Looking at the discussions here on the boards and attending a MArch program now, I often wonder where we are headed in architecture in the next 20-50 years, most of our careers... Architects have been largely engaged in an increasing number of topics only loosely related to the making of buildings ...urbanism and the making of cities (do architects make cities?), social issues, economic issues, media, installations, memory...do any of these things make buildings? When, if at any point do, architects start to focus on the making of buildings again? Construction? Structure? Architects more than ever deal with words and images, but whatever happened to buildings? Which architect's buildings live up to their words and images?
I hate to sound so old school (actually I don't), but how about light, structure, relationships of public and private, art or a real, focused examination of the way people live or learn. Has anyone heard the word ”˜space' used on archinect or in school lately?
It seems as if people are increasingly turning to computation and sustainability as the focuses of an approach to building, but aren't these largely technical achievements? Sustainability and computation set preordained goals and then try to reach them....this empirical approach rarely leads to innovation or growth. What has architecture done with computation that people in movies or industrial design haven't done already? Why does it matter for architecture aside from the fact we can build it? Why should we build it? What innovations have been made in sustainability? The pioneers in sustainability are people looking to meet goals of numbers and involve largely small thinking. Where are the big bold moves for sustainability? Surely a Ledoux or Boullee could have come up with something in this day and age to challenge our old adages of ”˜green' building...some visionary thinking.
I guess I find myself frustrated and confused...so I ask the people here, what is next, what will we encounter specifically in regard to the making of buildings? And just buildings, not all the other stuff.
if you think sustainability + computation within the practice of architecture are 'technical achievements' and responsive to 'pre-ordained goals' then you dont have a clue and your definition defaults to blobitecture, LEED and whimsical, 'affect' of shape and form. deriviative architecture.
"When, if at any point do, architects start to focus on the making of buildings again? Construction? Structure? Architects more than ever deal with words and images, but whatever happened to buildings? Which architect’s buildings live up to their words and images?"
Listen Architecture is about sketches, not bla matter , you are not supposed to get your hands dirty Basta. Structure beauty and all that is what is hidden behind not an issue for architects, the thing is about the sheer surface of spetacular things that's what architects do , if you realy want to build structures go become a building constructure or somthing like that.
Hi Petey.
I suppose there's a slight confusion of activities going on. On the one hand, there's architects talking. On the other, there's architects designing. The latter tends to happen in silence (in my experience at any rate, although obviously I'm not referring to the wider construction procurement process) and its subtelties aren't easy to convey in words, let alone the kind of soundbites used in web forums.
Having said this, I get the impression designcommunity.com, although it's gone rather quiet of late, has more in-depth discussion of architecture, whereas this forum has more general discussion contributed by people who happen to be architects / architecture students.
TED - computation IS a technical achievement by definition, how could you argue anything otherwise? And "Sustainable Design" or "Green Building" as it is defined within the institution of architecture IS about meeting goals set by the calculation of numerical inputs and outputs. Even when you are not talking LEED - how else do you determine Greeness? Is a grass roof "Green"? It's been done for centuries, why is it all of a sudden now called "Green"? It is not the grass on the roof that makes Green buildings, it is the lower percentage of energy expenditure in comparrison to a tar roof that makes it "Green".
"Listen Architecture is about sketches, not bla matter , you are not supposed to get your hands dirty Basta. Structure beauty and all that is what is hidden behind not an issue for architects, the thing is about the sheer surface of spetacular things that's what architects do , if you realy want to build structures go become a building constructure or somthing like that."
Petey - This is not worth translation, so don't even bother.
pete, sorry not trying to fight also - sometimes if you write something one way it generates more response [or kills a thread].
although i am a LEED guro, i have been openly against[on archinect] what i call the dumming down of architecture by formula, standards, codes, etc, etc. LEED is in my opinion has too many special interest manufactures trying to ram quasi green wash products into the fold. points dont make sustainible projects.
where computers, shape and sustainability can be used to dynamically model buildings for responsive and adaptable solutions. with non-standard manufacturing, as we all know, with the right smarts, anything is possible. this is what i want to exploit and trust me its very hard.
this is not a universal system, style or approach. no.
architecture is very complex and building systems are very chaotic expecially when multiple high tuned systems are supposed to uniformly 'react' because of some bms system.
I agree wholeheartedly and I think the charge of my first entry was exactly that often we as architects overemphasize particular aspects of an architecture at the cost of thinking about architecture as a whole. Architecture should be more than one thing, more than a few things and I'm not sure why architecture is so rarely thought about as this synthesis of many things into one whole. We keep dwelling on the parts too much. Yes, there is much potential in computers, shape and sustainability. Completely valid and very important, but what about the rest? Also, who is doing or studying these things? (even just at the level you have described) Practice? Schools? I've never enjoyed a building or place because of how high tuned of a system it was.
