Death of Sustainability and the Phoenix of Ecologies that must Rise How green roofs aren’t going to save the world but a set of connections has a chance
Noah Gilliver - 27003162
000 Contents Page Page Title
Number
Introduction 001 What Are Ecologies?
002-004
What Are Architects Doing?
005-007
What Will I do?
008-010
References List 011
001 Introduction In this essay I will be exploring ecologies and what it means both in definition for me and what it means for industry. I will be focusing on Ecological Urbanism as my focus as I feel this combines the value of a city, (read city as Human cities e.g. London and natural cities e.g. Forests and fields) with urbanism without compromising on environmental design and engineering. Once I have defined ecologies, I will discuss how Designers currently use it and how they should be aiming to progress it. Finally, I will explore how I will aim to take this forward and the ways I will be implementing it into my own designs.
002
WHAT ARE ECOLOGIES?
003
For me, the method that I found most useful to look at and define ecologies is from Ecological Urbanism. Although a “mouthful” (Hagan, 2014) it is a newer term that aims to move away from urban design which aims to create streets and roads up to “planning and the politics and sociology of planning” (Hagan, 2014). With urban design and environmental engineering working hand in hand ecological urbanism aims to “not only (re)engineer but (re)design” (Hagan, 2014). For me previous methods have failed to address both problems Ecological Design fails on the physical engineering and problem solving but Environmental Engineering has failed to produce well designed spaces. Ecological Urbanism aims to resolve this through bringing both designers (Architects, Urban Designers, Landscape Designer, Product Designers) and engineers all under one system and giving them a common language. We will always need a designer to create form and function however within this we can have opportunities while working with engineers to create “design possibilities within performative environmental targets” (Hagan, 2014). This is not an easy task and designers need to walk a thin line “between (ecological) performance and (urban) form” (Hagan, 2014) as going too much one way or the other will create either urban forms that are resource sucking mega structures or efficient bunkers that bring no joy within form. Ecological Urbanism focuses on a few key concepts, firstly creating a “balance between the obliterator and the obliterated” (Hagan, 2014). In our cities this is a balance between people and our social requirements with nature and its requirements. This is due to the city being the “most extreme” version of humans living within physical space. The creation of the city often leads to removal of what was there first instead of adaptation to it, very few if any cities have maintained original ecosystems or animals. Ecological Urbanism aims to restore the city, not to have “nature in the city – which is hopelessly simplistic” (Hagan, 2014). This restoration moves the balance from Humanity and anthropocentric (placing humans above everything) ideals towards valuing nature and the ecosystems that existed before we did. It is about creating a city which is an ecosystem that includes both people and nature “living with rather than living over” (Hagan, 2014). The idea of the city as an ecosystem was originally conceptual to explain the economy or social links within a city. However recently environmental science made it more literal “the city IS an ecosystem, albeit a dysfunctional one” (Hagan, 2014) she says this because all the feedback, “pollution, slums, blackouts, floods” (Hagan, 2014), from the ecosystem is ignored and we do not try to design for this ecosystem. As we don’t design for this ecosystem, we have to hold open the gates and let more and more new materials be consumed as we “maintain unsustainable levels of consumption” (Hagan, 2014). Within Ecological Urbanism there are three models of the city and the ecosystems or ecologies these create. To better explain what ecologies are, I am going to focus on one. The Garden city which was created to support these locally grown ecologies.
004 Gardens And Gaps The Garden City was the founder of nature in the city, it comes from Ebenezer Howards Garden City (Clark 2003) he focuses on a few key design choices to create local ecosystems. The green belt around the city is industrialised green space which is used to feed the city hence both reducing food milage and making the work accessible to people who live in the City Centre. Within the cities design it should aim to have lots of green spaces and nature to both support a local ecosystem that is not for people. These green spaces both provide fresh air to the city and reduce the heat island effect. The garden city also focused on the mobility of the city with a “Demand of walkability” (Hagen 2014) and public transport being used for longer distances. This focus was to allow people to make social links through the city and want to look after their local area and community. This walkability means you use local services and do not need to go far to get what you want. Through time and generations, you can form local small ecosystems where materials and energy is shared. This is quite similar to how nature creates or adapts ecosystems around humans with time being needed to adapt to the new settings. A requirement for the garden city to work is a change in planning with regional control being key. This is because planning needs to be controlled from a wider range than the induvial clusters or houses. They need to map out the effect of each local ecosystem and see how it effects the cities ecosystem. With every design benefiting the ecology of the city. With this large planning a “Civic Pride” (Hagen 2014) should be generated that people should want to engage with the city and want it to benefit from their actions.
