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EXPERIMENTAL GREEN STRATEGIES
Defining new ways in which architects are responding to the challenge of creating sustainable architecture, Experimental Green Strategies presents a state of the art in applied ecological, architectural research. But can a building be “ecological”? How can architects in practice carry out “research”? Is “green” building a designer’s problem, or does it depend on an ecology of building – enlightened clients, a new organization of building practice and engaged users to participate in “green strategies”?
This tittle of AD explores the way that pioneering designers are advancing sustainable architectural design, how contemporary practices are understanding the emerging brief of “sustainability”, and what sorts of new design tools and design approaches are being developed.
REDEFINNING ECOLOGICAL DESIGN RESEARCH
Approaching Ecological Building
Almost all architects except landscape architects have been trained without any serious background in ecology or environmental biology. In his article “What is Ecological Design?” in The Green Skyscraper, Ken Yeang suggests that what we are doing now as a profession is not ecological architecture, and that ecological design calls for a rapid and fundamental reorientation of our thinking and design approach with regard to the creation of our built environment.
There are various ways to understand and define ecological architecture, and in this context it is necessary to consider architecture beyond buildings. Aaron Betsky’s definition of architecture encompasses all of the things around building: “Architecture is everything that is about building. It is how we think about building, how we draw buildings, how we organize buildings, how buildings present themselves … buildings are buildings; architecture is something different”.
In his book The Technology of Ecological Building, engineer Klaus Daniels outlines principles for ecological building which include the need for a variety of detailed site studies, building form and orientation analysis, and local climate considerations. His approach is concerned with optimization, integration of building systems, and combining technological solutions with passive systems to improve performance. Daniels argues that buildings of the future should utilize state – of the – art materials and technologies in order to minimize energy demand and thus actively protect the environment.
Architect and theorist Michael Lauring argues that the term “ecological architecture” is loaded with cultural meaning, it changes over time and there is no clear definition. He believes the term was and is free for use. In a recent article in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, he explains: “Slowly during the seventies “ecological” evolved from being a scientific, descriptive term to being a normative one, without any norm-criteria, but with lots of images and associations mostly of a rural kind.” This issue of AD asks: How can ecological design be redefined towards a more relevant and architectural approach?
Architects are looking outside the profession to allied fields in order to make sense of ecological design. Biomimicry expert and building consultant Janine Benyus (see “Nature as Measure: The Biomimicry Guild”, pp 44-7) defines ecological design as place-based, taking into consideration a site’s unique ecology and specific land type. For Benyus, ecological design must take into consideration aspects of the site at differing scales, from the biological level to material and components, as well as at the scale of landscape and urbanism. Her hyperlocal approach insists on unique place-based solutions tailored to individual site and ecological needs. Where there are local needs there are local experts, and as Kevin Kelly argues in Out of Control, flows of information, materials and energy are complex and ever-changing, as technology directs innovation towards the biological. This relates in many ways to the definition by educator, architect and author Simos Yannas. In “Adaptive Strategies for and Ecological Architecture” (see pp 62-9, Yannas argues that as currently conceived and practiced, architecture neither is, nor is meant to be, ecologically sustainable: “Making architecture ecologically sustainable will require its inanimate materiality to become attuned to the variable biological clocks and activities of occupants inside, and to similarly variable natural rhythms and mundane activities outside.” He suggests that architecture, like ecologies, must be considered over time, and that there should be a focus on users, consumption and user behavior.
A new definition could combine aspects from the technological, cultural, systems-based and user-focused strategies. Ecological architecture could harness the power of new technologies and tools not solely to optimize and minimize, but also to advance social and cultural agendas. This could allow ecological design to become more architectural, towards specific strategies and processes that use a place-based approach.
Applied Ecological Research
Designing with concern for the environment is a fundamental part of architecture, yet architects are not currently positioning themselves as leaders in the field of environmental design or sustainability research. Despite the growing number of research degrees in architectural subjects being established and funded, it is proving difficult to develop and nourish a research tradition in architecture that is integrated into both the wider academic research communities of allied fields, and into architectural practice. In contrast to academic research, practice-based research is not always rigorously defined or shared by peers. In academia, a goal of research is dissemination, for example in peer-reviewed articles in journals, specialist books and presented at conferences. In architectural practice, dissemination of research is controlled, and there is little motivation or method for architects to disseminate their knowledge beyond their own offices and clients.
There is an urgent need for new knowledge relating to the global, multidisciplinary issue of sustainable design. Two main ways in which architects are responding to the emerging brief of sustainable building are firstly by bringing new knowledge from outside the profession into design teams, and secondly by attempting to create this knowledge from within the design team or office. For example, it is now commonplace to supplement the design team with consultants who specialize in sustainable building, such as environmental engineers, sustainability consultants and green building assessors. Meredith Davey of Atelier Ten environmental engineers writes about the firm’s role in the Gardens by the Bay, Singapore project with architects Wilkinson Eyre (pp108-11). The project involves the design of two artificial environments under enormous glass domes that will allow visitors to have the unusual experience of entering a “designed” atmosphere, in one area to experience a Mediterranean springtime with planting including olive trees and grape vines. As Davey explains, the research undertaken for the project was extensive and involved multiple project partners.
