The Seabird Island Project, located
about an hour and a half from Vancouver, B.C. in Canada, is part of
the Seabird Island First Nation’s Sustainable Community Plan. The
idea behind sustainable community planning is to use land and design
neighbourhoods in a way that reduces costs and minimizes environmental
impacts, while creating a livable community – to create housing
that serves our needs now, in the future and in our children’s
future. The basic concepts of sustainable planning can be tailored to
every community’s unique needs. The Seabird Island homes are designed
to be:
• Affordable – affordable to build, operate and maintain
• Durable – they use high quality materials with a long lifespan
and construction techniques that will reduce
future maintenance and repair problems
• Energy efficient – their design integrates renewable energy
sources such as wind, solar and earth energy to
save on heating and lighting costs
• Achievable – easy to change and maintain
• Flexible – they use flexible floor plans and barrier-free
designs to accommodate the changing needs of
families and Elders
• Healthy – they use healthy building materials, have superior
indoor air quality and are more comfortable to
live in
• Environmentally responsible – they conserve resources, use
recycled materials and have a low environmental
impact
• Community oriented – they reflect the preferences, culture
and needs of the community
The homes at Seabird Island are extremely energy efficient;
heat and energy are supplied by the earth, wind and
sun. They are also highly affordable to operate – energy consumption
is reduced by up to 75% for a typical home.
Three wind generators at Seabird Island, which is a very windy site, contribute
about 15% of the total energy
required by the homes. Most space and water heating is provided by four
inexpensive, low-tech methods: a solar
roof, earth tubes, radiant heat floors and recirculated hot air from a
solarium. There are no furnaces in the homes,
only gas hot water heaters supplemented with a fan coil (for two-storey
units).
Broadway Architects (Sieniuc + de Ridder) is an interdisciplinary
architecture and community planning practice
that offers sustainable environmental design as part of our standard services.
Our projects and client list are
diverse: recreational, commercial and residential developments and planning
projects for communities, resorts
and First Nations throughout western Canada.
We advocate a participatory planning and architectural design process
and our projects are very client driven
– each project attains its own distinct identity from speci.c historical,
cultural and environmental contexts.
Our firm is a pioneer in ecologically sensitive building design, particularly
in projects that incorporate energy-
efficient and sustainable development strategies. We have more than 25
years of hands-on experience in this area.
We are honoured to have been the architectural and planning consultant
on the Seabird Island Project. For more
information about our work, please visit our Web site at www.
broadwayarchitects.com or call 604-731-0009.
Tang G. Lee is an architect and teacher who is committed to providing
better buildings in which to work and live. He worked with Broadway Architects
on the design of the Seabird Island Project. In addition to working as
a consultant to other architects he operates his own practice, writes
position papers for all levels of government and teachews building science
and environmental health at the University of Calgary. To view some of
his projects and papers, visit his web page on the University of Calgary
Web site (www.ucalgary.ca)
or e-mail him at leeATucalgary.ca.
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