Green ArchiTEXT

Convergence: Maximizing the Architectural & Ecological Power of Buildings | Harvard GSD

Convergence: An Architectural Agenda for Energy is based on the thermodynamic premise that architecture should maximize its ecological and architectural power. No matter how paradoxical it might initially seem, architects should maximize energy intake, maximize energy use, and maximize energy feedback and reinforcement. This presumes that the necessary excess of architecture is in fact an architect’s greatest asset when it comes to an agenda for energy, not a liability.

By drawing on a range of architectural, thermodynamic, and ecological sources as well as illustrated and well-designed case studies, the author shows what architecture stands to gain by simultaneously maximizing the architectural and ecological power of buildings.

via www.gsd.harvard.edu

The Tuning of Place: Social Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media

Interesting book and concept from Richard Coyne, The Tuning of Place (The MIT Press, 2010):

“How do pervasive digital devices influence the way people use spaces? This book examines the concept of tuning as a way of understanding how people adjust their interactions with one other and with the places they occupy. I propose that mobile phones, smartphones, personal stereos, handhelds, wearables, other pervasive digital devices, and the networks that support them become the means of making incremental adjustments within spaces – of tuning place.”

Farrar, Straus and Giroux: The Something Out of Something Design Contest

You may have seen Jakub Szczęsny’s Keret House, which made headlines well ahead of its 2012 unveiling as the slimmest house in the world. Appropriate for Etgar Keret: most of his short stories could fit on a cocktail napkin. If these stories moved a Polish architect to create a four-foot-wide house, what else might they inspire?

The gauntlet has been thrown. FSG Originals and BOMB Magazine present the Etgar Keret Something Out of Something Design Contest. Twenty-five finalists will be selected in March by judges from Farrar, Straus and Giroux; BOMB Magazine staff; and Keret himself. Finalists’ work will then be sold in a silent auction on April 29, 2012, with proceeds to benefit the PEN American Center. The winner will receive $500 and a signed and personalized copy of Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, and the winning piece will be featured in a Keret story or film. READ MORE >>

via www.fsgworkinprogress.com

Inside The Ecological Engineer: Glumac - Profile of Mercy Corps Headquarters

Inside my latest book, The Ecological Engineer: Glumac. An in-depth look at the LEED Platinum Mercy Corps Headquarters (Portland, OR) that highlights use of daylighting, natural ventilation, an energy-efficient facade and alternative energy technologies - one of a dozen short project profiles throughout this new monograph.

Open publication - Free publishing

Book Reviews: Two Positive Paths to Sustainable Design & Development

Two new books offer a non-apocalyptic approach to sustainability.

Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order
Thomas Princen
MIT Press, $22.95

Rematerial: From Waste to Architecture
Alejandro Bahamón and Camila Sanjinés
Wiley, $49.95

Thomas Princen, who teaches social and ecological sustainability at the University of Michigan, has authored several sustainability-oriented books, and his latest goes to the heart of the matter. Treading Softly acknowledges the dichotomy of environmental preservation and human development in urbanism as well as economics, but doesn’t browbeat readers. Princen argues that while we as a society must inevitably face dire ecological circumstances, our fate depends on how people view their place in the world and how they choose to live.

Princen declares his book is for “those who know the problem is in the grounding.” While this may sound like preaching to the choir, his arguments and examples provide inspiration for those who know but haven’t acted. However, more facts and figures, rather than citations, would have provided more grounding. Instead, he fills the book with stories, metaphoric examples, and academic prose.

...

Rematerial: From Waste to Architecture presents several projects that repurpose waste materials. The authors, architect Alejandro Bahamón and artist Maria Camila Sanjinés, both based in Barcelona, introduce each building or installation with overview information, the material strategy, and detail images, all in succinct and easy-to-survey spreads. Each project concludes with a diagram of its rematerial process, which, while easy to grasp, glosses over the technical aspects of a resourceful guide.

Divided into six sections, each tackles a different theme, from overarching initiatives to landscaping to interiors, in addition to institutional and housing building types. Various authors introduce each section with an essay that grounds the strategies of the projects that follow. Anneke Bokern tells the story of how Freddy Heineken, the magnate of the ubiquitous Dutch libation, upon seeing his green bottles strewn about Caribbean beaches in the early 1960s initiated a campaign to redesign his beer bottles into a form that could be used to build homes. John Habraken, the then-young architect in charge of the design, relays the process that yielded the WOBO, or World Bottle, a glass block–like bottle successfully used in a housing prototype, as well as the marketing politics that ultimately killed their mass production. READ MORE >>

via archpaper.com

"Greening Modernism": Modern in a Time of Finite Resources

“It’s one of those topics that I find very hard to boil down into short, concise pieces,” said Carl Stein of his new book, “Greening Modernism,” from W. W. Norton Company.

And for good reason.  It’s a complex subject, but tackled head-on by an architect who’s worked on projects ranging from a one-million-square-foot building in Shanghai, to the the restoration of Shepard Hall at City College of New York, to the AIA-award-winning South Jamaica Branch Library there.

...

His new book is a treatise on how less can bring more to these relationships.

“What architecture is about primarily is addressing the built environment in ways to make life better, and a strong argument can be made for doing things very well with less extraneous materials,” he said. “It’s a method of having a more appealing and satisfactory life.” READ MORE >>

via architectsandartisans.com

'Climatopolis': An optimistic look at how cities will handle a hotter future

Global warming is a given, writes UCLA economist Matthew Kahn in his new book, “Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future.” But Kahn’s perspective on this isn’t gloomy: He says we could flourish in warmer climes.

