A Critique of the Delivery of Holistic Sustainability

The concept of holistic sustainability has been developed since 1900 besieging different aspects such as politics, economics, and ecological thinking. Once seen as being outside of the design mainstream, sustainable architecture is now the fastest growing segment of the industry. (Yenna Chan, 2004). In terms of development within holistic sustainability, it should be based on equality for it to be compatible with said principles of holistic sustainability, which reveal that poverty, nondevelopment, and political ex-communication, simultaneously wealth and opulence as its antithesis stand in a causal relationship with environmental degradation (Raskin, 1993).

This paper will attempt to discuss this subject matter regarding holistic sustainability and the case studies that represent this topic substantially with regards to holistic sustainability from an architect.

ROLE OF AN ARCHITECT TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY

As the building is a unit of the community, any action or decision made by the architect would definitely have an impact on the respective unit. Every decision that related to holistic sustainability would give impacts to any experience that the users had within the premises. This gives the architect a sense of control of what goes where and who feels what. Such responsibility can be fundamentally part of the process to stimulate the building’s movement from a ‘weak’ to a ‘strong’ sustainable approach. One of the simplest logical approaches by architects are striving for self-sufficiency. Cutting down total project cost smartly especially for excessive items while working with honesty and moral integrity, behave with morality, and abstain from all greed are also a part of inculcating holistic sustainability into a project as a whole.

As architects also gain necessary knowledge from user involvement to ensure that their design or planning will meet intended objectives in many effective ways,architects must keep updated with the latest researches and technologies on sustainable design. As members of a community, architects have to communicate with many people as they meet, talk, trade, provide or obtain services and become involved with others. In the design and construction process, architects have to work with other professionals, such as engineers, specialists, developers, and builders which further helps during the collection of data and responses from users of the building on how effective the architect’s design is and what improvement should be done in the future. Hence, architects should improve and keep updated with their knowledge about newer strategies for sustainable design and construction methods. They should know how to gather relevant information for environmental and cultural considerations.

BARRIERS TOWARDS HOLISTIC SUSTAINABILITY For example, based on the research published by the Canadian Centre of Science and Education on the Malaysian building industry, important barriers to this industry have been identified. The findings suggest that government roles especially incentive instruments such as structural incentives, subsidy and rebate program, tax incentive scheme, low-interest mortgage loan, voluntary rating. system and market and technology assistance are the significant drives for eliminating barriers to green building development and holistic sustainability as a whole. Sustainable development requires that communities be self-sufficient, that people's control over their own lives is increased, and that the social and cultural identity and decision-making capacities of communities be maintained and strengthened (International Union, 1989). The barriers that stand between built environment practitioners and holistic sustainability are as follows;

• Lacks of building codes and regulation

• Lack of incentives

• Higher investment cost

• Risk of investment

• Higher final price

• Lack of credit resources to cover up front cost

• Lack of public awareness

• Lack of demand

• Lack of strategy to promote green building

• Lack of professional knowledge

• Lack of database and information

• Lack of technology

• Lack of government support

PROMOTING HOLISTIC SUSTAINABILITY

This is why I truly believe that government support, as well as public awareness, are essential in ensuring holistic sustainability can be practice as a whole. Only with government support through their policies and incentives such as credit resources to cover up the front cost for the developers and contractors as well as a well-planned strategy to promote green building to the masses can this hope comes true.

For now, as an architect, holistic environmental sustainability can be implemented through designing and planning of the development. Such as, consider the sun path and how it would affect the spaces and the activities in that space.

Hot and Humid conditions like the country where I used to practice, natural ventilation is highly recommended. Hence, studying the wind direction and the opening would help to increase natural ventilation and decrease energy consumption. Sustainable development is possible only if the limits of nature's capacity for regeneration are respected. This principle implies a necessary reduction of economic growth within nature's limits and capacity for self-regeneration. Thus, to achieve ecological sustainability, respect for the limits of nature should become a moral obligation and a responsibility of all human beings (International Union, 1989).

Most of the residential projects I have worked with, we tried to implement the solar panels as a renewable energy source for the units. The most difficult part about applying solar energy is that we have a hard time convincing the client about it. Most of the clients would not agree to use this mechanism because of the high cost that would be added to the budget. Calculations and feasibility studies should be shown to the client to help them better understand the benefit of using sustainable devices to proceed with the design or construction. Practices such as prefabrication and modular assembly not only promotes affordability but improves building performance in the areas of safety, durability and material strength.

This is based on the concept that development should be based on equality to be compatible with the principles of a holistic understanding of sustainability, which implies that poverty, underdevelopment, and political deprivation, as well as wealth and opulence as its antithesis, stand in a causal relationship with environmental degradation (Raskin, 1993).

To put it in simpler words, the ethical intent of well being of the inhabitant and the conservation of the environment is what makes sustainable design ‘holistic’. True sustainable development would redefine all our life products in the past and the present, in order to provide better human conditions for the next future generations while architects are able to create environmentally mindful structures while maintaining rigorous design inquiries into the usual matters of form, space, and dwellin