Depletion of environmental quality, especially in dense urban areas, has prompted people to find better ways to build their living space and minimize the damage to the natural environment. This effort has resulted in various forms of ecological houses and environmentally friendly buildings. The attempt to create sustainable domestic facilities has also lead to the production of tools that support the practice of sustainable building and has triggered further research and development of alternative energies and efficient use of water and other natural resources. This research aims to determine sustainable housing for Indonesian conditions, by analyzing the existing examples of sustainable housing practice in Indonesia. As the result, a set of requirements for Indonesian sustainable housing are proposed, along with recommendations for future investigation.

There are various definitions of sustainable housing, but all basically carry out the idea of Principle 15 of the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment: “Planning must be applied to human settlements and urbanization with a view to avoiding adverse effects on the environment and obtaining maximum social, economic and environmental benefits for all” (UNEP, 1972). The definition of sustainable housing by the European Union includes three perspectives: construction (e.g. material durability), social and economic aspects (e.g. affordability and psychological impacts) and eco-efficiency (e.g. efficient use of non-renewable resources) (Mertens, 2005). The IHBC (1998) defines sustainable housing as: “That which effectively integrates low energy design with materials which have minimal environmental or ecological impact (in manufacture, use and disposal) whilst maintaining social diversity”. These definitions present the general point of a “sustainable housing” practice that is applicable under various circumstances, depending on the conditions where it is implemented.