Sustainability across generations: Exploring what each stage of the architecture profession thinks about sustainability

Sustainability across generations:

Exploring what each stage of the architecture profession thinks about sustainability

How has (or has not) sustainability evolved across the last few generations of architects? Do students coming out of college believe sustainable practices in architecture are just a given? Or do they realize that, in reality, we still have to sell many of our clients on sustainable design and strategies by showing them the inherent value in holistic design? We asked the diverse group of 2022 AIAS Board of Director Liaisons what sustainability means to them to better understand how sustainability is defined across our profession.

Kristine Annexstad Harding, FAIA, NCARB, AIA Board of Directors NCARB Liaison Harding, FAIA, NCARB, is an architect and principal at KPS Group, where she leads the firm’s Huntsville office. In addition to her demanding role at KPS Group, she has held numerous leadership positions in professional organizations, and was named to the Alabama General Contractors Hall of Fame in the fall of 2017. Kristine received her Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, where she was also a scholarship athlete. Kristine is only the third woman architect in Alabama to have achieved AIA Fellowship distinction.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Kristine Harding (KH): Sustainable design aims to set standards in building systems, materials, construction practices, and environmental site solutions to protect our planet and sustain life. Sustainable design also addresses the life-cycle of neighborhoods, cities and society.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability? Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

KH: I attended architecture school in the 80’s and sustainability was not even a term we used. Environmental design was all about passive solutions and siting buildings to take advantage of solar orientation and prevailing wind conditions.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

KH: Architects are keenly aware of the tenets of sustainable design and that we can make the largest impact in our building solutions. The industry needs to lead the discussion and enforce solutions.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going - what’s next? KH: End-users and clients, as a whole, are not pushing for sustainable design and feel that it is cost prohibitive. Architects can use sustainable design responsibly if it does not impact cost, however, the only true way to enforce sustainable design is to create building codes that address the larger issue. We have seen newer editions of the IBC include code requirements, however, when municipalities can choose to cherry pick the editions that they adopt, it does not achieve sustainability.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

KH: Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport. It doubled in scale and maintained the same utility costs.

Above Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport by KPS Group

Bethany Lundell Garver, AIA, NCARB, AIAS Board of Directors ACSA Liaison

Garver, AIA, NCARB, is dean and faculty of Practice and Director of Applied Learning at the Boston Architectural College. She holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design with distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, along with a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Interior Architecture from Auburn University. Garver co-founded the Professional Practice Education Library launched by NCARB and ACSA, which is a growing library of video lessons covering foundational and emerging topics in architectural practice.

Above CLT apartment block by Generate and Placetailor

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Bethany Garver (BG): Sustainable design secures a lifegiving future for our people, planet, and ecosystems. It is not merely a subject or sector we choose to study or practice. Sustainable design is like oxygen – a given, an imperative, a true commitment to health, safety, and welfare for humanity.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability? Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

BG: More than twenty years ago, my environmental controls instructor Professor Norbert Lechner, author of the invaluable tome Heating, Cooling, Lighting, taught me about the integral relationship between building design, performance, site, orientation, and climate. The whole curriculum at Auburn (my alma mater) honored these concepts and has only broadened and deepened their approach to sustainable design since then.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

BG: At the Boston Architectural College, the academic leadership group has been reading The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. For me, Robinson’s jarring novel profoundly illustrates how the climate crisis is at its heart a leadership crisis. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson’s book All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis asserts this thinking and expands upon climate justice. The two key concepts; climate leadership and climate justice, have significantly impacted my approach to sustainable design as an architect, educator, administrator. SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

BG: What I think and what I hope are different. I think people will be distraught and overwhelmed with despair when climate change is broadly understood to be irreversible, and it is accepted that future generations will know “natural disaster” and be hurt (at best) by it. Design leadership needs to be rooted in empathy, communication, collaboration, and community. I hope the architectural profession lets go of (and perhaps for some, grieves) old traditions that do not work, like the designbid-build project delivery method to start.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

BG: I have keen admiration for Placetailor, a Boston-based urban design build firm that demonstrates a paradigm shift through their approach to architecture, firm finance, and practice-based research and development. Placetailor’s projects and processes demonstrate replicable climate design leadership and serve as a striking model for our field.

Ricardo J Rodriguez, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, ACI AIAS Board of Directors AIA Liaison

Fascinated by the intersection between “bytes & mortar,” Ricardo’s 15-year career includes 2M-sqft of projects, and he has been a speaker at 35 events worldwide. An AIA|DC’s Emerging Architect of the Year awardee, BuiltWorlds also recognized him as a national Top-50 Con-Tech Adoption Leader. He has served in the AIA strategic council and is currently an AIAS board member. Lately, Ricardo has been focusing on AI-generated art, is an ArchiDAO contributor, and mentors four startups.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Ricardo J Rodriguez (RR): Sustainable design is both a philosophy and a framework. When practiced, it aims to establish a responsible relationship between our work, the natural environment, and the community that surrounds us.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability? Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

RR: In college, the very little that I was exposed to came from teachings on tropical modernism and our Caribbean climate’s role in colonial architecture and urban planning. This is an unfortunate fact, as climate-related challenges embattle the island nation of Puerto Rico, where I am originally from, that in nearly every direction and scale, our institutions, education, and professional practice are woefully unprepared to cope. In many cases, these challenges aren’t even acknowledged. The few exceptions are fiercely committed and push forward their grassroots efforts admirably and against all odds.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

