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. (more…)