other non-renewable resource use) could not be more clear or urgent. Energy consumption - the primary nexus of carbon production - is conventionally divided into 3 or 4 standard categories: residential, transportation, and commercial/