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DEFINITIONS
If one brushes aside the jargonóall the green, sustainable, eco adjectivesóone is left with the simple admonition to design "well": to design in full recognition of the complexity of the design problem. The first key to sustainable design is accepting a significant change in the design process itself. Inter-disciplinary collaboration, and "lateral," as opposed to "linear" thinking, are the new tools. Sustainable design originates with a holistic approach, incorporating economic, cultural, social, ecological and technical concerns. To design sustainably is to design with the long term in mind, to minimize a building's impact on the natural environment, while maximizing its social and cultural relevance. Social and cultural relevance are commonly addressed by current design practice and have undoubtedly been at the forefront of your own design studio explorations over the last few years. However the notion of minimizing architecture's impact on the environment, or "treading lightly on the earth" so as to sustain the environment for future generations, is less familiar to us all. Ecological design is actually a sub-set of sustainable design, but it is the part that gives this new methodology its colour and technical challenge. Ecological design embraces materials, techniques and systems that are largely unfamiliar to conventional architectural practice, from solar panels, hybrid ventilation systems and passive solar heating to straw bale and milk paint. We no longer have the option to design unsustainably. Putting aside questions of conscience for a moment, sustainable design expertise is rapidly becoming a business necessity. Five years ago only fringe practices claimed a "green" expertise: today large conventional, and hot avant-garde architectural firms alike are shifting uncomfortably into this unknown field under pressure from clients. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT? As the instigator of built form, you are the mediator and translator of the web of relationships that connect people to each other and to the world around them. You are responsible for the physical filter between inside and outside, self and other, nature and culture...with all its eventual repercussions. This perspective invites profound reflection on our roles as stewards of the physical environment and facilitators of the physical and psychological well being of our buildings' users. WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE? Architecture is neither static nor benign. Architecture is a larger-than-life projection of our presence on the world that continues to exist after we have abandoned it, to be used and misused, valued and wasted. Our design decisions have a profound impact, not only in the immediate environment of our constructions, but also on a much vaster scale, from the sites of material production to the landfills of our neglect. |