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Environmental Design Our only truly limited commodity is time. Where do we spend it?
Our immediate environment, when it is ideal, can make us happy, healthy and successful. It can stimulate us or it can make us calm. Feng shui means ‘wind-water.’ It is the ancient art of creating, adapting or affecting our environment in a way that it is ultimately beneficial to us. Have you ever visited a place and felt good, or wanted to stay there and not understood why? The modern home has become a place where many of us work, as well as sleep, play, and entertain. There are so far more functions that a modern building can provide besides providing shelter and warmth. Technology can provide significant benefits when utilized for energy, communications and security. Energy generation systems required for an self-sufficient building are available off-the-shelf, with little to no extra expense incurred for construction. It is possible for the buildings to generate more than enough energy using a combination of solar and/or ground or air heat exchange systems. Efficiency can be maximized with heat recovering ventilation and well-considered insulation. A building’s surplus energy could be utilized to recharge electric vehicles with zero emissions. Not just in the future, but now, with existing technology. Currently, 40% of all the energy consumed by the USA and Europe is used by both residential and commercial buildings for heating, cooling and lighting. If the buildings were to produce 100% of their own energy, then almost half of the western world’s energy demands would be fulfilled. Energy that is self-generated, becomes more ‘precious.’ Half the task for a zero energy building (ZEB) is to not lose the energy that it has worked so hard to generate. When it’s cold, heat loss needs to be prevented. To control heat, solar gain needs to be avoided. LED lighting consumes 90% less energy than a traditional system which uses incandescent bulbs. A lot can be achieved with very little effort. To create an appealing environment does not require the most expensive of ornaments or decorations. It requires mindfulness and consideration of all the elements: content; colors; tones; composition and light - just as the making of a better painting or a better photograph does not require more money; it merely requires more consideration. Like fruit on a tree, the best will always be chosen first. Of course, property and real estate is not always made more valuable by spending the most amount money possible on land, labor and construction. Good decisions will always make the property more valuable, but the best decisions will also make the property more valuable with less money. |
