บ้านในฝันสำหรับอนาคต
In a gated community just outside the teeming megalopolis of Bangkok, Soontorn Boonyatikarn's three-bedroom home appears much
like any other, with the solar panelling on the roof the only hint
that something out of the ordinary lies beneath. Soontorn calls this
home a blueprint for sustainable living in the tropics: the
unassuming house is 15 times more energy efficient than its
neighbours, produces enough surplus electricity to power a car and
creates its own water-supply and cooking gas.
"This house is a dream house for the future," says the architect,
who challenged himself to build a self-sufficient dwelling in
Thailand three years ago and has now been living in it for six
months. To meet his goal, Soontorn needed to design a house which
had energy needs that could be met by solar panels squeezed onto its
roof -- one fifteenth the area required to supply a typical house
with solar energy.
Soontorn had spent nearly two decades teaching at the University of
Michigan in the United States and researching sustainable living.
The additional challenge was to make what he'd learned abroad
applicable to Asia. "When I brought what I had learned back to
Thailand, everything I used to do was the opposite here, so it had
to be done backwards," he says. "Only the concept is transferable to
tropical areas. You cannot take the knowledge and just put it here."
The journey from drawing board to reality was a fraught process,
says Soontorn, who has battled scepticism, intransigent engineers
and sloppy workmanship along the way.
"I had some students helping me do research on this and that but
the imagination behind it is mine. Nobody wanted to do anything like
this " they think it's crazy," he says. "When I presented my paper
(to the government), they said I was crazy. Somebody said they
should take me to the hospital to check out my brain. They said a
lot of nasty things." Soontorn pushed on undeterred, only to then
meet resistance from his engineer who refused to adapt designs to
his needs, such as air-conditioning ducts 15 times smaller than the
norm. "He said, 'No way will I do it.' So I had to do it myself," he
sighs.
Next came the construction, which "did not live up to my
expectations" and led to Soontorn supervising all the work. But the
final product has won over the professionals, with the American
Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers
(ASHRAE) presenting a regional award for energy efficiency to
Soontorn last Sunday.
"It is an excellent project... It's very difficult for energy
efficient projects to have good design and construction and be in
practical use," says Kecha Thirakomen, a governor of ASHRAE's Thai
chapter. "In our culture sometimes we are too modest to express our
ideas and sometimes it's not the way to success. But Dr Soontorn was
outside for a while and when he came back he was brave enough to
express his concept and ideas."
Solar panels are attractive and reliable, and to the extent that the
sun rises everyday, this is the global resource of choice
"With him, whether someone agrees with him or not, he just doesn't
care." Soontorn built a house that even after lighting, air-
conditioning and appliances produces a surplus of 5.0 kilowatt hours
per day that can be sold back to the grid, or power an electric car
for 50 kilometres a day. The water supply is consistent and requires
only a small, cost-effective tank. Some 30 to 40 litres are
collected daily on the roof, thanks to a special surface which
lowers its temperature at night. Water is then condensed out of the
breeze, which is channelled across it by landscaped mounds in the
garden. Another 40 litres is sourced from the air-conditioning
system, which itself operates using two-thirds the standard amount
of energy.
Recycling water twice -- with some sprinkling the vegetables growing
in a greenhouse -- provides at least 140 litres a day, with
Thailand's six-monthly monsoonal rains making up the rest. "When you
do not have to buy water, it means the house can be anywhere -- on
an island, the top of a mountain -- anywhere in this region where
the rains fall six to seven months each year," says Soontorn. Grass
clippings from the 800 sqm block of land meanwhile are used to
produce the gas typically used for traditional Thai cooking.
"You are living in a world of true sustainability with features that
are equivalent to a millionaire's," Soontorn enthuses, pointing to
the 1.4 metre deep swimming pool which is filled during the rainy
season. The pool is heated slightly using the surplus energy created
by the air-conditioner -- after it's used to heat the hot-water
tank. The total cost for the house, swimming pool and solar cells
comes in at 5.0 million baht ($124,378), a not unduly high price by
Bangkok standards. Soontorn, who is awaiting patent approval for his
design, is already looking ahead: to a sustainable city. "It would
require nothing, no extra energy from outside. That's what I dream
of." -- AFP