Lost Energy
Each year in the U.S., an estimated $16 billion worth of
energy--heated or cooled air--escapes through holes and
cracks in residential buildings.
In the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year, William
McDonough, easily the best-known architect associated with the ecocentric movement called green design, faced criticism for the sin of overzealous
self-promotion. Though his detractors chose their words carefully, the implication
was clear: McDonough is pursuing celebrity, and everybody knows that celebrity
and green design couldn't possibly be more incompatible. Or as writer and
designer James Wines put it in Green Architecture, his recent book
on the subject, "The first qualifications for those designers
addressing today's environmental challenges are humble reserve, thoughtful
research, and quiet philosophical reevaluation."
Such feelings are understandable. During the last 15 years, the biggest
challenge for the sustainable design movement in the United States has been
to change the behavior of the contractors, developers, and architects who
are responsible for putting up the vast majority of new buildings. From
this point of view, it's not notoriety but a kind of steady progress that
ought to stand as the highest goal for green believers. In the end, though,
I think such a reaction is shortsighted; however counterintuitive it may
sound, it strikes me that the very opposite of what critics have said about
McDonough is true. The problem with McDonough is not that he's too much
of a celebrity but that he's not enough of one.
Construction Debris
Debris from construction and demolition of buildings makes up 35 percent of U.S. landfills.
We live, after all, in an age where the American obsession with fame has
begun to dominate the architecture world as well. As the Boston Globe's
Robert Campbell points out, "The same few world-class architects are
now being asked to design all the important buildings in the world."
There are eight winners of the Pritzker Prize, he notes, now working on
projects in Boston. Every one of them is famous. None has what you'd call
a regional or unassuming New England style; they all aim for a certain grandiose
plane. Even New York, which for years was the one metropolis where well-known
architects had trouble making a mark, has begun to embrace the famous clique,
with projects by everyone from Richard Meier to Jean Nouvel to Frank Gehry
on the boards or nearing construction.
The star system is not all bad. Certainly the renewed interest in architecture
and design that's so visible now among the general public has been driven
primarily by the mainstream media's fascination with a handful of well-known
figures. The proverbial man on the street--who five years ago
could not have named a single living architect--probably knows who Gehry
is; he might be able to tell you a little about the work of Rem Koolhaas
too.
In the wake of buzz-generating projects such as Gehry's Guggenheim Museum,
in Bilbao, and Herzog & de Meuron's Tate Modern, in London, politicians
and pundits around the world have become convinced that the most efficient
means of revitalizing neighborhoods, cities, and even entire regions is
to attract a star architect to design a dazzling jewel of contemporary construction.
All of this is, on balance, a positive development. If copy-cat mayors--who
think, perhaps naively, that they can recreate the "Bilbao effect"
in Milwaukee or Guadalajara--are what it takes to get cutting-edge architecture
built, I'm all for copy-cat mayors.
Home Size vs. Household Size
Since 1970, average home size in the U.S. has risen from 1,500 square feet
to 2,185 square feet. At the same time, the average size of the American
household has dropped from 3.1 persons to 2.6.
But for the green architecture movement, the rise of the star system could
not be a more distressing trend. To put it plainly, celebrity architects
are not green architects. And with more and more pages of glossy design
magazines given over to breathless coverage of the field's handful
of stars, green design is increasingly forced to fight its battles
from the cultural margins.
There are a few famous architects who stand as exceptions to this rule:
Norman Foster has shown great wisdom about energy efficiency; Renzo
Piano has given striking form to a number of ecologically sensitive schemes;
and Rafael Viñoly has designed a new convention center for Pittsburgh
that aims to meet the strictest green standards. Still, the fact remains
that if you were to make a list of the 20 most famous architects in the
world, you'd have a group of people who talk about sustainability about
as often as they talk about the Peloponnesian War or the designated-hitter
rule.
"Koolhaas seems to have zero interest in sustainability," says
noted green architect Sim Van der Ryn. "Richard Meier seems to have
no interest. Eisenman--of course, zero. And Gehry--I respect Gehry a great
deal, but the work he's doing is not about sustainability. On the whole,
the celebrity architects, particularly in the New York School, are extremely
urban and verbal people. The language of nature is just not in their epistemology."
Annual Costs for Commercial Employers, per Square Foot
Because employees are a company's biggest expenditure, green buildings--which provide fresh
air and natural light--can save money simply by keeping them happy and healthy.
According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, green buildings can increase
worker productivity by at least 15 percent.
Indeed several famous architects--including Richard Meier and Philip Johnson--declined
to answer questions about sustainability for this article. Peter Eisenman
did reply--dismissively. "To talk to me about sustainability is like
talking to me about giving birth," he says. "Am I against giving
birth? No. But would I like to spend my time doing it? Not really. I'd rather
go to a baseball game." This, of course, from the man whose landmark
Wexner Center, finished just 12 years ago, is literally falling apart.
Some of these same architects, to be fair, have shown an ability to design
ecologically sensitive buildings outside of America--particularly in European
countries, where milder climates, strong unions that demand employee-friendly
workplaces, and a lack of cheap fossil fuel put different demands on buildings.
"There's a different attitude about buildings in Western Europe,"
says Carl Galioto, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. "There's
a much longer view taken. Investors here are looking for their money in
ten years, and in Western Europe they're looking at buildings for fifty
years."
Cost Comparison
Frank Gehry's EMP, Seattle (2000), which features innovative form and materials:
$729 per square foot.
Michael Hopkins's Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham, England (1999),
which features all-natural ventilation: $119 per square foot.
Once they return Stateside, though, celebrity architects' sustainable savvy
seems to be crushed under the weight of other priorities. What this means,
unfortunately, is that those most capable of creating dazzling structural
forms and galvanizing popular support for new architecture also tend to
give green ideals, at least on American soil, the shortest shrift.
At the same time, the architects committed to green design--from McDonough
to mega-firms like HOK and Gensler--tend to produce schemes that are
aesthetically neutral, or that don't succeed purely as image. In the June
issue of Architectural Record, Deborah Snoonian and Kira L. Gould
wrote an essay called "Architecture Rediscovers Being Green."
It was illustrated with page after page of sustainable buildings by architects
such as Flad & Associates and Holabird & Root. But there was only
a scant discussion of aesthetics, and the selected projects themselves were,
from a formal standpoint, largely forgettable. Twenty-four hours after reading
the piece not a single scheme sticks in my mind--they've all faded into
a green blur.
