PROOF COPY – Not for Distribution
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 216 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture Edited by Sang Lee Published by 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, Netherlnads Table of Contents Words 01 Foreword 355 02 Acknowledgements 141 03 Introduction 9 751 04 The Aesthetics of Architectural Consumption (No images) 9 318 Glen Hill 05 What Does Sustainability Look Like? (No images) 4 552 Matthias Sauerbruch & Louisa Hutton 06 Solar Aesthetic (19 images) 7 103 Ralph L. Knowles 07 The Architecture of the Passively Tempered Environment (11 images) 6 522 Keith N. Bothwell 08 Qualitative and Quantitative Traditions in Sustainable Design (12 images) 8 294 John Brennan 09 Urbanization and Discontents: Megaform and Sustainability (8 images) 5 016 Kenneth Frampton 10 Landscape Aesthetics for Sustainable Architecture (10 images) 5 528 Daniel Jauslin 11 Building Envelope as Surface (No images) 7 167 Sang Lee & Stefanie Holzheu 12 The Sustainable Indigenous Vernacular: Interrogating a Myth (8 images) 8 434 Nezar AlSayyad & Gabriel Arboleda 1 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 13 The Qanats in Yazd: The Dilemmas of Sustainability & Conservation (16 images) 7 299 Vinayak Bharne 14 The Vernacular, the Iconic and the Fake (4 images) 4 613 Harald N. Røstivk 15 Natural Architecture (8 images) 2 664 Kengo Kuma 16 The Concept and Aesthetics of Sustainable Building in Japan (14 images) 5 605 Minna Sunikka-Blank 17 Durability in Housing – The Aesthetics of the Ordinary (6 images) 8 229 Marie Antoinette Glaser 18 Environmental Issues as Context (8 images) 6 385 Elisabetta Pero 19 Magic, Inc. –Reframing the City (3 images) 8 016 Matthew Skjonsberg 20 Constructing Sensuous Ecologies: Beyond The Energy Efficiency And Zero-Carbon Argument (5 images) 6 880 Giancarlo Mangone & Patrick Teuffel 21 Symbiosis and Mimesis in Built Environment (8 images) 5 918 Luca Finocchicaro & Anne Grete Hestnes 22 Aesthetic Potentials in an Open Network Inventory System (No images) 7 039 David Briggs 23 Contributors 1 426 Total Words 136 255 Total Images 140 2 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 277 Foreword On behalf of the City of Eindhoven and the TU Eindhoven Faculty of Architecture, we would like to express our pleasure in supporting the publication of Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture. For both the city and the faculty, the issues of sustainability in architecture and urban design have been important for many years. With the publication of this book, we believe that we will start a meaningful debate on sustainable practice and its economically and culturally appropriate role in shaping the aesthetics of a society. To this end, we finally have a volume that will help us understand the substance of what it means to design and build in a sustainable way, one that will contribute to the aesthetic constructs of the twenty first century. As we are all familiar, it is rather straightforward to assemble mechanical equipment and facilities in a way that supports our comfort while addressing energy consumption to some degree. However, it is difficult to comprehend how the principles of sustainable living could provide a new aesthetic framework to help us transform the built environment and our relationship to the natural one. For the first time, this volume brings together a series of writings by architects and scholars that specifically addresses sustainable architecture from an aesthetic perspective. We believe that this volume presents a valuable means to explore the theoretical aspects and design approaches of the field. We are confident that this volume will serve as a meaningful source for architects and designers, as well as for anyone who is interested in the aesthetic potentials of sustainable development. Rob van Gijzel Elphi Nelissen Mayor, Eindhoven Dean, Faculty of Architecture Eindhoven University of Technology 3 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 141 Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank the City of Eindhoven and Stichting Interface (Interface Foundation) of the TU Eindhoven Faculty of Architecture for their support for this book. Their initiatives on sustainable design and crucial funding allowed me to embark on this book. The Netherlands Architecture Fund also contributed a generous publication grant to the realization of this book. I am especially grateful to Dr. Kees Doevendans of the TU Eindhoven Faculty of Architecture who patiently oversaw the planning and progress of the book. Without his guidance this book would not have been materialized. Lisa Hosale, the book’s copyeditor persisted with the texts above and beyond her responsibilities. I would like to praise her for her thorough and caring work. Finally, I would like to thank the experts and scholars who reviewed the articles and provided invaluable criticism and advice. 