Smart Architecture is...

Smart architecture offers an integral solution to a variety of design challenges: the environmental problem, the optimal use of space and other resources, a functional utilization of materials and technology, and aesthetics.Smart architecture is never just green - it is always something more.

Smart architecture is intelligent. It may be the work of an intelligent designer who succeeds in finding his way through a tricky design situation with surprising simplicity. But there can also be an intelligent building or space that interacts with its environment and which adapts to the user's wishes.

Smart architecture is not complicated. It may well be complex but it is no more complex than necessary. Sometimes a simple and hence ostensibly 'dumb' building is smarter than a technology-dominated living-and-working machine over which the user has lost control.

Smart architecture is sometimes surprisingly simple. A smart solution is often the kind of solution that is obvious after the event. You get the feeling 'If only I'd thought of that myself'. Simple solutions are anything but dumb.

Smart architecture is beautiful and elegant. In the same way that a good solution for a mathematical theorem can be beautiful and elegant.

Smart architecture is optimistic and cheerful. Who can object to smartness? There is always something pleasing about it and often it's even witty. Nor does it have to be expensive. Smart architecture is architecture with a smile - and a sincere one.

Smart architecture is contextual: it responds to its surroundings. This does not only apply to the physical environment - the climate, the urban landscape etc. It is also true for the social environment, for the political and historical context. Smart architecture cooperates instead of fighting.

Smart architecture is efficient. It's the optimal relationship between means and ends.

Smart architecture is techno-logical. Technology is an important tool but not a goal in itself. The use of advanced engineering and materials, and dressing up a building with 'green' attributes (e.g. energy-saving devices) is not necessarily smart. On the other hand fear or distrust of technological solutions is pretty stupid.

The tremendous assault mankind has made on the earth over the ages is largely due to the production and use of the growing arsenal of artefacts with which we like to surround ourselves. The questions of whether we ought to treat the environment more circumspectly and whether we should reduce our consumption of finite fossil fuels have long been answered.

The issue still remaining is how we should go about it. Defensive solutions to the environmental problem, solutions which are primarily aimed at reducing energy and materials consumption, will seldom prove sustainable. They lack a surplus value capable of inspiring architects to design efficient buildings.

Smart solutions, on the other hand, kill two birds with one stone: they lower the environmental load and simultaneously enhance usability.

The production of buildings can play an important part in finding solutions. But architecture is a slow-moving profession, and so far the measures taken have been mainly defensive ones. There are regulations to make insulation compulsory, certain materials have been banned and a variety of products ranging from high-efficiency boilers to solar panels have been developed to reduce energy consumption. This whole package seldom results in more attractive, more enjoyable architecture. At most, the user's environmental conscience is pacified. This is not smart architecture.