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Emma Lineberger

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

4/1/2018

Going Green or Going Flawed?

Sustainable architecture is a relatively new concept in the field of architecture; however,

it has recently been under more discussion due to the growing concern of global warming and

climate change. Many governmental programs are being set up to start initiatives and regulations

to force architects to create green, or sustainable buildings. While in theory this push for green

architecture is working to counter the effects of man-made structures on the climate, many

question whether the tactics and designs that architects use are really beneficial to the

environment.

Sustainable, and green, architecture is most often thought of in the form of the use of

solar panels, contemporary designs, and reduction of waste. Ecological Urbanism, a theory of

architecture sustainability, supports the idea of a city that is self-sustaining and turns the waste

into energy, much like the biosphere ecosystems. This idea is much more than just having

“green” systems within a building or city. Ecological Urbanism stresses the importance of design

and the research behind designing or remodeling a building (Hagan). An urban design strategy is

necessary to create cities that are truly sustainable and environmentally friendly. This includes

looking at the buildings surrounding the one being designed, as well as looking at the physical

land it is on, the current state of the city, and the possibly future developments. Sometimes these

strategies lead to chaotic and dense cities with confusing roads, disrupted life of citizens, and

strong barriers between areas of the city.

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City planners often lean towards creating plans off of regions and allotted zones rather

than doing surveys of the land (Hagan). Zoning in cities often dictates what can be allowed to be

built in a certain area, like residential buildings, public services or more. Land surveys will give

city planners a lot of information about the conditions, cultural and physical, that can help them

to understand future problems that may arise, as well as create sustainable plans. This mentality

of regional planning generally leads to “bolt on” or band aided fixes to environmental issues

(Mehaffy, Salingaros). Many problems, like continuous flooding of a river or from run off, are

fixed on as needed basis and poorly, and not addressing the real problem. Take the example

provided in an article on Ecological Urbanism of a city that continuously push back the river.

This city was built on a natural floodplain of a rather large river. When the city grew it pushed

back the river more and more to expand inwards. This actually caused the river to flood more

and cripple the physical structures as well as endanger the citizens lives since there was nowhere

for the water to go anymore (Hagan). These sorts of problems come from poor planning and

environmentally damaging design.

Many times, architects will use what is called the “bolt-on” method to fix sustainability

issues. This is where they put in “green things” as an afterthought in the design and will most

likely make the building have more issues and become less sustainable than it was designed to be

(Mehaffy, Salingaros). This is where the problem arises. Architects want to just get the “green

sticker”, without looking at the underlying problems. This method also creates a paradoxical

situation where, when it is cheaper to use energy, it gets used more than the standard, thereby

hindering the benefits of the lower costs as it cost just as much and more often than not, more.

Designers often look at just the one building and do not consider any other influences from the

environment and nearby structures. These can be very significant in the energy used to construct
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and maintain the building in question. Urban cities are very complex “ecosystems” and to

remove a building from those contexts inhibits the architect to make a truly sustainable building

as they do not know the surrounding environment and the connections between the buildings.

There are regulations and organizations in place to stop environmentally harmful design

and push architects to include certain systems and features in their building design to make it

more sustainable. Some of these systems are plumbing systems that recycle the water, and some

are for conservation of energy, by adding in certain types of windows that let heat in the winter

and block the heat in the summer. In the US, the United States Green Building Council has set up

a national green rating program called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)

to pressure designers into creating sustainable designs. These pressures come from rules and

regulations about what should be included in a sustainable building and how effective it is in the

long run (USGBC). One example is, how much waste the building produces in its construction.

This is included in material waste and the amount of overall energy is consumed versus its

output. This contributes to the decreasing natural resources such as fossil fuels. LEED also looks

at how much a new building will impact a site (area where the building is proposed to be placed),

and whether this site is unsuitable for construction and human impact. This drives architects and

city planners to favor more environmentally friendly sites and designs.

