Pliny Fisk’s Sustainable Methodology

A more in-depth look into this Metropolis Visionary ’s unconventional approach toward the environment and architecture.

By Laurie Manfra

Posted January 30, 2006

For the last three years Pliny Fisk, a professor at Texas A & M University, and his wife Gail Vittori—two pioneers of the sustainability movement—have lived in the experimental Solar Decathlon House, an 800 square foot solar-powered home built by their students in 2002. But for the last three decades they’ve dedicated their lives to investigating and promoting sustainable building methodologies, in part, by founding the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, a not-for-profit research center in Austin, Texas. Among the scores of projects aimed at fostering a more symbiotic relationship between architecture and the natural environment that the duo have undertaken, the most recent are documented below.

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	In an effort to adapt the GroHome concept for the Chinese, Fisk produced a series of maps comparing the biomes of China to those of Texas, his home state. “The purpose of these studies was to reveal the best techniques for working indigenously abroad,” Fisk says. The rendering illustrates one possible configuration of his proposed units. (To view more on the study, click here.) In addition to proposing the GroHome as an immediate solution to China’s impending housing crisis, Fisk is attempting to revive their ancient technique of mixing cement out of magnesium oxide. “The purpose is to get them to understand the significance of a sustainable practice that they’ve already developed,” Fisk says.


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