1. Introduction
The
recognition of the fact that the established building methods result in great
waste of resources, while they do not correspond to the existing production
possibilities, worries increasingly more people all over the world. This fact
is a sign of a more general model of economic growth which has the same features. This model has
been questioned as non "sustainable". The pursuit of a sustainable model of building and using the built space is encountered in
scientific research, business, as well as social action.
Aiming to
contribute to the aforementioned pursuit, we focus our interest in methods both
having general applicability and making possible to reduce time, cost,
resources' consumption, as well as environmental consequences associated to
both the production and the use of the built space. We are particularly
interested in the concept "system", as this concept describes methods
having some general field of application. Specifically our interest is focused
on "integrated building systems", where the achievement of the desirable
goals is attempted through the mutual completion of the partial processes of
both the production and the use of the built space. This mutual completion
resolves conflicts and incompatibilities which undermine the overall
functionality of the built space.
We stress
that a series of concepts related to the current scientific research on general
system theory, such as "complexity", "network organization", "self-organization", "developmental process", "emergent property" etc can be also directly related to systems of
building and using the built space. These concepts could support the idea of "integration". As the established organization of social
production does not favor the development of integrated systems, the same
concepts could be related to the spontaneous emergence of appropriate forms of
producers' organization.
Willing to
support the development of integrated
building systems, we attempt to create and gradually enlarge a knowledge base about this
subject, as well as to encourage relevant collaborations. The latter could be
either research or business oriented, while they could be based on either
volunteer contributions or entrepreunial activities. We start this effort by
presenting in this website academic and
research projects, systems either conceived in concept level
or practically implemented, possibilities
of industrial production which can be utilized in the development of integrated building systems, as well as references to bibliography and relevant websites. We also submit an open proposal concerning
activities related to integrated building, while we describe the principles of
the desired collaboration considering the international
experience.
We devote our
effort in memory of our friend, teacher and collaborator Dimitris Papanikolaou,
pioneer researcher in the field of integrated
building ,
while he bravely and unselfishly supported his novel ideas in times society was
not yet ready to accept.
Invitation
We invite
people working on integrated building systems, in either academic, research or
entrepreunial activities to send us relevant material from their work which
they wish to present. The material—which should be consistent with the
particular features of integrated building
systems that
specify our domain of interest—will be considered for publication in our
website or, if it is already published in another website, a link could be
made. We also invite producers (either individuals or companies) who work on
either integrated building systems or products that could be used in
such systems, to fill our questionnaire. This will make possible to us both
to refer to producers who respond to our effort and to create contact between
them.