We'll forgive your naive assumptions about the nature of architecture, since your jstill in school. Architects have always been generalists and multi-disciplinarians- so the perview of urbanism, culture, media, et al is not divergence from our professional responsibilities.
As for 'technical achievement' for 'pre-ordained goals' - buildings are complex with lots of competing interests influencing their conception. The art is to integrate and celebrate the 'architecture' into a viable project that gets built. Innovations are not being limited by objectively defined performance goals- if you look at the last 10 years of blobs, that line of 'innovation' was dead on arrival as it was self-serving and had subjective goals that have proven to be a fad.
The exciting innovations in sustainable design are in how the project holistically integrates into the surrounding fabric. If mies ever though about a watershed then I'm a frog. But today we understand the greater context and how each building contributes or detracts from the environment.
Petey - there is lots of innovation, you just gotta look beyond your studio desk. Oh, we had an entire thread about space architecture recently.
besides me? if you look hard on archinect i see similar paths of many.
perhaps because of age i completely reject metaphor as one of those things that influence architect and metaphor is the dominate player in architecture school today. teaching in diploma school this year i cant tell you how many shallow words were reflected in students work; movement, icon and sustainability the pallet of choice with whatever simitude they wanted to make.
Treekiller, you're naive if you think Mies gave a rat's ass about a watershed. Of course this wasn't his concern. Mies thought about the way people lived and worked in a completely new type of space and the way new methods of making informed this way to live and create space. A water detail is small freaking peanuts to his commentary on the modern movement, architectural space and construction. Architecture should be about all of these things and the depth of the work, not a water shedding detail.
Yes, it is good for architects to be generalists and multi-disciplinarians, but at the cost of make buildings, and making good buildings, 'architects' are left as nothing but amateur social theorists.
well did you know mrs. farnsworth sued mies -- one of the claims being ignorance of the flood plane as shown in this photo of the farnsworth house you might not have ever seen with floods in the 90s.
and mies lost!
i am certain he learned the hard way about flood planes.
one shouldnt give up one for the other. and any idiot who would have been to the site and knew the slightest thing about nature[look at the water marks on the trees for a start] would know it would flood like hell, he knew it would flood - its on stilts --but he ignored the details - like how much -
form OVER function; he only looked for an excuse for a style.
Petey-
I didn't turn into a frog - and mies didn't give a damn, though maybe you are currently one, waiting for that kiss from a royal to turn you into an architect.
TED - I like that bionic frog image.
The innovation today is that we CAN know the environmental conditions and respond. That's why the dutch are building floatable houses, not houses on stilts. Form and function are only part of the picture these days.
Isn't the point that technology is AN spect of the profession but should not the derivative aspect. In other words a building should not be derived from purely tecnhological concerns?
and it's not like sustainability was created by architects, the ethics of ecology has been discussed long before architects got a hold of it. It's a matter of being a good human being - not being a good architect.
Petey, You don't make a very strong case that architects have forgotten buildings. There are an awful lot of buildings being designed, produced and written about.
From my perspective, architecture-which-is-not-buildings is still the part of architecture that is marginalised.
I think Petey is not trying to say that buildings aren't getting built- clearly they are. I think his concern is over the terms of the buildings being built. These terms "GREEN", "SUSTAINABLE", "TECHNOLOGICAL". When they become the argument for making architecture, a diservice is done to the work. I do not accept these terms - they are outside of architecture - like plumbing.
Petey- I think you are being building-centric. The things you describe ARE part of architecture. Cities and exhibits are space, too, just on different scales. Maybe they're not the part you happen to be interested in, and that's fine, but don't belittle others for including them in their practices. What is a building if not a piece of a city? Obviously it is more, but I believe it deserves to be examined from that angle as well as from the multiple internal viewpoints.
I will also maintain that light, structure, and public/private relationships are important parts of sustainability. Though I am a LEED AP, I think that on the whole, LEED is very narrowminded, and ignores (or gives too little priority to) some very large social issues. But, when viewed as a tool which helps clients and other non-architects to see what some of the important components of sustainability are, like location, site disturbance, healthy air, light, and material composition, LEED becomes a tool that is very useful in helping to convince laypeople of how important sustainability is. It is up to US, the architects, to take a building further than LEED requires.
Sustainability is important, hell, by definition it's pretty much an imperative, but one should not have to have that explained to them by an architect to agree and admit to it.
The main tenets of sustainability are derived from Environmental Ethics which is a branch of philosophy. The architecture of green appropriated and codified these environmental ethics. This is fine, except that now it's more than an ethic, it's a TITLE, it's you're one of us or you're one of them. Your a green architect or your not - that's where the problem lies. It neds to cease being a specialized branch and just become part of the normalized building industry - it's a social debate. What's my point?
