Intrinsic questions related to such a study: When and where did the term "green" arise (as applied to architecture, and building -- two different things ?); and (more importantly) how many different ways can the term be construed: design philosophy; construction materials and techniques; social theory. . .

If I may: When will the fad of "green" pass on, the (timeless) concepts of sustainability and efficiency being reintegrated into the practice of design and building -- wherein (for some) it has always been found. . .?

Green Urbanism: Learning From European Cities
by Timothy Beatley

ISBN-10: 1559636823

This book was published in 2000 and was probably one of the first books to deal with the "green movement."

Like a lot of early proponents of the green movement, this book deals mainly with shifts away from automobile usage, increased density, higher quality buildings, waste and energy reclamation and complex citywide initiatives.

He cites a fair amount of actual working projects that have been tested, most of which with success.

i'm pretty sure 'green' the word was already around when i came out of school in '91. back then it usually meant a lot of sort of space-agey bubble buildings. and for some reason the guys doing green projects LOVED the fake greenery that model train people use. i remember appreciating the notion, but not being able to see past the ugliness of the forms that 'green' always seemed to take.

not sure if the '70s ecology movement folks used the word 'green', but most of the basic strategies were there already.

boy, did we blow it by letting it slip by back then...

i don't know how far you want to stretch, dikor, but frederick law olmsted talked about park lands being the 'lungs' of the city. and dickens' writing clearly showed that, even in the mid 19thC there was an awareness of pollution and air quality issues.

Steven, I suppose we could go back as far as the metabolist movement too.

It was a Japanese movement that viewed modern cities as giant interchangeable mega structures that "enabled organic growth." In short, they viewed the city as a conglomeration of mechanical and biological processes that form a symbiotic relationship.



I don't know who started it but there's been a theory around in the last twenty years that applies the Gaia Theory to individual cities and metro areas says that the city is basically the largest and most complex living organisms-- since the city is made of electrical, mechanical, chemical and biological parts that rely on one another. And just like any other living organism, one part of the cell becomes sick... the rest of the organism starts to fail.

[This is a relatively interesting theory but with a lot of potential catch twenty-twos.]


Lst but not least, we have corporatist facism which is probably one of the oldest theories out there. Facists view a region and or country as a single body composed of many organs. If one organ fails, then the entire body fails. They view their cities as organs of a much larger body and used this logic to over take the entire country.



Olmstead is a good reference... not just for his park city mentality, but because he viewed moving waste [death] away from life to be one of the most important elements towards maintaining a healthy environment. His ideas are what convinced people in the first place that sewers, no matter the cost, were an absolute necessity.

I would like to point out that this was not because a view of science but mostly because of superstition. Smelly and foul things back in the day were thought to cause disease-- they referred to it as "Miasma" and we currently know it as the "miasma theory of disease." Basically one of the false pretense people see in cities is a continuation of this-- that 'dirty' smelly air makes you sick.

Miasma theory of disease was one of the principal drives in the whole garden city movement... avoiding unpleasantness also avoids disease. This may explain why the garden city movement died about the same time of the 1918 flu epidemic.

they just invented it didn't they?