Sustainable Building Design

Many of today's buildings, construction practices, and land-use patterns are not sustainable. Modern architecture still produces uneconomic and uncomfortable homes which can be inhabited only with the aid of the most expensive devices for heating and refrigeration.

"Earth friendly" sustainable home design, on the other hand, is not a new building style. Instead it represents a revolution in how we think about, design, construct, and operate buildings.

The primary goal of Five E's Unlimited in assisting clients with "environmentally responsible" development in residential housing is to lessen the harm poorly designed homes cause by using the best of ancient building approaches in logical combination with the best of new technological advances.

"Green" homes are much cheaper to heat, cool, and light. They also prevent significant waste of water. Because they consume so much less energy and water, they produce correspondingly less pollution. Lower utility bills also make them more affordable.

Through the use of Sustainable Residential Development and Sustainable Sub-Division Design concepts, Five E's assists its clients in achieving a new way of rural development, where both the developer (landowner) and the conservationist are winners and the governmental jurisdiction benefits from potential increased tax revenues, not gained at the expense of traditional rural landscape sprawl. In addition, through the kinds of building design that Five E's recommends to its clients, much of the infrastructure and maintenance & operation costs associated with residential development can be minimized by taking advantage of waterworks clustering, solar/wind energy exploitation, and other sustainable design practices.

Five E's approach to sustainable, residential unit design in rural housing development

• maximizes land/natural resource conservation without reducing overall building density,
• applies innovative, sustainable building "footprint" and design procedures, and
• takes advantage of more efficient design concepts for otherwise dense septic system and water withdrawal infrastructure.

The work of Five E's is also based upon growing recognition that residential development designed around special resource features and open space sells faster and commands higher prices than traditional suburban development. We have found that the present marketing potential for environmentally sensitive residential development is equal to consumer demand for organically grown foods and products produced from recycled materials.

Experience of Five E's Unlimited in Green Residential Building includes the following.

• Worked with Virginia Eastern Shore landowners to demonstrate how sustainability and conservation issues can be achieved in rural, coastal residential development.
• Implemented green building design and smart development strategies into the planning of sustainable, residential units in rural coastal areas.
• Developed procedures to integrate energy/resource efficient design strategies into affordable housing promotion to assist low-income communities.
• Designed and built homes in South Texas and upstate New York incorporating energy resource efficient concepts into traditional home building that encourages more sustainable life styles.