Well, I guess it's that the debate on sustainability is not architectural - it's social. We architects are having it because society is having it and we are inextricably tied to that society. It's an important discussion, one that I try to involve myself with whenever possible. But in the end, it's not architecture - it's only building.
Oh, and LEED is an advertisement tool, which is I guess what you're saying Ration.
I hear where your coming from agfa, but the simple fact of the matter is as soon as you start donning titles like "green" - there is automatically an other, if you're not "green" you must be something else. I'm not trying to be pedantic. People look for "green" architects specifically - so the division is set - I'm not making this up. There are ads by architects clkaiming to be "green". Interviews with architects who proclaim greeness. Clients who look for "green" architects. My context is the archittectural profession.
I'm a little preachy I know but seriously, the division is there. Am I responding correctly or do I misunderstand you agfa?
A tool is only as good as it's user. LEED is a tool like ACAD or a skilsaw. I've found it to be a great way to nudging reluctant clients into adding features that will make the project better.
So what is architecture? it's not the blueprints or BIM, or the 2x4s you're right- it is the sum of all the stuff that we draw, the contractor builds, and the users inhabitat.
Green architecture is a state of mind and a ethos to practice by. If you start each project with thoughts about how to maximize the good, then you're off to the right start. If all you can do is minimize the wrong then you shouldn't be an architect. Yes, LEED is a marketing tool, so is catia, and lots of other things. There are good architects and bad- just as there are good musicians and ones that suck.
I'm confused by your historical obsession with 17th c. charecters- what relevance do they have today when discussing the amphibian qualities of practice? Ok these folks didn't use petroleum based products, [text=italics]sustainably harvested[/text] lumber, and farmed organically - but that doesn't make them Green. their understanding of thermodynamics, insulation, or generative technology (beyond farting cows).
I'd rather have kermit the puppet as my partner then some dead white guys . So where is architecture going in the next 20 years- well I'm saving the planet from ourselves and architecture is my game!
Oh, I totally agree: as soon as you adopt 'Green' as a title, you set up a division between us and them.
All I was observing was that this emphasis on 'Greenness' may only be the architectural profession in your area. I know that, for instance, in the architectural profession in my country, capital-G Green architects who oppose all the rest of the architects aren't really a strong voice, although issues of environmental responsibility and sustainability are increasingly widely addressed.
It sounds as if, where you are working, capital-G Greenness is a major issue, and you might be right about the division being quite real. It may not be the same everywhere.
Ah, agfa8x. I see. Well that is reassuring that the issues of sustainability in architecture can be debated and absorbed into the profession without becoming...well see treekiller post.
If you don't mind would you mention where you're from - country at least?
Also, I'd be interrested in knowing how, in your locale, sustainability is discussed within the framework or building (as opposed to becoming THE framework for architecture).
My reading of the situation is that there is an increasing interest in environmental responsibility among both the public and architects.
Until recently, if there was any kind of a divide it was an academic one: there were 'sustainability people' who seemed to be quite uninterested in a number of other architectural concerns; and others who saw sustainability as uninteresting and restrictive. I think this problem is being overcome, and sustainability is a much more integrated concern than it was a couple of years ago.
Also, NZ is a small architectural market, so it is more difficult for practices to specialise as being Green and still support themselves. NZ also has a strong general public awareness of care for the environment and therefore perhaps a less polarised attitude towards Greenness.
This is from my perspective as being involved in teaching.
Man, I missed something here -- I thought Petey was originally using "sustainability" and / or the latest computer gizmo-technology as OPPOSITE examples of what he really wanted to talk about, which sounded more like the ideals of pure architecture or something. However, somehow everyone got stuck on sustainability anyway, which, as Lostinspace has correctly noted, has its obvious default necessary goals and implications whether LEED were the latest craze or not, as in of course it's good not to waste resources, but is, in fact, also nothing more than the latest social trend. Someone invented LEED, so now I guess we all step up and get certified and spend our time calculating green-ness --- or be labeled anti-green. So, per an interpretation of what Petey's saying, the most sustainable building in the world is still not necessarily architecture, so what, he's asking, IS closer to the heart...?
So I really thought Petey maybe had something interesting stuck in his craw, akin to something more like that a little more "building-centrism" is just what's needed here, instead of such focus on the shirt-tail relationships of the tangents and minutiae. Can ALL of these contrived connections really matter? And all the words. We have no shortage of words for shoring up some fairly goofball and self-peculiar autobiographical ideas. Are ALL of them architectural? So I thought Petey was asking the board if there weren't some issues at least a bit closer to the heart of architecture. That is, that Petey's examples of light and structure were presented as ranking higher than, say, the recent interest in sustainability.
