Chapter 8
Conclusion

When an offshore oil rig explodes, the seemingly sound pretext for a way of life is also called into question.¹

The greening of architecture is both a concept and practice of the ongoing process and continual refinement toward greater architectural and urban responses to the environment. This process has many dimensions that cover both space and time as well as different intensities from remedies of unsustainability, to maintaining sustainable balances, and finally to creating benevolent abundances. The patterns of change through the past five decades give an indication to the areas of unsustainability and correspondence between the evolving greening methods and the changes in contemporary architecture—both of which have been moving targets. The global disposition of green architectural and urban works is a prelude to the potential pervasiveness of this phenomenon. Signature architects still play an important role in this maturation process by providing exciting, innovative and inspiring models. Yet, it is the architecture of the everyday that is still in most need of attention. James Wines concludes in his book Green Architecture (2000) that “architecture still has one of the most important conservation and communication roles to play in any new ecologically responsible vision of the future.”² Design education, too, will play a critical role in the future greening of architecture.

The First Principles in architecture contain an unwavering set of concepts that inherently address sustainability. It might be better served to focus less upon mutable sustainable and technological determinism and the ways in which they influence building design, but rather focus more directly on the architecture process and reinforce its essential nature and purpose, which is to weave into manifest form the unity, generative, formative, corporeal and regenerative principles. It is unfortunate that the word “architecture” needs to be modified with the term “green” in order to render it with sustainably responsible meaning. It should naturally include green intentions and practices, however it is not surprising, with present economic pressures and generally low development standards, that mainstream architecture is generally unsustainable. In many ways, the greening process should start at home with more climate-responsive designs and the purchase of efficient products and equipment, energy-efficient lighting, and a recycling center in the kitchen for organic, paper, glass, plastic and aluminum waste. This includes expanding to the garden, the site, neighborhood and the urban environments as well. It is the dynamic interactions within a particular context that extend architectural singularity of focus to more systemic considerations.³ Infrastructure architecture, too, is an interesting green idea and frontier about both ecological and urban connections. The relational and in-between realms are a challenging landscape for sustainable planning to occur. Concepts of plurality, hybridity, resilience and biometrics are informing a new generation of green environments.

The greening of contemporary architecture has been illustrated over more than five decades from the early examples of Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto to the more recent works of Bill Dunster and James Corner. This slice of time establishes patterns of innovation and re-direction in building and city making through modern, postmodern and metamodern periods. The intent was to demystify the various approaches to sustainable design, to weave together better working and more inclusive definitions, and to create clear and model demonstrations that might contribute to an ongoing greening process.⁴ The greening of architecture is linked to external events whether they are natural disasters, vacillating economic conditions, new knowledge concerning the environment, changes in regulatory policies, political turnovers, creation of new technologies, or development of extraordinary designs. The greenest building in the world is still an elusive target. Is it Bullitt Center in Seattle, BedZED in London, Findhorn Eco-Community in Scotland, Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, BMW Welt in Munich, CH2 in Melbourne, COR in Miami, IUCN Building in Geneva or Bank of America in New York?

A comprehensive and effective way to articulate the diversifying effects of globalizing green architecture was to divide and contrast representative works into the various dualities: urban–rural, high-tech–low-tech, new–existing, small–large, and extreme–mainstream. This gives a broad spectrum of the differing approaches to sustainable design through quite varying contexts and extreme conditions. It seems clear that there is no consistent architectural language to these exemplifications; however, certain sustainable approaches are common among most of the projects. Residential projects, which were inherently skin-dominated, typically employed passive solar heating, natural ventilation, daylighting, higher insulating values, and energy efficient appliances. In warmer climates, they incorporated a number of different sunshading, solar control devices, evaporative cooling, and natural ventilation. Non-residential projects, which were load-dominated, typically incorporated daylighting, solar control devices, green roofs, atriums, photovoltaic electricity production, and high efficiency HVAC systems. Urban projects tended to focus on density of built form, mixes of use and cross programming, and encouraging pedestrian places and movement with connections to public transport. The demonstrations of sustainable practices were expressed through differing architectural forms that generally included vernacular revivals, high-tech, modernist, and biomorphic languages. Regional and cultural differences also informed many of the designs.