The United States has also created the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to set

laws and regulations that are imposed on architects to create more environmentally-friendly

buildings. Many of these laws coincide with the categorical regulations under the LEED

program. The EPA, however, looks more at the environmental impact and the negative

outcomes, whereas LEED is more focused on the inclusion on sustainable innovations and

systems. One concern of the EPA towards architectural buildings is greener living (EPA). This is
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not just making sustainable features in a building, but looking at the quality of life and

opportunities for greener living. This includes smart growth, which is community driven

strategies and responsibilities to maintain sustained green development and planning, and

sustainable materials management, SSM, to cut down on materials such as concrete and steel in

not just buildings, but also in infrastructure like roads.

People seem to be one of the most important factors into sustainable design. If people

decide that there is only one way, or an easier way of dealing with a sustainable system then that

becomes the norm of dealing with that system. For example, the Gherkin had issues when the

employees decided to add features inside the building to deal with security concerns. This caused

a sustainable, and working, ventilation system to fail creating more cost and damage for the

building, rather than lowering its cost and making it more sustainable like it was supposed to

(Mehaffy, Salingaros). This has become a common issue when users of the building get in the

way of sustainability and make it costlier to keep the design sustainable. This happens because

oftentimes the systems that are put into a building to make it “sustainable” or “green” are

complex and confusing to those who use it.

This is one of the main reasons why many people deem today’s society as not being as

environmentally friendly as they can. It is easier to use bad systems because they are less

complex and have been around for a while (Lockton). Designers often forget the thought process

that most people use in everyday life. They do not have the time, or the patience, to try and

figure out the confusing designs of these systems that are produced for them to be sustainable. Or

they attempt to figure out the system and lead to poor and inefficient use of the system. This can

lead to more energy consumption because the system is not being use the way that it was

intended. Take heating and cooling systems. They are often confusing for the consumer to use
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and we have trouble regulating the temperature to the degree that we want it, meaning that there

is energy being consumed constantly as the temperature is adjusted often.

Designers need to begin to be mindful of how people behave and use their systems. They

cannot always expect people to do exactly what is intended and must allow room for error.

Designers need to begin to design for people, to make it easier on the people to live sustainable

and to effectively use the systems that are in place to make green design. This is because people

are the ones that actually use these systems daily and can contribute to the sustainable

environment. By making the sustainable systems easier to understand, it will be easier for people

to begin to live greener and follow the steps needed to be sustainable. Architects are bounded so

much by the rules that are set up by governmental programs like LEED to make their designs

sustainable and green, that they do not need the added complication of having their sustainable

designs backfire.

So, what is currently working for sustainable architecture? Surprisingly, early to mid 20th

century buildings often are more sustainable than the sleek, contemporary buildings built in

today’s world (Mehaffy, Salingaros). This often developed from the necessity of building with

limited, energy consumption and technology. Today’s designers have more freedom with using

different types of energy and being relaxed with the costs of construction and energy waste due

to advancements in technologies dealing with reliable and cheap energy sources. As stated

before, architects tend to look at the appearance and uniqueness of the building and add in the

green components later. This was not used in older buildings as much, because the architects

then tended to look at the usability and practicality of the building, which lends itself towards

more green design.

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Another working method in sustainable architecture is what is called, Garden Cities.

These are cities, or buildings, that have dense vegetation ingrained into the design of the building

(Hagan). This is really to help turn back towards the ecosystem of the Earth and truly bring the

environment into the building. This design will use the vegetation on and around the building to

help bring down Carbon emissions, collect the rainwater, and help with issues involving the sun

heating up the building. This is one of the major methods used in large cities because of the heat

island effect. The way that Garden City deals with urban sprawl, one of the main issues of

urbanism and development, is to decentralize it and make it a less formal thing. This method

wants the city to be more integrated with the physical environment meaning that boundary lines

will disappear. This has now been extended to include more conceptual ideas like social and

cultural boundaries, so that architects and designers can plan for more than just environmental

issues.

The Garden City method may well and be a good model for architects to follow, however

there are more factors that get put into making a city than just including vegetation. HafanCity in

Hamburg, Germany, is a wonderful example of how architects and designers need to begin

designing for making sustainable buildings, and cities (Hagan). This city is a stable, clean and

self-sustaining design. It uses innovative design to careful regulate the human output emissions

and include the “green” systems as a part of the design. In comparison to a city, HafanCity is a

smaller area, only spanning around 2 million square meters, and is reusing an old Hamburg

docking area for this test of urban design. While the green design may be working to make this

one of the first sustainable cities, the people are one of the most important factors in sustaining a

green environment. Both the government and the citizens work together to keep the city clean

and functioning through careful regulations and citizen initiative.

