Sustainability and junkspace

What separates a contemporary strip mall or airport from a medieval cathedral or ancient temple? To echo Koolhaas’ question, why aren’t we building structures with the gravitas that pyramids still have today? Koolhaas argues that today’s junkspace results from a sense of transient building and constant change. Our increasingly commercialized and consumerist society manifests itself in our buildings. We have grown accustomed to buildings that are undergoing renovations as builders add more and more layers of drywall or faux veneer to create even safer, more padded spaces that cushion us from reality. If consumerism and capitalism seem to demand modular building assemblies and faster, sometimes shoddier, construction, would the problem of junkspace be solved by building like they did during the Renaissance? I don’t think this is what Koolhaas is proposing but it makes one wonder how to avoid creating junkspace in our modern, high-tech society.

I think that the impermanence of our buildings and residual junkspace also results from our recent interest in sustainable architecture. However, there is an important distinction between sustainable and green architecture; the former results from agencies and legislation offering incentives to design “sustainable” buildings whereas the latter results from an initial desire to incorporate natural processes and ecologies into building design. The former has been commercialized whereas the latter is a shift in the way we think about the relationship of the built environment to the Earth and the natural environments.