(By the way, what an ironic criticism to level against an architect/architecture student... too 'building-centric' -- like why is this lawyer so fixated on the law?)
Well, OK Petey, literally: 'what about buildings?'... In any case, how about this for a start -- how about, at the very least on an architecture site -- some graphic examples? Did I miss something -- haven't only a VERY few individuals on this site ever posted photos, drawings, or sketches, etc., of their own work, built, unbuilt, or something in process they are currently working on, or whatever...? I'd rather see a lot more illustrative examples of how all these words and all this talk from all these Archinecters gets translated into a built building that somehow contains said ideas... and ESPECIALLY from those Archinecters with several hundred if not several thousand posts here. Don't you need to connect a building -- or at least a drawing of a building -- to back up all this blather? That is, show us the kickass building that matches the level of your pontifications.
Hell, I'm game. I think we'd at least be specifically talking about ideas becoming built form, and we'd also expose the bloviators.
My 'building centric' criticism was meant to point out to him that cities and other spaces are just as much a part of architecture as buildings are, and I felt he was unfairly shafting them by demanding that it's all about the building, because his premise sounds like he wants to just plow through the building and not have to care about the context.
can't post my project yet- gotta wait till they are built or publicly announced.
The challenge is making great architecture that is 100% green, note just an afterthought. Pugh+Scarpa are my heroes for this, Holl is the anti-christ in this regards.
30 years ago, you could be a green architect and make ugly buildings. 20 years ago you could make ugly building that weren't green. 10 years ago we were making pretty building that weren't green. Today we can make pretty buildings that are green too! Tommorow - the moon!
In school go with the flow, or fight the fad. Do whatever, then graduate and get licensed. Then you have the chance to build and make 'architecture' or whatever....
no, it just goes to say that green is part of the program, sure, what else? Palladio is to this day amazing, but surely it's not just because he was green. Buildings are not great just because they are green.
true to a point. i don't think these things are always something that can be said so definitively.
mcdonough's visitor center at the bernheim forest here in ky is great because it's green. but not just conventionally green > because he's interested in rethinking what has been considered "green" to date.
anyway i doubt if palladio's buildings were green. how bout those lead based paints and other volatile organic compounds, where did the timber come from. how many miles away was the marble quarried etc, etc, etc,
uhmmmm. natural ventilation. no electricity. who cares how far it came from if it didn't utilize oil? We need to expand our definitions and expectations of these things. I don't understand how any architect can be more 'green' than the vernacular building of any region. It's far more about understanding time-tested methods and passive methods of energy than new technologies. If people learned to wear a sweater when they got cool or take it off when they got warm, or if we treated buildings in the same way with shutters or curtains we'd be doing ourselves a lot more good than making things more technologically complicated.
well, having lived for awhile in a home with no running water, an outhouse (in minus 30 weather), and a tub that only had hot water if we boiled it on the wood stove (i am not kidding) i really gotta say that the old way of doing things seriously sucks ass.
the simplisitic touting of green philosophy in the face of common sense is i think the reason will mcdonough invented his cradle to cradle approach...and anyway, the anassazi didn't have oil or even iron but they managed turn a forest into a desert in almost no time at all. and that is just one example. there are many many more unfortunately. the problem with envirnomental degredation is not technology. or at least not just technology. but it could be resolved with technology, if we can stop being luddites for a minute or two.
anasazi is dine(navaho) for "ancient enemy" and is not the favoured nomenclature among the pueblo people(also not a favoured nomenclature) oh and please don't call me anglo...
What about buildings?
Looking at the discussions here on the boards and attending a MArch program now, I often wonder where we are headed in architecture in the next 20-50 years, most of our careers... Architects have been largely engaged in an increasing number of topics only loosely related to the making of buildings ...urbanism and the making of cities (do architects make cities?), social issues, economic issues, media, installations, memory...do any of these things make buildings? When, if at any point do, architects start to focus on the making of buildings again? Construction? Structure? Architects more than ever deal with words and images, but whatever happened to buildings? Which architect's buildings live up to their words and images?
I hate to sound so old school (actually I don't), but how about light, structure, relationships of public and private, art or a real, focused examination of the way people live or learn. Has anyone heard the word ”˜space' used on archinect or in school lately?
It seems as if people are increasingly turning to computation and sustainability as the focuses of an approach to building, but aren't these largely technical achievements? Sustainability and computation set preordained goals and then try to reach them....this empirical approach rarely leads to innovation or growth. What has architecture done with computation that people in movies or industrial design haven't done already? Why does it matter for architecture aside from the fact we can build it? Why should we build it? What innovations have been made in sustainability? The pioneers in sustainability are people looking to meet goals of numbers and involve largely small thinking. Where are the big bold moves for sustainability? Surely a Ledoux or Boullee could have come up with something in this day and age to challenge our old adages of ”˜green' building...some visionary thinking.
