Rachel Armstrong looks at living principles and the use of metabolic materials for conservation and restoring the built environment in News in Conservation, from the International Institution for Conservation (IIC):
"All buildings built today have something in common. They’re made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of workers. All of this effort results in an inert object, creates an impenetrable barrier between architecture and the natural world and implies a one-way transfer of energy from our environment into our homes and cities. This is not sustainable. Genuinely sustainable homes and cities need to be connected to nature, not insulated from it.
From the perspective of conservation and restoration of architecture, building and the environment are viewed as separate and even oppositional systems. Approaches are aimed at combating the impact of natural systems on the passive materials that constitute our buildings. At the time of design, it is assumed that architecture is an immutable object that will not degrade, decay, suffer trauma or become colonized by unwelcome organisms. The policing of the interface between the built and natural environment is energetically costly and reinforces the barrier that architecture creates between human activity and the environment. Whilst this standoff continues we will need to engage in active surveillance of this interface and play continuous catch-up to combat the forces of nature." READ MORE >>
