I wonder if it would be possible to have an impact via local
authorities, since they control planning permission. Having Green
councillors in place could make it more likely that the council enforced
better standards perhaps? Does anyone know much about regulation in this
area?
Chris
SoW Net wrote:
> Dear George and all,
> I have been despairing over the ethical blindness of my fellow
> architects for years, especilly the * star * ones.
> There are a very few of us promoting social and environmental
> responsibility (which is how I met my first wife), and I did a PhD in
> the area of Community Design in housing. There is an exceptional
> organisation called Architects and Engineers for Social
> Responsibility, that actually sent a delegate to the Climate and
> Energy UNED-UK working group in the run-up to the 2002 UN World Summit.
> But by and large we go unheard and my PhD unread.
> I went to a recent lecture by Zaha Hadid at the AA School of
> Architecture, and was shocked that all the students around me were
> totally enraptured over what she was saying about her grossly
> profligate use of concrete, and no one of any age questioned her about
> environmental impacts at all (I was in a basement overflow room).
> A welcome but very occasional article appeared in The Guardian on Sat
> 14 October, on the imminent Stirling Prize, entitled 'The truth about
> those iconic buildings ..' but it was chiefly concerned about their
> '...roofs leak, they're dingy and too hot', not their environmental
> profligacy.
> As a member of the AA, I have just put in a call to the PA for the new
> Director at the AA School, to request a debate on the environmental
> profligacy of star architects, and await a reply, with great interest!
> Best wishes from Jim Scott
> *Sign up on-line to VALUE LIFE ITSELF ABOVE ALL ELSE !!!
> and support the
> NEW MOVEMENT FOR SURVIVAL
> Global site: **www.save-our-world.net*
> <http://www.save-our-world.net>*, Challenge page*
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* George Marshall <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 17, 2006 3:25 PM
> *Subject:* Anti environmental architecture
>
>
> October 17, 2006
>
>
> Anti environmental architecture
> <http://climatedenial.org/2006/10/17/anti-environmental-architecture/>
>
> I watched the Stirling Awards for Architecture
> <http://www.channel4.com/4homes/microsites/S/stirling_prize/2006/index.html%20>
> on Saturday with a deep despondency.
>
> These awards are the Booker of Buildings. Although all manner of
> croneyism, politics and fashion determines who makes the short
> list they are as good a reflection as any of what the architecture
> and arts world see as the cutting edge of new design.
>
> Watching it I can only conclude that architects exhibit a
> particularly interesting and complex form of denial. Architects
> are, in my experience, aware people with progressive politics. As
> a profession they have a huge responsibility for causing climate
> change (the energy consumed by buildings and their materials are
> the single largest source of greenhouse gases) and a huge
> opportunity to develop the forms and structures of a low carbon
> economy. And, to be fair, they do talk about climate change a fair
> bit in magazines and conferences and books.*
>
> But the people at the top of the profession who get the Stirling
> and Pritzker prizers and the Gold medals and the gongs and the big
> fancy projects are not building anything that remotely reflects
> the realities of climate change. *
>
> This is an extremely interesting period for architecture- the most
> inventive and expressive in thirty years- and that expression is
> being achieved through technologies and materials that are the
> antithesis of a low carbon sustainable economy.
>
> Take concrete for example. Cement has horrible CO2 emissions- very
> high temperatures are needed to slake the lime which produces yet
> more carbon dioxide as a by product. Cement manufacture accounts
> for 5% of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions. If we were serious
> about climate change it would be used very sparingly indeed.
>
> And yet the bookies favourite to win the Stirling prize was Zaha
> Hadid’s extraordinary Phaeno Science Centre. It is is a symphony
> in ‘compacted concrete’ – the concrete floors sweeping up and
> around the museum to create one organic whole. It creates a
> thrilling new language for concrete that will be imitated widely.