I guess I find myself frustrated and confused...so I ask the people here, what is next, what will we encounter specifically in regard to the making of buildings? And just buildings, not all the other stuff.
if you think sustainability + computation within the practice of architecture are 'technical achievements' and responsive to 'pre-ordained goals' then you dont have a clue and your definition defaults to blobitecture, LEED and whimsical, 'affect' of shape and form. deriviative architecture.
look harder.
bring it TED
"When, if at any point do, architects start to focus on the making of buildings again? Construction? Structure? Architects more than ever deal with words and images, but whatever happened to buildings? Which architect’s buildings live up to their words and images?"
Listen Architecture is about sketches, not bla matter , you are not supposed to get your hands dirty Basta. Structure beauty and all that is what is hidden behind not an issue for architects, the thing is about the sheer surface of spetacular things that's what architects do , if you realy want to build structures go become a building constructure or somthing like that.
what?
TED - i didn't mean to sound like a turd there, what I meant was, let's hear the argument, let's have some examples....I hope you'll respond.
I'm also trying to build or suggest some ways for architecture to progress/improve/mature....not trying to pick fights or poop on anyone's parade...
Hi Petey.
I suppose there's a slight confusion of activities going on. On the one hand, there's architects talking. On the other, there's architects designing. The latter tends to happen in silence (in my experience at any rate, although obviously I'm not referring to the wider construction procurement process) and its subtelties aren't easy to convey in words, let alone the kind of soundbites used in web forums.
Having said this, I get the impression designcommunity.com, although it's gone rather quiet of late, has more in-depth discussion of architecture, whereas this forum has more general discussion contributed by people who happen to be architects / architecture students.
Heh. You gotta love Per's use of language.
TED - computation IS a technical achievement by definition, how could you argue anything otherwise? And "Sustainable Design" or "Green Building" as it is defined within the institution of architecture IS about meeting goals set by the calculation of numerical inputs and outputs. Even when you are not talking LEED - how else do you determine Greeness? Is a grass roof "Green"? It's been done for centuries, why is it all of a sudden now called "Green"? It is not the grass on the roof that makes Green buildings, it is the lower percentage of energy expenditure in comparrison to a tar roof that makes it "Green".
"Listen Architecture is about sketches, not bla matter , you are not supposed to get your hands dirty Basta. Structure beauty and all that is what is hidden behind not an issue for architects, the thing is about the sheer surface of spetacular things that's what architects do , if you realy want to build structures go become a building constructure or somthing like that."
Petey - This is not worth translation, so don't even bother.
pete, sorry not trying to fight also - sometimes if you write something one way it generates more response [or kills a thread].
although i am a LEED guro, i have been openly against[on archinect] what i call the dumming down of architecture by formula, standards, codes, etc, etc. LEED is in my opinion has too many special interest manufactures trying to ram quasi green wash products into the fold. points dont make sustainible projects.
where computers, shape and sustainability can be used to dynamically model buildings for responsive and adaptable solutions. with non-standard manufacturing, as we all know, with the right smarts, anything is possible. this is what i want to exploit and trust me its very hard.
this is not a universal system, style or approach. no.
architecture is very complex and building systems are very chaotic expecially when multiple high tuned systems are supposed to uniformly 'react' because of some bms system.
I agree wholeheartedly and I think the charge of my first entry was exactly that often we as architects overemphasize particular aspects of an architecture at the cost of thinking about architecture as a whole. Architecture should be more than one thing, more than a few things and I'm not sure why architecture is so rarely thought about as this synthesis of many things into one whole. We keep dwelling on the parts too much. Yes, there is much potential in computers, shape and sustainability. Completely valid and very important, but what about the rest? Also, who is doing or studying these things? (even just at the level you have described) Practice? Schools? I've never enjoyed a building or place because of how high tuned of a system it was.
Petey-
We'll forgive your naive assumptions about the nature of architecture, since your jstill in school. Architects have always been generalists and multi-disciplinarians- so the perview of urbanism, culture, media, et al is not divergence from our professional responsibilities.
As for 'technical achievement' for 'pre-ordained goals' - buildings are complex with lots of competing interests influencing their conception. The art is to integrate and celebrate the 'architecture' into a viable project that gets built. Innovations are not being limited by objectively defined performance goals- if you look at the last 10 years of blobs, that line of 'innovation' was dead on arrival as it was self-serving and had subjective goals that have proven to be a fad.
The exciting innovations in sustainable design are in how the project holistically integrates into the surrounding fabric. If mies ever though about a watershed then I'm a frog. But today we understand the greater context and how each building contributes or detracts from the environment.
