You can get the best training for a job, but if no one wants it, you are not going to be used. Yes, we all had "sustainable/green" education as architects, but until now, the public was not interested. (Case in point: Carter's solar panels on the White House that came off when the next administration came into power.) Should we as architects advocated more... probably.... but most of the time it was beating you head against a wall, but now sustainability is in fashion for one reason or another.
The problem is that in the building industry, most sustainability is achieved through technology and not design....again....case in point...LEED points and the new Green Codes. That is a hard pill to swallow for architects, because we have been trained to solve problems with good design and use technology as back up, not the other way around.
We also we recognize that a building is at its peak when the users use it correctly and get in harmony with the building within its surrounding environments, but as many post op reports coming back show, the users are not using the building properly and so the building is not functioning as it was designed, which kinda kills the whole intent of creating a "perfect green" building.
You can not create sustainable environments through technology. Sustainability is a way of life, which is hard to regulate and quantify. That is why we architects are struggling because we know that. Our work is so intimate with human life and that is too abstract for people who want a black and white solution to green buildings.
The following a friend sent. I think it sums up our "green" world today.
The Green Thing
In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."
He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in
space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But we didn't have the green thing back then.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
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Sally Anne Smith AIA
Smith Architectural Studio
Carmel Highlands, CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-31-2011 09:27
From: Gisela Schmidt
Subject: Sustainability
Architects lost sight of old-fashioned sustainability (along with interest in detailing and contructability) when flashy design and maximizing the program for budget became priorities. Despite this my projects in higher ed have had many of the features now called "sustainable".
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Gisela Schmidt
Atlanta, Georgia
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-30-2011 07:24
From: George Jennings
Subject: Sustainability
When did architects lose touch with "sustainability?" From the time I first started in an architect's office over 50 years ago, I was taught that architects should design to have the least impact on the environment and everything that affects it. I was taught to stay up-to-date with all technologies and materials that similarly have an impact on the products of our efforts, and the impacts of those porducts on the environment.
What changed I think is that we became painfully aware of how quickly we were negatively affecting the environment because we were not staying on top of abilities to improve methods and materials. So someone decided to make "sustainability" a buzzword and to create an industry out of it. That did get things moving more quickly, but it has its own negative wake and backwash.
Charles Vishal is absolutely correct - sustainability should be common sense, not some financially driven industry that is costing us time and money away from our practices.
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George Jennings AIA
G Booker 3
Tappahannock VA
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