The Power of the Envelope

In The Politics of the Envelope: A Political Critique of Materialism, Alejandro Zaera discusses an interesting question of how architecture fits into the political and societal realm. “The discipline has been split between those who believe architecture is a mere social construct and those who believe that architecture’s facts are determined by the inexorable laws of physics, economics, buildability, climatology and ergonomics.” (Zaera, pg 76). Zaera then soon dives deeper into his stance by stating that architecture is “as much a physical construct as it is a social or political one…” And that we, as future architects, have to understand the problems with associating the practice as one or the other with no considerations for the one left out. “The Powers of Architecture” are unbound and unlimited, because architecture is a part of everyone's lives, all the time. What’s even more interesting about Zaera’s argument is that he then relates it all back to the building envelope. Something that I’ve always inherently understood the importance of, but have never truly taken the time to think about the consequences of. I think that this quote does a good job of explaining what those consequences are: “The envelope is a core concern of the discipline affecting materiality and construction, environmental performance, energy efficiency and other issues, but it also engages several political forms: economical, social and psychological.” (pg. 78).