|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1349
Location: Eugene, Oregon
|
 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:44 pm Post subject: Starchitecture and Sustainability... |
    |
|
Interesting discussion in an article reprinted at Planetizen.... despite "starchitects" in itself being more a media and social creation, than a deep or concrete independent phenomenon....
Starchitecture and Sustainability: Hope, Creativity, and Futility Collide in Contemporary Architecture
by Josh Stephens
http://www.planetizen.com/node/41489
Can today's contemporary architects, schooled in modernism and invention, in fact incorporate the sort of green building materials and techniques that make a real difference? And does design really matter?
"Not so for Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, and the other luminaries of 20th century architecture. And even less so for their successors. But as the green movement builds under the auspices of everything from Al Gore’s We Campaign to the now common LEED certification, architecture finds itself asking how green it can get—and what green should look like.
"'In the last five years, we've been the instigators and the activists, and today a lot of our clients are demanding it,' said Thom Mayne, winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize. 'We've become kind of 'green architects' all of a sudden.'
"But, said Mayne, 'green is one of a multiple set of issues.'" |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
88
Joined: 15 Nov 2005
Posts: 95
Location: usa
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I think the greenest starchitect will be someone who has quitted the profession. He/She will not design and build any chinzty LEED structure. (He/she will not spend endless hours googling and reading forum like this too as many trees are killed to power this internet habit.)
Any act of building anything is not really green no matter how many LEED points you throw at it. Actually the greenest houses are those that are already built... to make them greener..actually all we have to do is to change our habits a little ..like turning off the computer now...and walk to buy the beer instead of driving the hybrid SUV. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SDR
millennium club
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1845
Location: San Francisco
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Save the planet by ceasing to communicate with each other ? By not building another new (energy-efficient, recycled and recyclable) building, or another (ditto) vehicle ? We should continue to multiply, but withdraw from even the advances we've made so far, as a civilization -- sort of "cut off our noses to spite our faces" ? Hmm. . .
SDR |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1349
Location: Eugene, Oregon
|
| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:00 am Post subject: |
|
|
I can appreciate the sentiment - when you become really aware of how heavily and really quite blithely our recent mode of dominant civilization has traversed the capacities of our one planet, as brilliantly worked up here, for instance...
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/index.html
...the challenge of low-impact building seems acute, indeed.
But at the same time, we are here, and we are, most of us in these forums, part of the dominant civilization - that we therefore have the responsibility to turn around. If not us - then who?
And we live in buildings - buildings already carry a large share of climate and other environmental impacts, as we've detailed in ArchitectureWeek - and very much to the point, buildings are our realm of expertise.
Keeping in mind full principles like the ArchitectureWeek Four Leaf Green standard, and others, this diagram of the replacement rate of buildings in the US suggests the potential for us to make a great and much-needed positive impact:
From: http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2009/0624/index.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cousinbirgco
Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 148
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If I have to walk to get the beer, it's time to
stop walking the dog and eat the little bugger! 
Climate change: Time to eat Fido?
A startling new book claims that pet dogs are more harmful to the environment than SUVs—should we listen?
WORLD NEWS & OPINION•THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, - forum abuse - PRINT EMAIL
A new book claims dogs are worse for the environment than sport utility vehicles.
(Corbis/Scott Lowden)
BEST OPINION: PITTSBURGH TRIB-REVIEW, NEW SCIENTIST, WASH. TIMES ...
Dogs cause more damage to our planet than SUVs, according to a controversial new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living. The environmental footprint of an average "resource-guzzling" hound is twice that of a typical sport utility vehicle, say New Zealander researchers Robert and Brenda Vale, who note that a surprising amount of land is required to produce Fido's meals each year (roughly 2 acres). The book has caused a ruckus by saying people should go pet-free—and even consider eating strays. Have environmentalists gone too far?
(Watch a CNN report about SUVs becoming more eco-friendly)
So what is acceptable — pet millipedes? The green movement is becoming "progressively batty," says Ralph Reiland in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. First we have to "shut down our oil, gas, and coal industries, bike to work," and take the briefest of showers. "Now they want us to cook our dogs"? Apparently, a pet "bug" is the only companion these "hysterical" activists would consider guilt-free.
"Gang Green going to the dogs"
The authors' research is sound: OK, eating our pets "is surely a non-starter," say the editors of New Scientist. But the Vales are right about the science: "Man’s best friend, it turns out, is the planet’s enemy." And while giving up Fido might be "a sacrifice too far," we can take smaller steps. The solution might start with "green, eco-friendly pet food."
"Cute, fluffy and horribly greedy"
You can’t quantify a pet's value: Even if we Americans were to adopt "petless lifestyles," says The Washington Times in an editorial, we’d still be "major carbon offenders in the eyes of the green theocracy." Anyone obsessed with sizing up "carbon pawprints" is missing the point: "A pet’s value, like the worth of a human being, cannot be reduced to a rude carbon quotient." They make us happy, and "that is enough to justify their existence."
"Eat your pets, save the planet"
Why not eat pets? "Dogs are wonderful," says Jonathan Safran Foer in The Wall Street Journal, but they’re not any smarter or more affectionate than pigs. In fact, unlike farmed meat, soon-to-be-put-down strays and runaway pets "are practically begging to be eaten" — and "in a sense," we’re already consuming them. Millions of euthanized cats and dogs are already "rendered" into livestock feed each year. Why not just eliminate this "inefficient…middle step"?
"Let them eat dog" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
88
Joined: 15 Nov 2005
Posts: 95
Location: usa
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Wow..Eat Fido ...and recycle the dog house into a compose bin....great LEED ideas.
In general ... I don't trust all those mandated green criteria.. and many green designers are just regurgitating information provided by the big industries.
In the big picture, most of the green ideas are great ..but many cutting edges green products/idea will be as dated as disco balls in a few years. I think it is better to do sustainable design in a grass root / parochial/ volunteer and common sense way instead of trying to achieve points with latest shiny products from the factories and meeting those "manufactured" design standards.... which are probably cooked up by lobbyists from the major building material manufacturers...
As an independent architect/builder, I think all these green issues will greatly increase our liabilities ...and at the same time lower our thin profit margin even more, as now we will have to spend even more non billable hours trying to sort out the various shades of greens to specify so we can offset our clients' big SUV, big screen TV and big axx dogs.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
blogger
del.icio.us
digg
slashdot
