Housing in the Capitalocene: Environmental education and sustainable living

Abstract

Capital and property have been combined since Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in 1867. Indeed, capitalism and the housing market are interlinked because property is an asset whose indexed value upholds global markets. On the other side of property as real estate is the environmental damage and augmentation of climate change that housing represents - mostly in advanced, technological societies. This paper attends to capital investment in housing as the Capitalocene and subsequently through environmental education according to environmental and social principles (social ecology). This article examines what is offered in the Australian curriculum for pre-tertiary and university students in terms of sustainable housing and uses the latest in sustainable housing research and practice to provide a new, visionary basis for environmental education, that tackles housing through 3D printing. The current Australian curriculum on sustainable housing centers on the ‘Illawarra Flame’ house (University of Wollongong), that presents a retrofitting solution to improve the quality of life of the occupants. Illawarra Flame house is a net-zero, energy-efficient, solar powered house which provides the tenants with thermal comfort. This article expands and updates the data on sustainable housing from the ‘Illawarra Flame’ house to 3D printing and applies the principles of social ecology to make a link with environmental education that deals with the Capitalocene by offering affordable and sustainable housing.