Petey - there is lots of innovation, you just gotta look beyond your studio desk. Oh, we had an entire thread about space architecture recently.
besides me? if you look hard on archinect i see similar paths of many.
perhaps because of age i completely reject metaphor as one of those things that influence architect and metaphor is the dominate player in architecture school today. teaching in diploma school this year i cant tell you how many shallow words were reflected in students work; movement, icon and sustainability the pallet of choice with whatever simitude they wanted to make.
no more -
Treekiller, you're naive if you think Mies gave a rat's ass about a watershed. Of course this wasn't his concern. Mies thought about the way people lived and worked in a completely new type of space and the way new methods of making informed this way to live and create space. A water detail is small freaking peanuts to his commentary on the modern movement, architectural space and construction. Architecture should be about all of these things and the depth of the work, not a water shedding detail.
Yes, it is good for architects to be generalists and multi-disciplinarians, but at the cost of make buildings, and making good buildings, 'architects' are left as nothing but amateur social theorists.
well did you know mrs. farnsworth sued mies -- one of the claims being ignorance of the flood plane as shown in this photo of the farnsworth house you might not have ever seen with floods in the 90s.
and mies lost!
i am certain he learned the hard way about flood planes.
aka: treekiller
clearly a dumb move, but you really willing to dismiss the significant achievements of this house because of it?
Would a house that didn't flood, only because it didn't flood, be a better house than the Farnsworth?
one shouldnt give up one for the other. and any idiot who would have been to the site and knew the slightest thing about nature[look at the water marks on the trees for a start] would know it would flood like hell, he knew it would flood - its on stilts --but he ignored the details - like how much -
form OVER function; he only looked for an excuse for a style.
Petey-
I didn't turn into a frog - and mies didn't give a damn, though maybe you are currently one, waiting for that kiss from a royal to turn you into an architect.
TED - I like that bionic frog image.
The innovation today is that we CAN know the environmental conditions and respond. That's why the dutch are building floatable houses, not houses on stilts. Form and function are only part of the picture these days.
Isn't the point that technology is AN spect of the profession but should not the derivative aspect. In other words a building should not be derived from purely tecnhological concerns?
and it's not like sustainability was created by architects, the ethics of ecology has been discussed long before architects got a hold of it. It's a matter of being a good human being - not being a good architect.
architecture is a political statement and it transends through aspects of urban design, social design, theory and technical fabric;
i am a political animal; a frog behind a computer looking to prey on my next blob! yum yum.....
Petey, You don't make a very strong case that architects have forgotten buildings. There are an awful lot of buildings being designed, produced and written about.
From my perspective, architecture-which-is-not-buildings is still the part of architecture that is marginalised.
I think Petey is not trying to say that buildings aren't getting built- clearly they are. I think his concern is over the terms of the buildings being built. These terms "GREEN", "SUSTAINABLE", "TECHNOLOGICAL". When they become the argument for making architecture, a diservice is done to the work. I do not accept these terms - they are outside of architecture - like plumbing.
Architecture is not a political statement - it's a political achievement.
And it trasncends what? time, space, thought? What?
Frog's legs are tasty.
ARCHITECTURE is about an idea...
BUILDING is about money...
some architects never build, and only do paper projects to create discourse within the field.
what is more IMPORTANT?
1- THE CREATION of a beautiful idea?
2- or the realization of a building (which is often more an accomplishment of coordination of more than one party)?
Architects are the jack of all trades...
And Solidred - you sure about Designcommunity.com?
'Cause I just checked it out and thread titles included:
cock gallery huge from AngelyXXX
and,
WOW! I just won $1.000.000 dollars!!! from Aman762
and,
Girl of your dream looking for love from Jinna23
There are a few architectrue posts...still looking.
LostInSpace
: that's a profound, and valuable, way to think about what we do.
Petey- I think you are being building-centric. The things you describe ARE part of architecture. Cities and exhibits are space, too, just on different scales. Maybe they're not the part you happen to be interested in, and that's fine, but don't belittle others for including them in their practices. What is a building if not a piece of a city? Obviously it is more, but I believe it deserves to be examined from that angle as well as from the multiple internal viewpoints.
I will also maintain that light, structure, and public/private relationships are important parts of sustainability. Though I am a LEED AP, I think that on the whole, LEED is very narrowminded, and ignores (or gives too little priority to) some very large social issues. But, when viewed as a tool which helps clients and other non-architects to see what some of the important components of sustainability are, like location, site disturbance, healthy air, light, and material composition, LEED becomes a tool that is very useful in helping to convince laypeople of how important sustainability is. It is up to US, the architects, to take a building further than LEED requires.
Sustainability is important, hell, by definition it's pretty much an imperative, but one should not have to have that explained to them by an architect to agree and admit to it.
