Uffelen

1.  Are Uffelin’s historical examples and attention to materials regarding environmentally friendly technology convincing?

I do find Uffelin’s historical examples and attention to materials and use convincing, although the reader had to interpolate what he was getting at.  Maybe he could have been a little more outspoken and deliberate.  While many of the earlier examples that he gives may seem outdated and irrelevant to the way we build today, they are often very simple examples of how certain ecological techniques can be used in a building.  Uffelin talks about the cathedrals with their massive stone walls; this is a simple example of how to implement thermal massing in a building.    I think Uffelin with his early example is trying to convince the reader that the techniques that today are considered “ecological” are readily achieved and are not out of reach.  Uffelin says “Many of the technologies that we classify as ecological today have existed from time immortal.”  Uffelin uses more contemporary examples of ecological architecture to inspire architects today.  Using examples such as Wright, Piano and Foster gives a sense of relevancy to the idea of producing an ecological architecture.

Uffelin goes on to describe how we got out of the naturally-occurring ecological design, citing the post WWII international style as the culprit.  I found this comment of post WWII buildings particularly interesting: “Heating and cooling systems were seen as merely providers of comfortable conditions, and not as symptoms of insufficient thermal protection.  Energy was cheaper than insulation…”  This passage exemplifies the bad habits that we are now trying to work out ourselves out of; the bad habits formed as a result of an age of convenience and cheap resources.  This now popular revival of ecological architecture (sustainability) by the building professions at large is manifest because this age of convenience appears to be coming to a close.  It could be said that we are in a sense heading back to a (loosely) similar economic situation to that which necessitated the prevalence of local and durable materials of the distant past.  Energy is no longer cheaper than insulation and we have reached a point where we need to re-assess the situation.

Uffelin adequately frames the idea that the ‘ecological technologies’ that we are trying to get back to today are something that we can easily integrate into our designs.  There is however a learning curve associated with this; the public at large needs to be comfortable with the idea of potentially having some type of responsibility to make the building function rather that rely on break-through technologies to get the job done.  Essentially we all need to learn how to operate the operable windows that everyone is raving about.

2.  Is sustainability put as a priority above style or structural function in the United States?

Sustainability would seem to be a priority in the United States based on who it is that I surround myself with these days, but I would tend to think pessimistically about the reality of this notion.  Architects and other building professionals are certainly on board with the idea of sustainability, but I’m not sure the public at large is.  I think generally people want a building to serve a certain function for the least amount of money regardless of its sustainable features.

To speak to the idea of sustainability as a priority above style or structural function, I think there are plenty of examples of this.  Many buildings that profess to be above and beyond sustainable are often times great case studies as to how one could cram as much technology in a building as the square footage allows.  Often times this puts the sustainable elements at the top of the design hierarchy.  This movement is not dissimilar to that which Uffelin describes as the situation post-WWII, where technology was the key to building performance.

Although the idea of sustainability is prevalent in the US today I think it is worthwhile to be critical of how it is emerging.  In many cases we are simply improving the efficiency of the very systems that have been consuming resources and causing global warming in the first place.  Is it really ok to allow your building to contribute to global warming?  Maybe if it only pollutes…..just a little bit?  I think the question should not be “How efficient is your heat pump?”, but “Why do you need a heat pump?”  These systems are only a historically recent addition to buildings and our ancestors survived well enough without them for us to be here today.  This might seem extreme, but the fact that these systems are put in buildings in the first place, regardless of how much more efficient they are relative to the previous model, inherently implies that the design of the building in itself is insufficient.