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One of the key factors that contribute the struggle that architects and designers have in

being sustainable is the terminology itself. Sustainable architecture and green architecture do not

have the same connotation although oftentimes they are used to mean the same thing. Green

architecture works towards specific activities that minimize the reduction of human impact on

the environment (Usman). This can be attributed to the fossil fuel usage reduction, or to the

addition of some green roofs. Sustainable architecture looks more at fixing a situation so that it

will no longer occur in the future. This does not mean that it is necessarily green. There is the

hope that sustainability will not negatively impact the environment. So far many of what are

considered sustainable buildings do not impact the environment because the problems that they

solve often deal with environmental issues that arise to hinder the building’s sustainability.

So, which “practice” is better to use for this idea of creating architecture that can be self-

sustaining. Both. Green architecture has become a new movement in the terms of sustainable

architecture, but that does not mean that it doesn’t contribute to the push to create stable and

environmentally friendly designs. Sustainability and green architecture should be able to work

together to create buildings that take into account not only the environment that they are

impacting, but the future problems that could come out of the built environment for which they

are being incorporated into. Architects and designers should be mindful of all the effects that

come from designing buildings, as well as the benefits of using both sustainable and green

practices in their designs. This is why these terms are often used to mean the same thing, because

they should be used together to strive for the same goals.

The HafanCity is only one of a few examples of city-wide sustainable design, but most

places are not equipped with the amount of money that HafanCity is using to keep up the green

architecture, and to keep the city clean. Another issue in the fight for sustainability is that
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creating sustainable designs are costly. Since this is new technology it is hard to make it fit

within a budget that most buildings must fall under. Many of the sustainable buildings currently

are very high profile and given a lot of resources to build as they will bring the client or

developer a lot of money after they are built. Along with having much smaller budgets that don’t

allow for much experimentation or inclusion of sustainable or green design, many developer and

clients want to use as little money as necessary and will force the architects to cut corners. This

can lead to bad sustainable design and to meeting the bare minimum of “being green”. The

architects have very little control over situations like these and they can only hope that they can

influence the client to make the choice to allow for money to be put into sustainable design.

So how does an architect face these challenges and create sustainable design? How can

they transfer the ideas of HafenCity and Ecological Urbanism to a newly developing city, or

even a city as large as Beijing? These are some of the questions that are still continuing to be

asked of architects as they grapple with regulations on green living and low income. Even by

using good strategies and tactics, sustainable design is still too broad of a discussion for one right

answer to become the only answer, and as seen above, there are many cases where the green

systems that are innovative and pass all regulations and codes, but they still do not work. People

are just one of many factors that cannot always be predicted and included in designing for

sustainability. What initiatives should regular people take to help the sustainability of the places

they live and even ones that they don’t live in? How can architects and planners use this

unpredictability to create sustainable design that lasts? How can technology improve to allow for

people to be able to live sustainable and green live more conveniently?

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Works Cited

EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 2002, https://www.epa.gov. Accessed 26 Feb. 2018

Hagan, Susannah. “Ecological Urbanism.” The Architectural Review, 16 Mar. 2015,

https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/viewpoints/ecological-

urbanism/8679977.article. Accessed 21 Feb. 2018.

LEED. US Green Building Council, https://new.usgbc.org. Accessed 1 Mar. 2018.

Lockton, Dan. “Designing for Sustainability: making green behavior easy”. The Guardian, 20

Mar. 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/design-sustainability-green-

behaviour. Accessed 2 May 2018.

Mehaffy, Michael, Nikos Salingaros. “Why Green Architecture Hardly Ever Deserves the

Name”. ArchDaily. 03 Jul. 2013, https://www.archdaily.com/396263/why-green-

architecture-hardly-ever-deserves-the-name. Accessed 02 Apr. 2018.

Usman, Bilal Aftab. “What is the Difference between Green and Sustainable?”. World Atlas,

1Jan. 2017, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-green-

and-sustainable.html. Accessed 30 Apr. 2018.