Philip,
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More than the particulars of how you do it, the first important thing is just making the attempt to measure change in total environmental stress, the "cumulative" effect. The key from a scientific method view, since science is accumulative too, is to start with indicators you can consistently measure, and then learn to interpret their implications.>>
This perhaps is not unlike what physicians do. Observe symptoms, make a diagnosis. Prescribe remedial action.
Where we are in our understanding and ability to operate within our planetary system is somewhere around the 'bleeding with leeches' mark.
It's long overdue that we get past that.
We're able to articulate some of the root causes of a global 'malaise': too much carbon dioxide, for instance. Arguing about implementing a curative regimen will be unproductive without a cohesive or at least effective theory relating architectural 'causes' with global 'effects'. At best, such a theory will only provide directional signals, which in a free society people may use to situate themselves. Forget about exact science; it's design. It's creating defacto organs of nature occupied by humans. A house is not a machine, it's an inclusion, a knot, a node in a set of synergistic living conditions.
At various scales and levels of complexity we can observe regularities, predictable patterns, indicators. Are those the levels at which to focus professional practices?
Sidenote: I use the term 'architectural' here in a broad sense - I'm not talking about style, tectonics, or aesthetics, I'm talking about how things fit together in dynamic systems. So, for instance, what is the nature of a city and it's surroundings? Where are systemic boundaries, interconnections, and interdependencies? What are the properties of it's component parts? At different scales, you can ask similar questions of buildings, neighborhoods, districts. All these phenomena fit together in a more or less well-functioning whole.
It's probably safe to say many or most of us are not used to thinking this way. And it's certainly the case that design and building practices today are not focused on looking at things holistically - to our collective detriment.
The prevailing mode of thought on what gets built within political boundaries is fragmented and reductionist. In another thread someone remarked on the foolishness of LEED. I agree to the extent that it can be - and is - applied excessively reductively. But isn't it interesting that it can help transcend that bounded thinking?
Looking at it still another way, LEED, Transition Towns, Green Globes, Natural Step, the STAR index, EnergyStar and other such frameworks ALL point in roughly the same intended direction. Now there's an indicator for you. We've got to see the forest and the trees. Yet we have to live with bounded rationality.
The problem right now might not be a lack of measures and indicators. Rather it might be that substantive change isn't happening fast enough, in real terms, in the direction pointed out. Part of that goes back to inadequate theories to guide action steps. We're mired in a 'bleeding with leeches' mindset and doing random ecological amputations with sawzalls and jackhammers.
We might be trying to try, but are we learning and
doing better at the end of the day - ie, maintaining or improving conditions conducive to biological life? We don't need to be rocket scientists. Monkeys do it. Ants and trees do it. Long lasting indigenous cultures did it. As a culture, have we gotten too big too fast, and found ourselves in unknown - and unknowable - territory?
If you had a few indicators or measures of progress to live by, what do you think they'd be? What are the potentials and relative economics (fiscal and political) of various development scenarios?
Not to give too much credence to economic decision making schools of thought, but to get the flavor of such a debate you might look at
http://climatecolab.org.
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Randall Anway AIA
Principal
New Tapestry, LLC
Old Lyme CT
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-18-2011 09:00
From: Philip Henshaw
Subject: Has the term "sustainability" become cliché -- or does it still have currency?
Randall, You seem to be picking out much the same idea that often missing from the meaning of "sustainability" that I and Jonathan are pointing to, when you borrow the phrase "Cumulative Stress Disorder" from medicine. The key word is "cumulative", implying an awareness of and ability to measure repeated additions, making a quantitative comparison of before and after... That's where I think our scientific methods, or lack thereof, are showing.
We would need some kind of budget concept, a way to come to a "total", to let us know whether a project is adding or reducing regional or global economic impacts, for example. That's because what we're talking about is stress on the earth, not just making a projects attractive economically. That, of course, is where it both becomes a more complicated and and sensitive question, with ethical challenges to face regarding how economics is generally about adding stress on the earth.
I think everyone understands conceptually that in order to have sustainable profits for an economy we somehow need to make a compromise between ever growing impacts and having none at all. How we we might stop growing them, seems to be the problem at present, but the public discussion has been largely absent. I think the reason is that no one is measuring totals or comparing before and after.
I'd propose that even if architectural choices can't fully determine outcomes, we can at least have them become more informed choices. It would also widen the discussion to learn how to measure the real magnitude of our increasing or decreasing impacts, i.e. compare estimates of whole system impacts before and after.
More than the particulars of how you do it, the first important thing is just making the attempt to measure change in total environmental stress, the "cumulative" effect. The key from a scientific method view, since science is accumulative too, is to start with indicators you can consistently measure, and then learn to interpret their implications.
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Philip Henshaw Architect
New York NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-17-2011 17:59
From: Randall Anway
Subject: Has the term "sustainability" become cliché -- or does it still have currency?
The s-word may be necessary but it's not sufficient. By broadening the dialog, introducing and cultivating new language, and addressing the concomitant issues ethically and economically, architects have the potential to help demystify a term that signifies little or nothing substantive to many.
Few are bothered with 'the cumulative effects of small decisions'. Yet there's a term used in medicine: 'Cumulative Stress Disorder' or CSD. Here is a concept that characterizes phenomena happening across scales.
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