On Aesthetics and Sustainability
I feel as though over the course of time that we have felt a pressure to choose between aesthetic and sustainability. Between an architectural statement and technology. However nowadays it seems like the line between the two are getting more blurred as time progresses, but even more interestingly, it seems as though there has been a movement to make sustainable design more progressive through regressing the technology. More emphasis is now being put on solar orientation, thermal massing and predominant winds during the conceptual design phases of projects, helping intertwine these aesthetic yet sustainable features. No longer is the approach to design a building and try to make it sustainable with bells and whistles and a gut wrenching initial cost. The trend now and should be moving forward is to have more environmentally conscious design in place of the Cadillac HVAC or glazing system.
That does seem to be the trend. It'll be interesting for us to see it in action in a few months. Will there be a push for this sort of thing when it requires much more design time on the front end? Will most firms take this up or is it only something that happens at firms that have money to spare and are trying to push the boundaries of design?
ReplyDeleteI do think this has become the trend in Architectural education since it seems to be responsible to design with the environment in mind. However, I do not think this is the current trend across all firms in the professional world. I think it is only a few, trying to prove that it is worthwhile (and I believe that it is). I think sustainability will be our largest challenge as young professionals. We are educated to design in that way, so we have to ask ourselves how we can push for that in our careers, even in the small, seemingly insignificant ways until it makes a difference.
ReplyDeleteIt can be say, though, that all buildings before the advent of HVAC had to design based on these principles. I don't think that we are so much shifting to something new as we are recooping something we once did and lost. If you visit a FL Wirght home, for example, the site and environment completely drive the aesthetic. His work (before air conditioning) is completely in tune with nature.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the line between architectural expression and building technology are starting to blur. In fact, I have seen some projects that use the building technology as part of the architecture (one that comes to mind is the R.W. Kern Center). This idea becomes even more interesting with sustainable techniques. The architectural expressions become more, they become expressions on the environment as well.
ReplyDeleteI actually think that we're not being forced to choose between aesthetic and sustainability, but instead we've more recently been given the opportunity to integrate the two! It's so easy for a project to be designed purely based on aesthetic and have no regards to sustainability. It's also easy for a project to get so caught up in the sustainable aspects that aesthetic is completely compromised. But if we can focus on both aspects at the same time then I think we've really won!
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