Manifesto, Sustainability
- Is sustainability truly sustainable?
- Before taking an interest in architecture and design I used to think that sustainability just meant adding plants and greenery to things.
- Personal experiences and why I wanted to do this topic:
- GCSE product design
- Researching into Ken Yeang.
- Embodied carbon through manufacturing processes and construction.
- What have I learnt so far in terms of sustainability in design?
- My opinion on what defines a sustainable building/product?
- Maximising the use of the climate, whilst minimising the energy required to run the product/ building.
- Both perspectives, consumer and designer. Having been both of them I can relate to both sides.
- My ambitions for the future are to promote the construction/ progression of ecological cities where human systems and natural systems can co-exist.
- Another ambition of mine is to convert or start converting an existing street into an ecological street that will hopefully kickstart a development phase in that city where ecological or green buildings/ decoration will become commonplace.
- In the long run I’d like to have an influence on how people perceive and approach eco-architecture.
Is sustainability truly sustainable? Most common
folk believe that sustainability is as easy as slapping a couple of green
things onto a building. But, in reality creating a sustainable product is much
more complex than outsiders to the design industry would believe it to be. I
wish to discuss this topic as I find that it would be a good way to document
and share my understandings, because a few years ago I was also guilty of
thinking that that was the case, but, recently after taking an interest in
architecture I have come to learn that that isn’t the case.
So, I was initially introduced to this idea during
my GCSEs (which I believe is the British equivalent to a high school diploma in
America), whilst studying product design at the GCSE level I quickly discovered
that choosing materials for a design is much harder than it seems as you have
to then also think about the carbon output of the manufacturing processes
required for the materials and the lifespan of said materials whilst thinking
about how you can benefit from climate, before finally making a judgement on
whether that material is suitable for your product/building. It was during this
period that I was introduced to the many complexities of designing a product
that would benefit the environment and this was where I discovered how
difficult it was to come up with a fully fleshed out project that’s ideally
affordable and good for the environment. Which was when I had started to
realise and notice how much carbon is produced from manufacturing and making.
Now, I think we can all sympathise with the idea
that it’s sometimes very easy to overlook things such as carbon footprint as a
consumer, because it all gets overshadowed by the fact that shops are always
full of tonnes of the same items. The observable carbon footprint is nullified
by the fact that when we go shopping we see lots and lots of the same product
which subconsciously tells us “ there’s a lot of that so it can’t be that
harmful to the environment or they’d stop making it.”
In my opinion a sustainable building should be able
to maximise the use of its surroundings whether it be vernacular techniques or
good use of climate and solar geometry. Most of the time it’s extremely
difficult to design a building that gives back to the environment. The way I
see it, once a building is built, goes into debt as they are unable to repay
the environment for the damage that they’ve caused for it. However, as
designers we can always strive to create a sufficient building that can do as
such and instead contribute rather than strike even, or at least try to.
I think what really kick-started the obsession with
sustainability and green design was a list I’d spotted whilst getting side
tracked on researching into sustainability, the article was titled “50 people
who could save the planet” amongst these was an architect named Ken Yeang,
after seeing this I researched into his philosophy and designs and found his
work very interesting as it talked about unifying natural systems with human
systems.
My ambitions and goals for the future are to
promote the construction eco-cities where most, if not all of the buildings in
that city are designed fully considering the environment whilst also featuring
green design aspects such as green walls, vine curtains or green roofs, etc (I
believe these are known as ecological architecture and biophilic design). By
doing this I am hoping to create a city that is providing back for the
environment instead of taking from it, now this in itself isn’t the main
challenge, the real challenge is then making the occupants follow suit. Though
I would argue a more appropriate ambition would be to push for the redesign of
current cities and streets by repurposing buildings to be more green and
instead of designing new buildings, it’d be more appropriate to reuse and
potentially recycle buildings that exist and convert them into green buildings.
Another of my ambitions is to hopefully conjoin the ideas of architecture and
the environment, I’m not too sure on how I would approach this as of yet but
the idea of having buildings that can do multiple functions Is interesting to
me, for example a building that can be both purposeful whilst doubling as a
beach groyne for coastal areas. In the long run I’d like to have an influence
on how sustainable architecture is approached and specifically industrial
architecture that typically isn’t known for being very green or eco-friendly.
Links and sources:
- 50 people who could save the planet:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jan/05/activists.ethicalliving
- Ken Yeang, Hamzah & Yeang:
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