TECHSTYLE URBANISM
As part of the mission for Techstyle Haus, a prototypical energy independent solar home designed and built for the Solar Decathlon Europe, its sustainability and urban planning strategies are considered from a rural perspective. This project sees a critical role for architecture in the vast open and settled environments of rural production. Many regions, like the Poitou Charentes of France, have become zones of underpopulated villages and ecologically depleted landscapes, threatened by suburban sprawl. To optimize the ecological, infrastructural, and cultural potentials of rural landscapes, this strategy requires that:
• Population be restored to self-sustaining levels
• Investment enhance unique rural and village sense of place
• Energy efficiency of dwelling units meet or exceed those of urban centers
• Natural resources replace fossil fuels and wasteful infrastructure
• Habitats for local flora/fauna be expanded to self-sustaining levels
• Agricultural practices support an enriched ecology