4 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 9.784 words Introduction As the issue of sustainable design and development has emerged as one of the most compelling in the architecture of our time, as well as in society and politics at large, it is important to explore the changes that have occurred in the architectural profession as a result. Given the sensitivity and attention that is paid to sustainable design and development today, it is relevant to ask whether sustainability has become a new, specialized branch of the discipline, or an intrinsic part of the discipline as a whole. Accordingly, we may ask if the heightened awareness of sustainability functions simply as an addendum to the practice of architecture, or if it affects the discourse of the profession in a more fundamental way. And finally, we may ask how these trends have changed the way we situate the built environment in relation to the natural one. As a first step toward addressing these questions, The Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture attempts to trace the key concepts and theories that underlie what it means to design in a sustainable way. At their very core, the principles of sustainable design are rooted in the building’s relationship to the site and its environmental conditions such as topography, vegetation and climate. These principles are common to the discipline as a whole, and to a large extent, architecture as praxis already includes strong propositions of how the artificial, man-made environment may be designed and constructed in relation to the natural environment. What varies from project to project is how well, and to what degree, these relationships are maintained. The discipline of architecture is not static; not only what we call the disciplinary discourse but also the techniques of design and construction have undergone rapid, extensive transformations in terms of sophistication as well as complexity. These transformations are linked to the rapid pace of industrial and technological development that has characterized the Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture Introduction Page 1 of 31 5 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 9.784 words current age and its prevailing market economy model. These developments underlie many of the world's most serious environmental problems, and have greatly impacted our approach to the design of the built environment and its operations in ways that have moved us farther away from a sustainable relationship to nature. However, these same trends may be harnessed to offer new approaches to sustainable design. What then is the role of architecture in responding to current environmental problems? The chapters in this collection will present historical and theoretical positions in order to address this question, and address how the renewed consciousness of environmental concern in architecture may develop, given the challenges of the current age. At the same time, as the overarching title of this book may suggest, the aesthetic dimension is intrinsic to any impetus that brings about great transformations in the design of the built environment. If one were to consider sustainability as such an impetus, would it transform the aesthetics of architecture and the built environment in any substantive way? Or is sustainability simply incongruous to, and to be shunned by, the aesthetic apparatus of architecture? The chapters in this collection will attempt to address these questions while proposing thoughts on how sustainability is indeed an aesthetic issue, and how the notion of sustainability may provide a form of aesthetic thinking that is fundamentally implicit to the discipline. Therefore, this book is intended to offer a reference on how the issues of sustainability and aesthetics may be related together in architecture. In recent years, the so-called greening of architecture has produced a new class of experts and professionals. Sometimes they work in parallel with architects, while other times they work in the background, effectively greening a building design after the architect's work is done. Given these trends, it is important to ask if sustainability is indeed an area that is best left to this new class of experts and professionals. Or, is sustainability such an important part of design that every architect should engage it as an integral part of their work? Alternately, Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture Introduction Page 2 of 31 6 PROOF COPY – Not For Distribution 9.784 words should every architect become familiar with sustainability simply in order to become more marketable and to get more work? Current trends – including the implementation of evaluation standards such as LEED, BREEAM and C2C certification, and the increasing commodification and marketing of anything green as sustainable – suggest that it is an opportune moment to reconsider and reevaluate what sustainability means to the discipline of architecture, while clarifying some of the core issues that surround it. Therefore, this book is an attempt to retrace the reference on which sustainable thinking in architecture and aesthetics could be based, helping to define the role of architects in relation to sustainability in the process. Any one of these questions could form a substantial volume in itself, in order to do justice to the weight and scope of the subject matter. Despite the danger of becoming superficial and glossing over crucial issues, this collection is meant to function as an opening or a springboard, so to speak.