Addressing
the issue of sustainability in the building sector, and housing in particular,
has been given renewed urgency under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, specifically through Target 11.1 “[b]y 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable
housing and basic services and upgrade slums” and Target 11.c to “support least developed countries,
including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable
and resilient buildings utilizing local materials”.
The Sustainable
Housing Design Tool ‘SHERPA' will be developed in an effort to provide accessible
and free guidance to project managers and housing practitioners of all
professions. While sustainability of housing in developed countries has
primarily focused on energy-efficiency measures and the improvement of the
existing building stock, SHERPA will also cover socio-cultural, economic and
resilience indicators. It aims at encouraging low-tech and low-carbon
approaches along the life cycle of buildings and settlements and covering
different scales impacting on social, cultural, environmental and economic
aspects: from the territory and neighbourhood level down to the individual
household.
The existing
methodology, developed through a series of consultations in 2014, will function
as a base for further development of the full Design Tool, ‘SHERPA 2.0'. The
development process of this methodology sought inputs by a range of
organisations and experts working in the sustainable housing sector. This
included organisations specialised in sustainable materials (CRAterre, INBAR,
University of Cambridge), post-crisis housing and development responses
(EcoSur, Groupe URD), energy efficiency, sustainable building tools and
indicators (VTT) as well as low-income housing and policy development
(UN-Habitat, Habitat for Humanity) in addition to various architectural
research projects and independent experts.
In order to
ensure that the final product does in fact sufficiently respond to the
particular needs of different local contexts, an extensive testing and
professional software development phase will be undertaken. The project has
engaged three teams of housing professionals from Nepal (Architecture sans
Frontièrs), Burkina Faso (YAAM Solidarité) and Kenya (Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme),
to directly feed into the software development process, under the professional
guidance of a Steering Committee made up of UN-Habitat, CRAterre-ENSAG, VTT
Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Natural Materials and Structures
Group, University of Cambridge.
