From sustainability to love
Why it doesn’t help us to be Green
Mac-Mansions
Happy buildings get along with their surroundings, don’t force themselves onto them. Instead of being blasted to bits to make room for a “Dream Home”, the rock slab here has a friendly chat with the buildings. [Maurer House, Naramata]
by Florian Maurer
A man who calls the relationship with his wife “sustainable” must be a very unhappy man. As long as we are obsessed with green rating systems, our architecture will be just as unhappy. The point of departure is so negative: we are sinners, should use fewer bad things, make them last a little longer, should be content with less than what we think we “deserve”, must repent. These are pious musings of a culture that sees nature’s role as serving man, man’s role as controlling nature: here man, there nature, always in conflict. The best we can achieve with this attitude is delay the end a few years, because it is a conflict Nature will always win in the end.
From ‘I Want’ to ‘How Can I Fit?’
In the inaugural issue of SABMag, Peter Busby said: “More far reaching than any technological development is the change in mindset of clients, developers, businesses, and authorities alike.” I think this change of mind has to go far beyond wanting “LEED performance”. Nothing will change as long as we keep departing from “what we need” and then try to make Nature fit around it. We rather need to find “how can we fit” in an organism that has worked well long before we figured out how to borrow on margin and pump oil out of the ground. Compassion would be a good attitude to start with: without considerable commitment to relieving the disastrous and growing social disparity on a global scale we will never be able to break the momentum of ecological degradation. Without it the bragging with LEED ratings by a tiny minority of super-privileged is a terribly pointless exercise. True sustainability comes from modesty, not technology.
From Technology to Maturity
We have been showing the less privileged for decades that “more is better” through our lifestyles and wastefulness. Now they want to use the last drop of oil to get their share of the goods, in a hurry, and aren’t too fussy about the birds and the trees. How are we going to tell them now that “less is more”? I am afraid LEED won’t impress them. Let’s face it, LEED, as useful a tool as it might be at this time, is still pandering to the very human trait that has caused this mess in the first place: hankering for prestige and being above the rest. We must re-think our priorities rather than seeking salvation in technology alone. I am afraid Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t save us this time: It’s lack of maturity, not of technology, that we should be concerned with.
From Myopia to Commonsense
And also with lack of common sense! Picture someone driving an old beater for weekend trips and walking to work daily from a small, inefficient house. Now picture someone driving a hybrid vehicle 150 km daily to and from his 3000SF “LEED Gold” condo: who would you say is greener? Let us de-bunk the idea that Green needs “experts”! Just a little commonsense is enough to see through false claims, and detect true value in little things. “Green” is being abused regularily for greenwashing unsustainable commercial interests. Land developers claim to build “sustainable” communities, following “Smart Growth” principles by offering acre plots on virgin forest, 20 km from the nearest store, with no amenities, infrastructure and jobs in sight, fit only to build “Mac-Mansions” for people who end up driving to town all the time and for everything. Common sense means seeing the Big Picture, not getting sucked in by details. Yet we prefer to focus on quantifiable achievements, because it is easier and more self-gratifying. It is like a doctor who treats a skin rash of a patient who is dying of a collapsed lung.
From Hubris to Happiness
Let’s reduce the parading of buildings that have achieved high LEED ratings, but really look all the same: if you have paid attention you will know how they work, if not, there are books. Let’s focus on fundamental questions of sustainable architecture, like enforcing sound development principles, good programming leading to simple and small buildings, modelling new life styles, etc. Frankly, airfoil shaped mobile louvres and motorized indoor sun shades don’t turn my crank anymore. The ingenious and economical conversion of an abandoned Canadian tire store into a technical school does. I see us living and working in small, simple, sound, and well designed buildings, in communities of reasonable density and well utilized infrastructure, I see us walking or cycling to work, protecting our farmland, water, and wilderness, using only the resources we need, taking care of those that can’t take care of themselves, eliminating the concept of “garbage”: what we reject, should be valuable food for some other process.
I don’t doubt that mature use of technology can play a supporting role in getting there, but without finding a place in Nature that is based on Love, and no longer on dominance, we will remain alien and noxious to our surroundings, no matter how many LEED Platinum buildings we put up.
Florian Maurer is a principal of Allen + Maurer Architects Ltd in Naramata, BC
