Housing in the natural city: The role of prefabrication

Abstract

The author is a graduate of University College, London, Cranfield University and Oxford Brookes University in the UK where he completed his Ph. D thesis about Energy Efficient Housing. He is a registered architect in the UK and has worked for many years as an environmental consultant to the construction industry. In 2003, Dr Gorgolewski moved to Canada to take up a position as Associate Professor at the School of Architectural Science at Ryerson University where he lectures on issues of sustainability, environmental design and building science. Dr Gorgolewski has published several books and many articles and papers on issues of sustainable construction. His past positions include chair of the committee of the Association for Environment Conscious Building, in the UK, secretary to the Steel Sector Committee for Sustainable Construction and member of the Building Research Establishment Certification Technical Board. He has received many grants from public and private institutions to investigate issues of sustainable construction. Currently he is pursuing research in the areas of office building design in the 21st century and the benefits of thermal mass. The text that follows is an edited and revised version of a paper presented at the international symposion on "The Natural City, " Toronto, 23-25 June, 2004, sponsored by the University of Toronto's Division of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, and the World Society for Ekistics.