Part A · The Case
4 · Six Systems, One Building
4.1The model
Pangea organises its work around six integrated systems. Every complete regenerative building or community engages all six.
| System | In one sentence | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Structure and materials | The physical fabric, built from natural low-embodied-energy materials — and also the building's primary thermal mass and first line of climate control |
| 2 | Energy | Passive solar design first; then solar electricity, storage, and where appropriate wind |
| 3 | Water | Rain harvested from the roof, stored, filtered to potable standard, heated by the sun |
| 4 | Liquid waste | Greywater and blackwater treated biologically, on site, in planted cells |
| 5 | Food | Greenhouse and planted spaces that are simultaneously thermal buffer and food production |
| 6 | Community | Shared infrastructure and governance that multiply the benefit of each individual system |
4.2The connections are the design
Listing six systems is not the idea. The idea is that the outputs of each are the inputs of others, and that those connections are designed rather than incidental.
Here is a winter day in a well-designed building in New Mexico, traced through:
Morning. The sun strikes the south glazing and begins warming the thermal mass walls. The solar water heater collects heat for domestic hot water. The greenhouse warms quickly, producing food and providing a warm buffer that slows heat loss from the living space behind it.
Through the day. Occupants use water for cooking and washing. That greywater flows into interior botanical cells, where plants take up nutrients and the water clarifies. The treated water flushes toilets. The resulting blackwater flows to treatment and then to exterior planted cells, where landscape plants grow vigorously on nutrient-rich treated effluent.
Meanwhile. The solar array produces the electricity that runs lighting, appliances, and the small pumps that move water through the system.
By evening. The thermal mass walls are releasing the heat they stored that morning, holding the building comfortable through the night — with no furnace, no fuel, and no bill.
That is a building functioning as a living system: producing, cycling and returning resources without significant net consumption or waste.
4.3The design goal, stated plainly
A building that, over the course of a year, contributes more to the ecological health of its site than it takes away.
4.4Why this is difficult and worth it
Six systems designed together is harder than six systems designed separately, and the conventional building industry is organised around designing them separately — different consultants, different drawings, different trades, different code chapters.
The integration is where the value is and it is also where the work is. Part C maps each system; Lesson 15 returns to the connections; Lesson 16 describes the design process that makes integration possible.
Review - Lesson 4
4 multiple choice and 3 short answer · 80% to pass
The review questions are marked by the server and the attempt is kept against your record, so they need an account. The lesson above does not.
That is the end of Part A
Part A is open to anybody. The rest of this course, and the other fourteen courses, are free as well, but they want an account, because from here the site is keeping score: where you got to, how the review questions went, and the certificate at the end.