Ecology of the City So, what does this mean for ecologies and the definition of it for me. Without getting into too much detail about how it is going to affect how I design, see part 3, I think the definition and use of ecologies is extremely personal. Which is partly the issue with trying to use it to design with. Ecologies is extremely wide and deep subject and without full understanding it becomes very difficult to understand. However personally I understand it as a set of connections a city has, a messy contagious knot of people and nature. I use the analogy of a knot because whatever you do you cannot untie or remove a thread without the whole thing falling apart and like a knot each thread you add it quickly becomes part of it and essential to the knot. The ecology of the city is essential to the use and balancing of humans and nature. This is the basic requirement of a city’s function. No city can function or be more than a giant model if nothing interacts and forms these relations and connections. The worst thing we can do as designers is ignore theses and plough through enforcing our will on the cities.
005
WHAT ARE ARCHITECTS DOING?
006 So now I and you understand what ecologies are in one regard, Ecological Urbanism, how are architects taking this idea. Is it in stride looking at a new challenge or pushing back against it? Worse, its barely being noticed. With 44 search results on the Architects Journal and 62 On Dezeen. Only to be topped by Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Sustainable Outcomes Guide only being released in 2019, with no mentions of “Ecologies” with in it. However, all is not lost as seems to be the norm with large changes it comes from the bottom up. “Architects Declare” and the larger “Construction Declare” are aiming to bring awareness and actual change to the architecture industry. For this section I am going to focus on both Architects Declare and what they promote within my industry and looking at two key practices and why they chose to leave recently. Firstly, what is the Architects Declare (AD), it is a group of practices that have come together to “together with our clients we will have to commission and design buildings …. As indivisible components of a larger, constantly regenerating and self-sustaining system.” My gut reaction to hearing this was wow that is exactly what we need to be doing positive change being done even if officials are not requiring it. However very recently, December 2020, Fosters and Zara Hadid Architects left (Hartman 2020). Now either practice would cite reasons for leaving what they have not thought of is the repercussions of such. With two major practices leaving it will “undermine AD’s global momentum” (Hartman 2020) before it can really get going. We need the Fosters and the Zara Hadid Architects to lead the way, with money and influence to swing both the public and politician’s opinion. These are the practices who can afford to hire new professions and see how they can develop the design process. With current practices it seems that they want the young and newly trained architects to come in and promote sustainable design. However, in the same practices they would not promote or use tools available and would not refuse work due to a lack of sustainable focus. Many Clients are interested in sustainable design however architects always are quick to shut it down with “well it costs extra”. Which this thinking has always infuriated me as this sustainable design should be the default for many architects and making them design unsustainably not a choice. Even with a client who has very little money it should be possible to design a project that benefits nature and surrounding ecosystems. I understand that not every client wants to engage with this sustainable agenda, but I think as a profession we need to stand together and make it clear that sustainability is not an optional extra. We should aim for there to not be sustainable practices as we should be a sustainable profession if not an industry. In the evidential lack of promotion or legislation from the governments we need to take this on and start forcing the hand of our clients. Unfortunately, right now the bottom line of practices seems to be overriding sustainable designs.
007 What we need right now is honesty not confidence. We are confident that we bring value to a project that is known by both us and the public. However, so many practices are not honest with how “green” a project is. There are metrics such as BREEAM and LEED however it does not take much, like all metrics, to find the best and easiest way to achieve high scores. The technology has moved forward, we have the best insulations and can achieve astronomically high R Values, we can produce power hyper locally to support the building. However, our metrics or building regulations have not even slightly kept up. While none of these metrics are bad, they just allow lazy or maybe incompetent architects to seem they are sustainable whereas they are only fixing one local issue, the project, not the whole system. The quicker architects can move away from sustainability to City wide ecologies. Now on the bright side, RIBA has responded to the issue by promoting a 2030 plan. With lots of target metrics and sources to see how architects can design better buildings. With a simple set of outcomes “Net Zero Operational and Embodied Carbon, Sustainable Water Cycle, Sustainability connectivity and transport, Good Health and wellbeing, sustainable communities and social value, Sustainable life cycle cost” (RIBA 2019). Now individually each of these sounds amazing, if not the minimum for 2020 let alone 2030, problem comes with that for an architect it is difficult to do all of them. As none of the outcomes are in one place apart from an optional measurement, LEED (RIBA 2019) so I question why not incorporate it to a plan that the whole construction industry uses, like the RIBA Plan of Work? Architects should not have to be relied on as clearly shown through the AD and the leaving of major practices we cannot be trusted completely.
008
WHAT WILL I DO?
