ECO Architect Building Biology & Ecology Institute (NZ) - Te Aro

History

The practice of Baubiologie und Okologie or Building Biology and Ecology, is relatively new as a science, and has come about as the harmful biological and ecological effects of conventional building practices have sufficiently demonstrated the need for a more holistic approach. The field is far too comprehensive and the various subjects it covers are too inter-dependent for it to be labelled as a conventional science so it has developed independently as science in its own right.

Building Biology and Ecology began in 1970, when the Gesundes Bauen - Gesundes Wohnen' (Healthy Building - Healthy Living) Society in Germany began collecting all existing knowledge on healthier and more sustainable building, including building practices that had been disappearing steadily over the previous fifty years. Early civilisations were of course inadvertent practitioners of Building Biology and Ecology because the only building materials available were natural ones.  It is worthwhile for contemporary practitioners to look back and learn from what generations of trial and error taught these civilisations and apply this neglected knowledge wherever possible.

As many conventional practices in the fields of housing and building development are essentially damaging to health and unsustainable, the promotion of the principles of Building Biology and Ecology has become essential, both for people and their environment.  Neither is able to adapt to the onslaught of an ever-increasing array of toxins and pollution.  Many studies implicate these by-products of development in the social and medical ailments of society today.

In late 1989, architect Reinhard Kanuka-Fuchs introduced Building Biology and Ecology to New Zealand, and for over ten years he was the driving force behind awareness, education and change in this country.   He developed basic awareness for ecological building in the NZ public, the architectural profession, the building industry and with building authorities. His key projects included the development of healthy home publications, as well as guiding the building of the Waitakere City Council Eco home and development of their Sustainable Home Guidelines, which encapsulate most of the BBE principles. He also trained many health practitioners, builders, architects, designers and manufacturers via university classes and the original German Correspondence Course, who now form a network of BBE professionals throughout NZ. The Building Biology and Ecology Institute is now run by some of these graduate students.

The Institute continues to expand the beliefs of what living is, of what building is. Threaded deeply in the core of BBE teachings and philosophies are the subjects of geobiology, electrobiology, bio-harmonic design and sympathetic vibrational physics.

The BBE Institute is a not for profit organisation, made up of Trustees, regional practising representatives around New Zealand, and a panel of advisors in related fields.