3. Literature review

3. Literature Review

The critical analysis of relevant texts is appropriated throughout the study to showcase the context

dependent narrative of calculation(s) informed from substantiated opinions, however briefly

outlined below is the synoptic measurement of thinking generalised in the study of environmental

design.

There is the misconception about buildings that they only become damaging to the environment

once they have been constructed, where emissions come from ‘processed energy’ drawn from the national grid which is powered by fossil fuels15. On the contrary, buildings emit carbon in two ways,

understandably ‘operational carbon’, the conventional census from the day-to-day supply of energy

to heat, ventilation, and operation of electrical appliances. Secondly, ‘embodied carbon’ is lesser-

known producer from the sourcing, construction, use and demolition of materials.

Barnabas Calder’s ‘Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency (2021)’ the period defining

piece of work to distil an insightful discussion summarising the evolution of architecture’s

dependency on fossil fuel availability. Inherently provides critical observations of the many

architectural icons of history and their relationship to energy consumption, which as discussed, is

indictive to the production of carbon emissions.

Calder’s analysis of modernist icons pertains to the objectification of fossil fuel energy as a resource

to power the many mechanisms that primarily involve the sustainment and production of heat. His

investigation recognises the shortcoming(s) of the tectonic layering of the modernist façade, its slimness and inability to prevent the loss of heat16 for Calder to question the exponential strain and

effeteness of the heating mechanisms themselves. He determined that icons, generally predate the

relevant technology to provide dwellings with an unsuitable environment of habitation, which led to

their replacement on multiple occasions.

“It was to be three years before the final lighting [and heating] installation was in place. The original

coal-powered boiler was replaced in 1931-32 with an oil fired one, but after a few years this second

smelly, noisy, ineffective heating mechanism it was replaced in 1939… La Roche spent 10,000 French francs per year on maintaining and upgrading his house. Elsewhere in Paris, in 1929 George Orwell was struggling by on just six francs per day”17

15 Sophie Pelsmaker “The environmental design pocketbook”, (London: RIBA Publishing. 2015) 340 16 (Calder 2021) 347 17 Ibid 348

Calder in his assessment of their re-application and re-investment does not discuss the implication of

quantitative carbon data. But rather, a statement addressing the lack of premeditation of a

building’s requirements should be basic in principle. Paradoxically, the modernism in quest for

innovation - Le Corbusier specifically, led to the distribution of inhabitable buildings and regression of living conditions18, unfortunately consistent and indictive of the period. Whereas this report uses

carbon as a contemporary metric to highlight the harmfulness use of our resources, the financial

expenditure provided in this Calder’s report insights a wastefulness character when

compartmentalised, to reveal the exorbitant economic cost to running modernist buildings.

Alternatively, take the Bauhaus workshop block (1925-7) designed by Walter Gropius – a

prerequisite model of the modernist icon extensively discussed and accredited with one of the first

uses of the ‘curtain wall’ façade typology. Similarly, the Villa Savoye is comprised of a thin, single uninsulated pane of glass with a lightweight metallic and/ or timber frame, its ‘design and

construction approach’ led to the unequivocal failure of retaining heat in cold environments. The

façade’s inadequacies of regulating temperature led to the ‘cracking’ and impairment of the five

stock pulverised coal boilers from overcapacity and use, only to be replaced four years later. Up until

the 1990’s the heating system underwent eleven stages of upgrade and replacement, all-the-while

consuming an incessant amount of coal, shovelled constantly throughout winter, 24 hours a day to

ensure no furniture or electrical systems were inadvertently affected from frost - the windows were eventually sealed shut and lined with insulation19 .

In a broader sense, there is currently insufficient data to objectively record or accurately measure

information which concerns the total, scope or depth of environmental damage modernist icons

produce. The author attempts to address the existential problems of sourcing materials and their

construction, perhaps overlooked by previous scholars which focus rather on the operational

consequences in the running of buildings. Calder describes the census between scholars, “At present

architecture schools still tend to treat modernism as the foundation of today’s architecture, but

[modernist icons] show, there is no other architectural style in history that offers such a bad model for approaching the relationship between energy and architecture”20 .

18 (Calder 2021) 351, Calder identifies the shortcoming of the technical detail and inadequate heating system from the Villa Savoye results in the client’s done spending time in a ‘sanatorium’ 19 Daniel A. Barber, “Heating the Bauhaus: Understanding the history of architecture in the context of energy policy and transition” (Kleinman Centre for energy policy: 2019) https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2020/08/KCEP-Heating-the-Bauhaus-Singles-2.pdf, 7 20 (Calder 2021) 358