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#ElementalDesign Advice 08 SITE ORIENTATION
#ElementalDesign Advice 08 SITE ORIENTATION “Understand the sun’s movement across your site throughout the day/year, and design to take advantage of it.” – Talina Edwards What does orientation really mean and why is it important? This is really all about the sun’s movement across your site (and the shade), and needs to be assessed for different times…
#ElementalDesign Advice 05 DESIGN FOR CLIMATE
#ElementalDesign Advice 05 DESIGN FOR CLIMATE “Ensure your home is designed for your local climate, throughout the seasons and into the future.” – Talina Edwards Depending on the geography and location of where you are on this planet, you will experience different climates. Theses climates are identified by their temperature (whether they are predominantly hot, mild, cool, cold)…
#ElementalDesign Advice 04 SITE SELECTION
#ElementalDesign Advice 04 SITE SELECTION “When choosing your site, ensure you undertake a holistic site analysis & understand all the opportunities and constraints.” – Talina Edwards You might have a site, it might be your existing home, or you might be on the search for a new one. Whichever the case, it’s really important to gain a…
#ElementalDesign Advice 03 BEFORE YOU START
#ElementalDesign Advice 03 BEFORE YOU START “Have a clear idea of WHY you want to build/extend. Ask what is your biggest dream & your greatest fear.” – Talina Edwards Before you embark on your project, you should always start with ‘why?’. There are no right of wrong answers, but it will be so much easier to set the…
#ElementalDesign Advice 02 TRUE SUSTAINABILITY
#ElementalDesign Advice 02: TRUE SUSTAINABILITY “I love the analogy that for house to be truly sustainable, it should be like a tree” – Talina Edwards I first hard about this idea from Michael Mobbs, in his “Sustainable House” book: “A tree must meet all its needs for food, energy and water where it stands.” (and a…
#ElementalDesign Advice 01 DEFINING SUSTAINABILITY
#ElementalDesign Advice 01 DEFINING SUSTAINABILITY What does “sustainability” actually means when it comes to design? Buckminster Fuller (Architect and Theorist) defined sustainability as: “the conscious design of our total environment, in order to help make the Earth’s finite resources meet the needs of all of humanity without disrupting the ecological processes of the planet”. In recent…