A study of Chinese strategies for energy-efficient housing developments from an architect's perspective, combined with Swedish experiences and game theory.

The energy issue is always an important factor in sustainable housing developments. Over the years, a number of energy-saving techniques have been developed to reduce consumption of primary energy and utilise renewable energy in architectural designs. However, the real situation regarding energy-efficient buildings has improved rather slowly during the recent decades, both in the developing and developed countries. Hammarby Sjostad is one of the largest urban housing developments in Europe but is built to standards twice as strict as those currently being applied for new housing, including energy consumption. Eco-villages are small-scale housing developments, usually in the suburbs, where residents also try to create highly specific ecological environments. There are two basic paradigms to solve the current housing problem: top-down (provider paradigm) or bottom-up (support paradigm). This paper analyses the differences between these, especially from an energy efficiency perspective. Housing development is a gaming process between diverse stakeholders. All the stakeholders try to choose different actions in an attempt to maximise their returns. If the proposals made by the architects and engineers are not consistent with the interests of other stakeholders, they have little chance of being applied in actual projects. This paper describes systematic development strategies for the energy-efficient housing project Jun Lin Zijin, a Chinese residential and commercial project furthering the progress of design and construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]