009 For me and my practice the first thing I took from ecologies is that as designers we know so little compared to the complex nature of our sites. To tackle this, I first propose increasing the number of professions in an office although engineers have become standard in many offices many designers would question why they need a biologist or landscaper. An engineer might give advice about construction and their opinion is seen as vital. However, when talking about green roofs or large landscaping plans, we do not talk to biologists or rarely ecological engineers. As designers, me included we spend so much time looking at building envelopes and thermal performance we forget that the green roofs we place, or build can sustain life. I think personally I want to now investigate the changes my design will encourage or remove to people and nature. In the future for my own practice, I want my designs to encourage or drive people to be sustainable. I think as designers we have a key role in doing this as we sometimes become the moral compass of a design. Deciding what features to keep and what can be removed for cost. I think if we can design a building to be used sustainably without extra steps or thinking it means people will be sustainable without feeling like they are part of a system or being used to achieve targets. I think my designs should encourage the growth of an internal network, physical and social, whilst maintaining a strong cyclical use of resources. This cyclical use of resources could work with other projects locally to use the “city’s ecosystem” to reduce the volume of consumption overall. For example, one project could produce power, and another collect water which could then be shared between local buildings. Projects should add value to the city’s ecosystem while also reducing resources required to run it. The projects should not leach the earth they inhabit just for the demands of one group. We need to make the literal ecosystem of the city functioning whilst looking at the feedback the system gives us, we need to achieve a stability whilst keeping flexible as no ecosystem can ever keep stable for long. I think this process starts by examining local ecosystems that we are part of and acknowledging our effect on the world. I think designers should at least be aware of what they are doing to their local surroundings even if they admit they cannot understand the city. This process should be then used for projects they get involved with looking at the local ecologies and seeing what requires changing or beneficial interruptions. A designer must be involved with a site before they can think about changing it. No site is “dead” or “unused” and if a designer says this, they are not looking close enough to it. Therefore, looking first at their own local ecologies is key as they can look at spaces that the current city is rejecting and seeing what occurs because nature does not care if a space is not profitable. While looking at their own ecologies they should not just focus on nature they should investigate who interacts with who as the people and culture is just as key to an ecology in a city. I think the who is interesting as it will allow the designer to investigate their own biases against groups or people. Looking at their local area in its entirely will get them to talk to people they never might have and seeing links that could be formed. As they cannot observe the area, they exist in. They are involved with the area and in completing this exercise they should aim to improve it.
010 For me and my practice it comes down to a balancing act of the “Nature of the city” and the “City of Culture” (Hagan, 2014) letting both agents control the design and valuing them as equals is the only way designers can move forward and use ecologies usefully. Currently there is a lot of noise about ecologies and I personally worry if we use the word incorrectly it will lose meaning and then from that lose value as a word almost as we are seeing with sustainability. Designers need to choose a meaning and be careful with it, once we have this, we can come up with employable design process. However, once we know how it works, we need to articulate it to others as they can then understand what we are doing and create a shared experience around it. As designers we need to pioneer the use whilst keeping it open enough that others know they can add to it. I suggest we pioneer it as we regularly overcome challenges in our process, and I find that constraints never ruin a design. Generally, I find that a heavily constrained design can be stronger as it can feel like the correct decision for more people, for example a design in a small site with a tiny budget can drastically improve the area with very few people disliking the new addition however a large project in a field will surely ruin someone’s opinion of the area. We work with currently constraints like budget and planning it cannot be that difficult to add ecologies to that list. In this final paragraph I am throwing the gauntlet to my future self or any architect, what we should be doing. We are not the designer of a project. We can only provide form to a collaboration of ideas and information. That collaboration needs to be with other professionals both what we would traditionally consider normal, engineers and contractors, and others that are new like biologists. These professions have so much value that we as designers can use their knowledge and work with them to improve our work. They know so much more than we do, we tend to be generalists with knowing a little about a lot, whereas they are specialists they know so much about their topic and we can admit that we do not. Finally, we should design projects to provide to the city almost make it difficult to use them unsustainable. Cost should never interrupt the process because the design methods can be applied to any budget. My process should aim to always be adaptable and ready to move around with incorporating as many agents as possible. I want to avoid calling my process an ecology as it is not quite what I think the definition is, but it would seem in a way I would want to form a local ecology. I need to be an active part of the city’s ecology and support others to benefit both the city and each other.
011 References List Hagan, S. (2014). Ecological Urbanism: The Nature of the City. In Ecological Urbanism: The Nature of the City. Taylor and Francis. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315761480 Hattie Hartman, 2020, Fosters and ZHA should return to architects declare and debate the uncomfortable questions, Architects Journal, https://www. architectsjournal.co.uk/news/opinion/fosters-and-zha-should-return-toarchitects-declare-and-debate-the-uncomfortable-questions Royal Institute of Architects, 2019, Sustainable Outcomes Guide, https://www. architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/sustainableoutcomes-guide Clark, B. (2003). Ebenezer Howard and the Marriage of Town and Country: An Introduction to Howard’s “Garden Cities of To-morrow” (Selections). Organization & Environment, 16(1), 87–97. https://doi. org/10.1177/1086026602250258