RR: When in the 2010s, LEED was all the rage in corporate architecture firms. During that time, LEED credentialing was a way to set yourself apart during the hiring process, which turned out to be essential when being laid off during the Great Recession. From the industry’s perspective, much advocacy and awareness grew during this period. Still decades later, most architecture practices, predominately the smaller ones, lack any frameworks or tools to assist them in climate-action goals. SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

RR: I’d rather discuss my hopes on where it should go, namely accountability and action. Our professional institutions should start “walking the walk” and switch from advocacy to action. Adding sustainable values and goals to our member code of ethics, our contract documents, providing real tools to members, and lobbying for sustainable legislation are all needed next steps. I’m also encouraged by the next generation of architectural leaders, as they will be much more invested in climate action since it will directly impact them. These emerging leaders have access to a broader digital skillset, knowledge, and drive to enact change, where we’ve been timid in the past.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

RR: Locally, in the Washington D.C. area, the African American Museum is a very successful example. The powerful content in the exhibition, the sense of place is empowered by its architectural design, and its sustainable strategies all converge elegantly with this project.

Above: National Museum of African American History and Culture by David Adjaye and Phil Freelon

Montre’ale L. Jones, NOMAS, AIAS, AIAS Board of Directors NOMA Liaison

Jones, a native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Design’s B.A. Architecture (2020) and M.S. Urban and Environmental Design (2021) degree programs. And is a graduate of the esteemed UK Gaines Fellowship for the Humanities program (2020), UK Lewis Honors College, as well as a graduate of the Harvard Design Discovery program (2021). Jones works in New York City at Bjarke Ingels Group as a Design Assistant and enjoys being part of an array of riveting projects.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish? Montre’ale L. Jones (MJ): From my experiences I believe sustainable design to be not just an application and implementation of green into our urban cityscapes and architectural designs, but I consider it to be beyond that, which

is a transformation in existing systems and practices that involve a deeper conscious consideration for the processes of the built environment. With that, the decisions, and sources of materiality; the longevity of builds and their reusability of waste after deconstruction; carbon footprint data and mitigating extreme levels of harmful emissions; and innovating how we design driven by eco-driven mindsets at the forefront. What I believe sustainable design achieves to accomplish in today’s society is peace among the built and natural environment – a co-existence between the two. Whereas the needs and demands for intentional spaces and curated places to be designed for people and professions are no longer consequential in further declining the Earth’s beauty and life and sustainment.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability? Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

MJ: As a student at the University of Kentucky (UK) and a degree recipient of a B.A. in Architecture and M.S. in Urban and Environmental Design, I was not taught much about sustainability, especially amongst the built environments. Though, I did take it upon myself to learn more about the topic and concerns of sustainability that I had heard mentioned from extra-curricular organizations and other spaces that I had occupied by being present in lectures and enrolling into courses offered at UK that delve deeper into the concentration. An example of this was course ENS 602: Environmental and Sustainability Policy and Governance. This course specifically was an introduction for me into environmental realizations of the processes of wanting to take an idea and or concept into implementation and the political hoops and wider challenges to consider when wanting to reform parts or our society as a whole into a regiment that is revitalized completely on ecofriendliness. This was a course I decided to take on my own that I believe to have strengthened my master studies, and it did just that.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

MJ: The evolution of sustainable design has impacted me and the design industry as a whole because it has come to be a challenge intended for the architects and designers of my generation to ratify an existing world that corrects the doings of the designers before us and innovate to sustain a better world for tomorrow and generations to come. There are more talks about sustainability than ever, which is great, though, because change in the built environment and in design take so long naturally because of construction and processes the things we want to see fixed must start their process now.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

MJ: In truth, I see this movement of sustainability moving as moderately at pace as in parallel with as much concern and awareness and investment that the public has in this issue. There are a number of people who are diligent in their fight to combat many practices that perpetuate what would lead to a dying world, but without the fight of the majority the fight becomes staggered. The issue is twofold (1) educating the public of the facets of our living and how each sector of our existence and how much of those sectors are contributing to the greater sum of our harmfulness towards the planet (2) the parallelism of raw data correlated with the happenings, changes, and experiences that are realized in real time so that what we are feeling and seeing are storyboarded and that people know exactly where we are and where we are headed so that they may be part of the narrative instead of having it explained. I am currently an intern too at BIG and I have come to discover that LEED certifications and sustainable implementations into builds takes some convincing and enlightenment with clients too to show the benefit. Most times these extra parameters do cost additional money towards a project, and it is up to the clients to forgo these steps towards sustainable builds or not. It is also in the best interest of any architect or designer to make a case on behalf of the design practice and on behalf of the environment to relay the importance of attaining sustainability in builds. I had recently completely my master thesis entitled, Catalytic Urban Voids: Phoenix Park A Summit for Community, Climatic, and Celebratory Intervention, and amongst this research the next big immediate move for sustainable, I believe, is found in advancing the urban void spaces amongst the urban fabric of our cities.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

MJ: At this time, I would say that I have not come across my favorite sustainable project to-date.

Above CopenHill by BIG

Shawna Mabie, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, NOMA

Mabie is a project manager and associate at Hanbury in Raleigh, North Carolina. She serves as the young architects director on the AIA North Carolina Board and is the young architects representative for North Carolina.