The main tenets of sustainability are derived from Environmental Ethics which is a branch of philosophy. The architecture of green appropriated and codified these environmental ethics. This is fine, except that now it's more than an ethic, it's a TITLE, it's you're one of us or you're one of them. Your a green architect or your not - that's where the problem lies. It neds to cease being a specialized branch and just become part of the normalized building industry - it's a social debate. What's my point?
Well, I guess it's that the debate on sustainability is not architectural - it's social. We architects are having it because society is having it and we are inextricably tied to that society. It's an important discussion, one that I try to involve myself with whenever possible. But in the end, it's not architecture - it's only building.
Oh, and LEED is an advertisement tool, which is I guess what you're saying Ration.
This may be an observation from within your particular context, Lost, but it's not a universal one.
I hear where your coming from agfa, but the simple fact of the matter is as soon as you start donning titles like "green" - there is automatically an other, if you're not "green" you must be something else. I'm not trying to be pedantic. People look for "green" architects specifically - so the division is set - I'm not making this up. There are ads by architects clkaiming to be "green". Interviews with architects who proclaim greeness. Clients who look for "green" architects. My context is the archittectural profession.
I'm a little preachy I know but seriously, the division is there. Am I responding correctly or do I misunderstand you agfa?
Spacehead-
A tool is only as good as it's user. LEED is a tool like ACAD or a skilsaw. I've found it to be a great way to nudging reluctant clients into adding features that will make the project better.
So what is architecture? it's not the blueprints or BIM, or the 2x4s you're right- it is the sum of all the stuff that we draw, the contractor builds, and the users inhabitat.
Green architecture is a state of mind and a ethos to practice by. If you start each project with thoughts about how to maximize the good, then you're off to the right start. If all you can do is minimize the wrong then you shouldn't be an architect. Yes, LEED is a marketing tool, so is catia, and lots of other things. There are good architects and bad- just as there are good musicians and ones that suck.
I'm confused by your historical obsession with 17th c. charecters- what relevance do they have today when discussing the amphibian qualities of practice? Ok these folks didn't use petroleum based products, [text=italics]sustainably harvested[/text] lumber, and farmed organically - but that doesn't make them Green. their understanding of thermodynamics, insulation, or generative technology (beyond farting cows).
I'd rather have kermit the puppet as my partner then some dead white guys . So where is architecture going in the next 20 years- well I'm saving the planet from ourselves and architecture is my game!
TK, oh we agree on LEED as tool, wonderful.
I don't know what 17c. characters you're referring to. Although I'm sure some very nice people came from that time.
I could argue the relevance of history but I'm sure you'd rather I didn't so I'll just leave it.
You're knowledge of thermodynamics will not make you a good architect, and it will not make your buildings good.
Your green state of mind leaves me blue.
Oh, I totally agree: as soon as you adopt 'Green' as a title, you set up a division between us and them.
All I was observing was that this emphasis on 'Greenness' may only be the architectural profession in your area. I know that, for instance, in the architectural profession in my country, capital-G Green architects who oppose all the rest of the architects aren't really a strong voice, although issues of environmental responsibility and sustainability are increasingly widely addressed.
It sounds as if, where you are working, capital-G Greenness is a major issue, and you might be right about the division being quite real. It may not be the same everywhere.
Ah, agfa8x. I see. Well that is reassuring that the issues of sustainability in architecture can be debated and absorbed into the profession without becoming...well see treekiller post.
If you don't mind would you mention where you're from - country at least?
Also, I'd be interrested in knowing how, in your locale, sustainability is discussed within the framework or building (as opposed to becoming THE framework for architecture).
Thanks.
NZ.
My reading of the situation is that there is an increasing interest in environmental responsibility among both the public and architects.
Until recently, if there was any kind of a divide it was an academic one: there were 'sustainability people' who seemed to be quite uninterested in a number of other architectural concerns; and others who saw sustainability as uninteresting and restrictive. I think this problem is being overcome, and sustainability is a much more integrated concern than it was a couple of years ago.
Also, NZ is a small architectural market, so it is more difficult for practices to specialise as being Green and still support themselves. NZ also has a strong general public awareness of care for the environment and therefore perhaps a less polarised attitude towards Greenness.
This is from my perspective as being involved in teaching.
Man, I missed something here -- I thought Petey was originally using "sustainability" and / or the latest computer gizmo-technology as OPPOSITE examples of what he really wanted to talk about, which sounded more like the ideals of pure architecture or something. However, somehow everyone got stuck on sustainability anyway, which, as Lostinspace has correctly noted, has its obvious default necessary goals and implications whether LEED were the latest craze or not, as in of course it's good not to waste resources, but is, in fact, also nothing more than the latest social trend. Someone invented LEED, so now I guess we all step up and get certified and spend our time calculating green-ness --- or be labeled anti-green. So, per an interpretation of what Petey's saying, the most sustainable building in the world is still not necessarily architecture, so what, he's asking, IS closer to the heart...?
