NEWS++NEWS++NEWS++NEWS++NEWS++NEWS

Darwin revisited

During the fifth conference 'Doors of Perception' by the Dutch Design Institute (Nederlands Vormgevingsinstituut), which took place in the end of November 1998 in Amsterdam with the theme 'Play', Stichting SLA organised a workshop about Smart Architecture. Three eco-experts explained in short what they consider 'sustainable' or 'ecological' construction.

Brian Hatton

Chris McCarthy

Julian Vincent

Ken Yeang

Ken Yeang (TR Hamzah & Yeang) from Malaysia, author of 'Bioclimatic architecture', is a man from the field. He has translated ideas about ecological building in bio-climatised office towers in Southern Asia for 15 years.

Ecological designing is the reducing of waste. Eco-design is management of in- and output. You are not finished when your building is completed. You must take the possibilities for recycling into account. Or better yet: reuse, since that costs less energy. Recyclable concrete and recyclable steel. You begin with mapping the ecosystem of the site: ground, moisture management, erosion, topography, biotopes etc. That information is used in localising the building: where you build and where you donít. That diversity must be preserved as much as possible.
You compensate the loss of the bio-diversity as much as you can in your buildings, for example by bringing in wind and plants. And not 'strange' kinds of plants that are competing with the existing, but just the kinds that guarantee the continuity of the natural growth. One plant per m2 is enough. In Singapore for example I 'pulled' the vegetation in the building by planting in vides that spiralled up with the building.

First you optimise the passive, then the active energy flows. By the colour of the façade for example, by an intelligent façade or by placing lift-shafts and stairwells along outer façades so that they can be naturally ventilated and serve as a buffer against heat or cold. And by managing the winds that enter the building. If you succeed in using that flow as ventilation then the comfort is maximal. Which is how I gave one of my office towers in Singapore an aerodynamic 'wing' to generate the right turbulence for the inside ventilation. Users of the building can influence the wind strength by opening the windows.
If you do it well, you increase the comfort of the users AND the environmental impact will be the least. If you donít optimise the energy flows, then you must always compensate later.The crucial question is of course how this can be done without decreasing our standard of living. That is the responsibility of architects. With design you can increase efficiency. With that we must slowly teach the people to reduce the impact on the environment. There is a lot to do in that area. The environment is not static, it continually changes. If it is a degree warmer inside in the summer, then is that a problem? It is a question of mentality.

According to the British biologist Julian Vincent, who researches how we can take advantage of the bio-systems of plants and animals, the architect can learn a lot from biological systems.

If you want to know how to improve the efficiency of a building and how to optimise climate management, you must observe how animals maintain their temperature in difficult circumstances. In the nature everything revolves around energy management. Surviving is only possible when you optimise that. Darwin's famous saying 'the survival of the fittest' should be revised. With fulfilling our most important function, namely taking care of descendants, fitness is not our most important criterion but the amount of energy.
'In the nature it is fantastically arranged. Penguins for example stay warm because their feathers have a structure that can bring the passing airflow to a halt. By doing so they cool off as little as possible. If they stand in the sun, they adjust their feathers a little so they donít get too hot. And when they swim they hook their feathers together with special barbed hooks into a watertight cover. One moment they swim in water of -40°C, another moment they stand in the burning sun.
Ducks and tuna stay warm because of the so-called 'countercurrent'-system. In this system the outgoing blood flow exchanges its heat with the incoming. That is how ducks can stand on the ice barefoot, while their blood remains at 40°, and they loose as little heat as possible while swimming in cold water. The system is simple. By the time the blood comes to the feet - the cold zone - the temperature of 40° is cooled down to 1°. The middle of the duck stays warm, only its feet are cold.
Termites are also intelligent climate managers. They ventilate their hills differently each time. Sometimes with funnels, sometimes with vides. The design is dependent on the location and climatic circumstances.'

Which is precisely why, according to civil engineer Christopher McCarthy (from the British Battle MacCarthy), sustainable building means high-tech building: 'not in the meaning of replicating an aeroplane wing and calling that a house, but for example by using computer simulations from the airline industry to predict air flows generated by a building, to be able to use these for a natural ventilation system.'

'Eco-architecture is smart architecture, based on an intelligent analysis of the location and the building task. The result can be a brick cottage, but is still always high-tech.'
'If we want a sustainable future, one of the main points is preventing waste. We now recycle ca 10% of our buildings, if we work extremely hard on that it can probably be raised to 20% with our current construction-systems. So we must start using systems which are better biodegradable and reusable. Prefab-systems for example, but then new sorts that are flexible in use and donít mean an impoverishment of forms and shapes for the architect. It is absurd that a telephone cell is Scotland is exactly the same as in Rome, while it must meet totally different demands.

Architecture critic Brian Hatton (amongst others Lotus and AA London) finished the reading series with a few marginal notes. Why be so careful? Why actually save the environment?

'You often donít know whether something is dangerous of favourable, poison or healing.
'Technology is the answer' says Cedric Price, 'But what is the question?' What is the difference between carefree and free from care?
What is the difference between waste and consumption? Between waste and abundance? To get the one, you offer the other.
Georges Bataille already wrote about this. 'What do societies do with their surplus? Waste it.' What purpose does it have to save if you never use it?
Why should we act ecologically to survive, if we do not really know for sure whether we want to survive?

'Youth is wasted on the young', Oscar Wilde said. And: 'a cigar is the ultimate consumer product. Exclusive. And when it is finished, you are still unsatisfied.'
You could also play with surpluses. As Peter Subara, an architect who died from AIDS. He invented shopping malls with flying carpets. He brought playfulness in the architecture.

Ineke Schwartz

(a summary of this article is placed in Archis, Feb. 1999)