The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of natural resources in the world, being responsible for nearly 50% of the carbon emissions recorded since the 1950's making it one of the largest stakeholders in what climate scientists are calling the Anthopocene- a new geological epoch marked by the changes to the planet caused by humankind. While we are now aware of the impact that construction has had on the environment, the delta between sustainable design solutions and the demand for construction is growing rapidly. With the world population projected to grow a billion by 2030, for architecture to cater to the demand of housing while maintain a sustainable construction methodology is a going to be architecture's grandest challenge yet.

The information age has brought us tremendous amounts of environmental data and design computational ability, which can be leveraged to foster a new understanding of the ways in which we affect the environment around us and help to build in ways that are progressively nurturing to the planet. However, the dissemination and implementation of the tools and techniques of sustainable design are limited to a small fraction of the residential construction industry with architects only designing 2% of the total building construction worldwide. This research argues that the increasing availability of environmental data, combined with the ease of access to powerful computational capabilities and low costs of customized digital fabrication are the modern resources that will insure urban growth in a way that is discerning to the needs of the ecosystem, environmentally stable, resource conscious and ultimately sustainable.

This paper's research focuses on the application of environmental data to site development and the adaptation and expansion of an existing open source WikiHouse platform on a live project proposal. Currently the Wikihouse is a global, open-source, digitally de-centralized small home system, which is fairly autonomous; i.e., it has few connections to its specific environment and site. It can be customized for size, but currently lacks the ability to leverage site specific environmental data for optimized form modifications. The research adapts this system to various natural forces and conditions, creating a new wiki design methodology, which incorporates various open-source inputs and new algorithms to create a more sustainable, adaptive design solution that responds to natural environmental conditions.