So I really thought Petey maybe had something interesting stuck in his craw, akin to something more like that a little more "building-centrism" is just what's needed here, instead of such focus on the shirt-tail relationships of the tangents and minutiae. Can ALL of these contrived connections really matter? And all the words. We have no shortage of words for shoring up some fairly goofball and self-peculiar autobiographical ideas. Are ALL of them architectural? So I thought Petey was asking the board if there weren't some issues at least a bit closer to the heart of architecture. That is, that Petey's examples of light and structure were presented as ranking higher than, say, the recent interest in sustainability.
(By the way, what an ironic criticism to level against an architect/architecture student... too 'building-centric' -- like why is this lawyer so fixated on the law?)
Well, OK Petey, literally: 'what about buildings?'... In any case, how about this for a start -- how about, at the very least on an architecture site -- some graphic examples? Did I miss something -- haven't only a VERY few individuals on this site ever posted photos, drawings, or sketches, etc., of their own work, built, unbuilt, or something in process they are currently working on, or whatever...? I'd rather see a lot more illustrative examples of how all these words and all this talk from all these Archinecters gets translated into a built building that somehow contains said ideas... and ESPECIALLY from those Archinecters with several hundred if not several thousand posts here. Don't you need to connect a building -- or at least a drawing of a building -- to back up all this blather? That is, show us the kickass building that matches the level of your pontifications.
Hell, I'm game. I think we'd at least be specifically talking about ideas becoming built form, and we'd also expose the bloviators.
My 'building centric' criticism was meant to point out to him that cities and other spaces are just as much a part of architecture as buildings are, and I felt he was unfairly shafting them by demanding that it's all about the building, because his premise sounds like he wants to just plow through the building and not have to care about the context.
rationalist - way off
rim joist - right on, I'll write a bit more tomorrow...thanks for bringing it back...
can't post my project yet- gotta wait till they are built or publicly announced.
The challenge is making great architecture that is 100% green, note just an afterthought. Pugh+Scarpa are my heroes for this, Holl is the anti-christ in this regards.
30 years ago, you could be a green architect and make ugly buildings. 20 years ago you could make ugly building that weren't green. 10 years ago we were making pretty building that weren't green. Today we can make pretty buildings that are green too! Tommorow - the moon!
In school go with the flow, or fight the fad. Do whatever, then graduate and get licensed. Then you have the chance to build and make 'architecture' or whatever....
tree-
Didn't Palladio make 100% green buildings?
Isn't there more to architecture?
is that a dis on palladio???wtf?
no, it just goes to say that green is part of the program, sure, what else? Palladio is to this day amazing, but surely it's not just because he was green. Buildings are not great just because they are green.
true to a point. i don't think these things are always something that can be said so definitively.
mcdonough's visitor center at the bernheim forest here in ky is great because it's green. but not just conventionally green > because he's interested in rethinking what has been considered "green" to date.
anyway i doubt if palladio's buildings were green. how bout those lead based paints and other volatile organic compounds, where did the timber come from. how many miles away was the marble quarried etc, etc, etc,
uhmmmm. natural ventilation. no electricity. who cares how far it came from if it didn't utilize oil? We need to expand our definitions and expectations of these things. I don't understand how any architect can be more 'green' than the vernacular building of any region. It's far more about understanding time-tested methods and passive methods of energy than new technologies. If people learned to wear a sweater when they got cool or take it off when they got warm, or if we treated buildings in the same way with shutters or curtains we'd be doing ourselves a lot more good than making things more technologically complicated.
vado, the technology thing wasn't directed at you...just continuing the larger conversation.
HA! Truth. I want to live in a teepee. Somebody call my sled dogs - it´s time to hunt!
Still in Mexico but I am a total geek so occasionally checking archinect.
I´m sure you´re all very thankful.
hm,
well, having lived for awhile in a home with no running water, an outhouse (in minus 30 weather), and a tub that only had hot water if we boiled it on the wood stove (i am not kidding) i really gotta say that the old way of doing things seriously sucks ass.
the simplisitic touting of green philosophy in the face of common sense is i think the reason will mcdonough invented his cradle to cradle approach...and anyway, the anassazi didn't have oil or even iron but they managed turn a forest into a desert in almost no time at all. and that is just one example. there are many many more unfortunately. the problem with envirnomental degredation is not technology. or at least not just technology. but it could be resolved with technology, if we can stop being luddites for a minute or two.
anasazi is dine(navaho) for "ancient enemy" and is not the favoured nomenclature among the pueblo people(also not a favoured nomenclature) oh and please don't call me anglo...
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.