Author(s)

Chang Herng Lin

Abstract

Row houses in Taiwan - a study of sustainable dwelling usage and size under environmental crisis Chang Herng Lin Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, R. 0.C. Abstract Since the UNCED Conference was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has gained more attention. A series of concrete activities are performed to protect the environment. One of the most important requirements is to treasure our resources. Building land is just a kind of resources that cannot be increased. As a small island within her restricted geographical conditions Taiwan has to pay more attention to this topic than other countries, particularly as the environmental crisis is getting more serious. In view of the ideal of sustainable development this research wishes to look for an appropriate size of habitation in accordance with the usage of the residences in Taiwan and without hurting the comfort of the dwellers as well as the load ability of building land. 1 Introduction Since UNCED held in 1992 in Rio Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development is becoming more significant for the planning field. One of the most important requirements for planners is to reduce the exploitation of development zone to protect nature sources such as particular landscape, local plants as well as not increasable minerals. Residential district is one of the main zones of land use. Its exploitation often leads to unreasonable expansion of cities and to damage rare nature resources. The sensible usage of residences and their rational sizes are consequently very essential for the saving of the development area. It seems that row houses in downtown of big cities are no longer the most

Keywords