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Look who's Talking...
...about sustainability, what it means, what it can be, and how we think
about our place in nature.
By Susan S. Szenasy, Editor In Chief
November 2003
In September, Green Ground Zero--a non-partisan group of organizations,
including Metropolis--hosted an evening event that outlined its plans
for a worldwide competition centered on greening those contentious 16-acres.
Bill McDonough gave the keynote address. The program also included a wonderful
presentation by Randy Croxton, chief judge of the competition and head of
the Croxton Collaborative, a New York architecture firm pioneering
green design practices. Randy's extensive knowledge of the subject, his
beautifully realized maps and charts of everything from wind and tide patterns
to a dramatic shot from space documenting the flora of the eastern
seaboard (Manhattan Island has disappeared!), showed how far the green movement
has come since those awkward photovoltaics appeared on suburban roofs in
the 1970s. Bill, as usual, charmed and energized the audience with his penchant
for phrase-making, including the now familiar "waste equals food,"
"cradle to cradle design," and a local variant on the importance
of being natives to the places we inhabit. "What does it mean,"
he asked, "to be a native New Yorker?"
Though unvoiced, that same question hovered over us all morning during a
round-table discussion, also in September, called "Sustainability:
Defining the Concept for Manhattan's Far West Side" This ongoing
dialog--organized by Kimberly Miller, director of planning issues at the
Municipal Art Society (MAS)--is a response to the plans of the city's power
elite to build nearly 40 million square feet of space (residential and commercial)
in a distinctive area of Manhattan. This is where some of our world-famous
theatres (large and small) are located, as well as the garment district,
and 12,000 politicized residents in the mixed-income and mixed-use Hell's
Kitchen neighborhood. An illustration of the proposed massing of the new
blocks, extended transit, and generally more of everything seemed to us
as misguided as the first schemes for the World Trade Center site were.
It offers the old vision of Manhattan, someone pointed out, as a vampire
sucking the lifeblood of the region. Apparently no one who lives there was
asked about this change coming to their backyards, and so far there has
been little talk of how it fits with the region's needs.
If the same area were planned according to sustainable principles, it would
take into consideration what Randy Croxton calls the three E's: environment,
economics, and equity (someone that morning added a forth, education). Diana
Balmori presented a very practical, easy-to-understand idea of sustainable
planning: "We must start with questioning the basics, such as building
typologies. If we apply the rules of sustainability to these, everyone inside
those buildings will have daylight, no separate office and living spaces,
buildings that can morph over time in response to new life and work needs."
As we adjourned, we charged the MAS, an advocacy group for livable cities,
to take a stance and say "No" to the city's plans by providing
a detailed alternative that brings people closer to the natural environment.
A sustainable metropolis supports its inhabitants at many scales, and the
teachers at Parsons' product design department got a chance to learn how
they can be part of the solution. On a luminous September Saturday we gathered,
with the blessing and support of department chair Tony Whitfield, for
a full day program called "Eco-Design for Educators." Organized
by two teachers (David Bergman, an architect and teacher at Parsons, and
Erika Doering, an interior designer and teacher at Pratt), the event set
out to show that schools have the ability to educate their educators. (According
to Metropolis's 2003 survey of design educators, only 14 percent
of North America's schools have any such programs). Armed with scientific,
anecdotal, and experiential information--as well as a well-researched source
book--the teachers went away with ideas they could integrate into their
fall syllabi due a week later.
This afternoon I'm off to Santa Fe, where architect Ed Mazria (October 2003
cover story) and I search for the "Key to the Global Thermostat,"
as we call our symposia on architecture and climate change. Talking, we
hope, will lead to action. |
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