With pop culture-friendly references sprinkled throughout, the book examines what weather patterns will look like across the nation in the next 50 to 60 years. Kahn creates optimistic blueprints for how life might unfold in 2070.

He imagines New York City-style highrises by the beach, ponders if koi ponds are the best use of our water supply, and considers whether moats should be built around the mansions of Malibu. He writes of making the most of it and of happy endings — not what we’re used to reading in works on global warming. READ MORE >>

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

Peter Busby: Green to the Core

By Graham Livesey

Since the publication of his project "A House for the 1980s" in the October 1980 issue of The Canadian Architect, Peter Busby--then still working in Norman Foster's office in London--has made his mark on Canadian architecture, pursuing his architectural vision with singular determination. The house, influenced by Foster, Buckminster Fuller, and Charles and Ray Eames, was a work inspired by High-Tech Modernism with a strong emphasis on prefabrication and environmental responsiveness. In 2009, Peter Busby celebrated 25 years of practice, during which he transitioned from a small office to join forces with the fourth-largest architectural practice in North America. Some may see his joining the US firm Perkins + Will as a questionable move, but it is in fact a natural progression, one that demonstrates Busby's evolving skills and his response to expanding opportunities, and also reflects significant changes occurring across the industry.

...

Busby has always sought to achieve innovation, and has had a longstanding commitment to research (including 4% of the bottom line invested in research) in his practice. Today, the firm's research group comprises six members of his staff and is growing, providing internal services to the firm in terms of researching products, materials and systems. They also act as a semi-independent consulting group providing expertise to a range of clients. Kathy Wardle, an Associate Principal at Busby Perkins + Will and the Director of Research, has been with the Busby practice since 2002. Trained in environmental and resource management, she directs the research efforts of the firm, and is a co-chair of the SDI program. With increasing demands to understand biology, ecology, chemistry and mechanics, the research group provides vital expertise and is reminiscent of the interdisciplinary "environmental design" model pioneered in the 1960s. Again, the investment in research is something that needs to be more widely spread thoughout the architecture, development and construction industries. Interdisciplinarity is key to the Busby Perkins + Will approach, particularly the integration of advanced engineering into the projects' designs from initial conception.

 

via www.canadianarchitect.com

Ecological Urbanism – A Discussion

First in a series of blogposts on the topic of 'Ecological Urbanism', edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty, published by Lars Mueller Publishers.

Statement 1: The largest wave of urban growth in history is happening now. Since 2007, for the first time, the majority of the world’s population has been living in urban instead than rural areas (UN-Habitat, 2007). Rapid city growth is often uncontrolled and risky.

According to Roy (2009) by 2025 more than 90% of the new urbanites will locate in developing countries (UNFPA, 2007), which are already characterised by explosive growth of population, low stages of economic development and poor state of environment (Pugh, 2000).

Statement 2: The former leads to a massive use of the available resources and the necessity to address scarcity. In fact, cities cover only 2% of the earth’s surface, yet consume 75% of all resources and produce 75% of all waste (UNFPA, 2007).

Megalopoleis have captured much of the public attention, but most of the new growth will occur in smaller towns and cities, which have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of change.

Statement 3: The former two lead to environment exploitation and consequent disasters, especially around urban areas. Urban sprawl fragments land cover, reducing ecosystem functions and increasing the probability of natural and man-made hazards.

The conundrum is thus the following: can we achieve fast urban growth and development without destroying the Earth?

via urbantick.blogspot.com

Blue is the new green

By Gunter Pauli

Nature itself shows us how to innovate, generate wealth and create jobs.

The current “green business” model has failed to achieve its vision and goals. The idea that business would provide more capital and consumers would pay more to reduce our carbon footprint languished even when everyone believed the economy would grow forever. When governments are sinking into debt and millions are unsure they will have jobs tomorrow, how can paying more motivate anyone? This model, rooted in romanticism, can only succeed for those who are wealthy enough to equate a cleaner conscience with a cleaner planet.

Replacing a toxic process with a less toxic alternative is just “doing less bad.” This is exactly the approach that sees billions of dollars invested in less toxic and longer-lasting batteries. Yet, even less toxic batteries rely on mining, smelting, and toxic chemistry. Even less toxic batteries will be dumped into the environment and landfills, poisoning our ecosystem and posing long-term health hazards. Is it enough to do less bad? A thief is a thief even if today’s theft is less than the last.

Humanity’s leap toward sustainability requires more than buildings with a green feature or a recycling program for a single waste stream. I believe we will achieve sustainability when we design our systems the way ecosystems function and evolve. Ecosystems connect, creating networks of networks, wherein each contributes to the best of its ability, operates with clearly defined boundaries and endlessly cascades nutrients and energy using the enduring laws of physics. Those same management principles apply in deserts, alpine mountain ranges, wetlands, or tropical rainforests.

Enter the Blue Economy. In a Blue Economy, sustainable efficiency is achieved by substituting what is not needed with what is functional and by combining several innovative technologies into an integrated whole, just as habitats and ecosystems do. Blue transcends green because it does not depend on wealth or capital to afford economic or ecological savings. Instead, it orders and joins processes through the wisdom of nature. But blue does not simply marvel at nature; it follows nature’s systems and considers the whole. It works in the First World; it works in the Third World. It produces revenue rather than promises of something good downstream. It produces jobs. READ MORE >>

via www.odemagazine.com