Transsolar Klimaengneering was also extensively involved in the Singapore project. Before building design even began, Transsolar provided research for the clients, the National Parks Board of Singapore, in order to develop the building brief by designing and constructing six 100-square-metre (1,076-square-foot) prototype glasshouses. These cooled buildings provided a research facility on site which allowed the study of horticultural conditions, engineering, and architectural strategies for thermal comfort for visitors and ideal frowing conditions for plants and trees in the proposed biomes.
This issue of AD highlights the emergence of design practices that undertake sustainability research in-house. An increasing number of architecture offices are developing new sustainable building knowledge using internal consultancies that they define as research groups, such as the Specialist Modelling Group at Foster + Partners (pp 28-35), Aedas R&D (pp 36-43), the Sustainability Group at HOK (pp 48-53), the Nikken Sekkei Research Institute (pp 100-7), GXN at 3XN (pp 70-5) and the research team at Perkins + Will Canada (pp 92 – 9)
The Emerging Brief
In the context of sustainable architecture, there is less focus on architects as creators of drawings, and more focus on architects as creators of different processes, activities and design outputs. The challenge of building sustainably has resulted in architects being asked to engage with new forms of communication, beyond the 2-D or even 3-D drawing. Clients are demanding that architects do certain works to include environmental considerations in new ways. With an increased focus on documenting energy, environment and various ideas of sustainability, architects are modelling, simulating and measuring buildings, energy and performance. For example, Foster + Partners have produced thermal energy studies in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi (pp 28-35), 2012 Archiecten regularly adapts ideas from industrial ecology to simulate energy and other flows into the site (pp 54-61) and 10 Design uses computational fluid dynamics to simulate the wind in its tower designs (pp 112-17). The cover of this AD is an abstract graphic generated from a digital simulation tool developed by Autodesk Research. The goal is to understand how air moves through a specific naturally ventilated space. This research aims to develop strategies to eliminate or reduce mechanical systems, which is a critical part of net-zero building design. A future workflow could see the architect as designing both the building and the flows of energy, light and air within it.
Measurements would seem to be an important part of assessing the sustainability of a design or building, but since there is no single agreed method or way of measuring or training architects to measure things like energy, airflows, carbon or material performance, the measurements are often a vague part of an architect’s deliverables, with ranges of values and information from other consultants making up a significant proportion.
Architects BNIM are one of the offices featured in this issue of AD who use tools such as LEED and Living Buildings as a way of measuring their designs. Architect Laura Lesniewski explains the firm’s approach to the Omega Center for Sustainable Living in New York (pp 76-81), one of the most progressive buildings in American architecture. It is the first building in the world to be certified LEED platinum and have Living Building designation. While the building’s ecological intentions are clear, its performance cannot be accurately measured until it is open, in use and tested in various ways over time. Simulating ecological and sustainable design and energy use at design stage, rather than using post-occupancy information or comparing before and after, remains the standard in the industry. There is no indication in the prefession that this will change, despite the fact that clients, users and the public are unable to know if buildings really achieve the building performance that was simulated at design stage.
This approach poses a problem for ecological design. How can architects discover whether sustainable designs equal sustainable buildings? And of course it is impossible to conceive of a successful ecological building without ecologically mindful building users. People play a huge role in how buildings perform, and as Simos Yannas argues (pp 62-9), creating adaptive architecture that responds to specific inhabitation and specific user needs is a necessary step towards a more ecological approach.
Ecological Design Beyond Buildings
Architects are a part of the ecology of a building project. This issue highlights examples of architectural initiatives that illustrate this emerging idea. Rau Architects proposes new supply chains and systems of ownership with the Turntoo initiative that allows clients to buy performance not products (pp 124-9). Thomas Rau predicts a future where buildings will be designed for disassembly and his office in Rotterdam has an experimental relationship with its suppliers, including a pay-per-lux contract with Philips. This is a case where the architect acts as the designer of the relationship between product and performance.
In an innovative energy-producing project, Rau creates an “energy intranet” to connect the energy-generating roof on a college to serve a sports hall and housing on the site. Here, the office is designing an energy infrastructure as well as buildings.
Another example of architects designing processes and systems is from the Specialist Modelling Group at Foster + Partners. For Masdar City, the office presents a holistic energy strategy for an innovative scheme that straddles the scale of buildings and urbanism. Masdar is a design for individual buildings, but it works at an urban scale incorporating ideas of ecology, networks and systems-based design. Hugh Whitehead’s and Irene Gallou’s text (pp 28-35) contemplates the role of the architect as a generalist who must also be a specialist, and the role of research in the ecology of a design team.
Ultimately, Experimental Green Strategies illustrates emerging approaches to ecological design research that point to new ways of understanding ecological design. The future of applied architectural research lies in integrated, systems-based strategies of understanding ecologies at various scales, relating to design process, building and place.
