Tuesday, November 27, 2007

KISS your complicated solution goodbye!!

Is there a simplified approach to achieve a balanced sustainable decision?

I believe everything is simple and we as humans love to make it as complicated as we can so that it will sound cool!

If I can ask the following three questions everytime I make a decision whether it is life or work related... then I think my decision will have some sustainable base!!

1. Can I reduce the need as much as possible?
2. Can I capture what is available for free?
3. Can I restore/ reclaim/ regenerate/ reuse more with what is available?

Let's apply this on to something and see if it works.

Say I am trying to find a solution to achieve water efficiency in my project.

1. Can I reduce the need for water use? - I guess I can! - multi-use of a space reducing the need for more water use; waterless urinals etc.

2. Can I capture freely available rain water? - I guess I can! - a simple diversion of rain water from the roof to the landscape!! or an extravagant rain water harvesting system - it is law in my home state Tamilnadu, India to divert roof water to an underground cistern and let it percolate to the underground water table... how tough is that to do? we all know we have water scarcity! all we need to do is to care!

3. Can I reclaim the used water for something else? - I guess I can! - Tamilnadu just did - restore the underground water table by reusing the collected rain water; we can reuse water used in the building as grey water for landscape!

You see this works... through this process atleast I would have thought about how to save water even if I couldn't implement any of these on my projects... which is the next big step!!!

Try it on some of your decisions... it could be as simple as how big of an opening should I have on my west wall to have the much desired view through that opening??

food for thought!

P.S: KISS :- "Keep it Simple, Stupid!"