Building envelopes and ecological urbanism

Living most of my life in a developing country has given me a different perspective of how construction has changed from a traditional society to that of the modern industrialized nation. In many ways, architecture/construction in developing countries is closer to the way building was done for thousands of years. One of the clearest examples of this change is the reliance in modern construction on a highly efficient, air tight and water tight building envelope. Of course this makes sense when it comes to energy efficiency and control of general comfort but I also think that something big is lost in the strive for better enclosed buildings and this is directly related to how modern cities work.

Growing up we lived on the side of a very large rainforest river. Our house stood on pilotis to separate it from the damp ground and we had a large wrap around porch that overlooked the water. The ground floor was used for parking and storing equipment for the land. The walls of the house were mostly covered by sliding Windows that were kept open most of the day to let cross ventilation air from the river and Venetian blinds covered these when the sun got too hot. The large wrap around porch (maybe 10' and up to 20') was not only a great family and guest gathering space that had great views but it also served environmental purposes; it kept rain from coming in the windows and was a large overhang to protect from the tropic sun. When I moved to the US I was surprised that in Charleston, a city that had very similar environmental conditions during the summer and shares a cultural Caribbean heritage of large porches as my hometown, people don't take advantage of waterfront conditions. There's very little places in the city where you can sit outside and eat or drink looking over the water. It's as if in this quest for building the most efficient building envelope and an insular understanding of how buildings should work we lost a sense of the possibilities of the outdoors.

This cultural insularity also translates to the rest of the urban form. In many South Carolina cities for example it was illegal until recently to have restaurants with seating on the streets. In a state with great weather for much of the year people could not eat outside when they were downtown! Eating on the streets is a cultural and political act of sharing public space. Imagine cities in Europe where this is such a big part of daily life. Although environmental comfort is necessary within buildings, I think there's a lot to loose when our only strategy for urban environmental efficiency is only having better building envelopes.