> But it pays a high price. It used 27,000 cubic metres of concrete
> which produced nearly 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Given that
> a sustainable level is probably not much more than one tonne of
> carbon dioxide per person per year, that is a huge footprint.
>
> Architects adore reinforced concrete because it combines strength
> with immense sculptural potential. Another Stirling shortlist was
> a ‘brick house’ by Caruso St John, the most striking quality of
> which, despite its name, is the neo-expressionist crumpled lines
> of its concrete roof slab. There’s an awful lot of concrete in
> that house. It pays clear homage to Louis Kahn and the formal
> language he developed 40 years ago, a long time before we knew of
> the impending collapse of the world’s weather system.
>
> The winner of the Stirling Prize is Richard Rogers’ Barajas
> Airport. An airport wins the prize! A parking garage for the
> fastest growing cause of climate change! The top architects
> probably spend half their lives in airports and are especially
> subject to the near universal denial about the impacts of flights.
> Yet, if we are going to deal with climate change this building
> type needs to become as obselete as the bear pit.
>
> One reason that people don’t see planes as polluting is that it
> doesn’t feel dirty. There are no smokestacks or piles of coal.
> Planes feel (and /feelings /count more than reality when we assess
> impacts) very smart and white and clean. Rogers and his team have
> concentrated their creativity on creating an airport that extends
> that feeling- all open and bright and fresh.
>
> But the openness and brightness of the interiors is made possible
> by large expanses of plate glass (and a lot of steel to hold it
> up). What we don’t see in the pictures is the huge cooling and
> heating plant which keeps it at a tolerable temperature. No doubt
> Rogers, who speaks often about climate change (his shortlisted
> Welsh Assembly building appears to have made a serious attempt to
> be green), has achieved a very high energy design by using lots of
> clever technology and design to keep the energy load manageable.
>
> This is the nub. Modern energy saving technology is not being used
> to create buildings with zero emissions but is enabling increased
> transparency and expressive potential. This is exactly what is
> happening in the car industry where the main market for LPG and
> fuel cells is for sports utility vehicles- the heaviest cars ever
> built.
>
> And one could expand on this point endlessly. All around the world
> the best and most creative architects are using new technologies
> to push the expressive potential of their buildings. Gehry faces
> his buildings with sheets or stainless steel and titanium (the
> most energy intensive metal of all). Rem Koolhaas has built a new
> library in Seattle
> <http://www.arcspace.com/architects/koolhaas/Seattle/>with
> entirely glass walls and roof. Work was suspended on Herzog and de
> Meuron ‘s Olympic stadium in Beijing
> <http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=115716%20>because
> of the costs of the 80,000 tonnes of steel involved in its
> construction. That’s 152,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide- an
> incredible indulgence…and so I could go on. None of these designs
> are models for a sustainable future. All the architects have won
> the Pritzer award- the highest award for architecture.
>
> As you can tell, I love architecture but despair of what is being
> done with it. Modernism arose from an entirely valid critique that
> traditional building was not able to meet the needs and
> opportunities of the modern world. In fifty years time, as the
> seas are rising and the hurricanes are crashing every month into
> Florida these buildings will appear pathetically dated- the last
> decadent rococo flourish of the carbon age. So why, when all the
> scientists agree on the problem, are they still be built and lauded?
>
> This article was posted on www.climatedenial.org a site which
> explores the psychology of our denial of climate change. Please
> feel free to distribute
>
>--
>From
>George Marshall,
>Executive Director,
>Climate Outreach Information Network,
>16B Cherwell St.,
>Oxford OX4 1BG
>UK
>Office Tel. 01865 727 911
>Mobile 0795 150 4549 (I will call you back to save you the high charge of calling mobiles)
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>Website: http://www.COINet.org.uk
>
>The Climate Outreach Information Network is a charitable trust with the objective of 'advancing the education of the public in the subject of climate change and its impact on local, national, and global environments'.
>Charity registration number 1102225
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