The environmental argument sustained
It is not an easy book to digest, but Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is essential reading, said Rob Gregory in Building Design, 8 March 2002, page 15.
The problem with books on sustainable development over the years has often lain in their struggle to pin down a clear definition of what sustainability is. But despite 'sustainable design' being a loosely defined but now broadly accepted term, there are many theories that aim to establish best practice.
A lot of books exist that offer guidance on which materials we should specify, which building techniques we should employ, how we should harness natural light and ventilation, and that discuss the possibilities offered by emerging technology. Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age, however, is part of the second generation of books on this subject, where the broader issues relating to the profession, the art and the meaning of architecture are explored.
To an architect reading this book it soon becomes clear that tacking 'environmental design' at the top of a list of client services, and adhering to the new guidance notes in Part L of the building regulations will never be enough. There are issues surrounding this hotly debated subject with significant professional, legal, and creative implications for architects.
With 23 contributors, the breadth of discussion is at first attempt almost too much to absorb. Lawyers, lecturers, economists, engineers, physicists, planners, architects, journalists and RIBA presidents all have their say over 18 chapters, which identify issues that many architects may not even have begun to consider. Each chapter is a book in its own right, and some readers may be disappointed that there is no snappy introduction or conclusion to neatly tie up the arguments. Not only is it questionable whether a neat summary would have been possible or even appropriate, there is also no attempt to simplify, clarify or even answer any questions.
The aim of the editors Ian Abley and James Heartfield - as the name of their research organisation audacity.org implies - was to 'boldly' and 'fearlessly' question the assumptions and limitations of British construction. It seeks '... to get to grips with the platitudes of sustainability before they are established into debilitating codes of conduct,' and advocates '... audacious professionalism', opposing '... the imposition of an environmental duty of care'.
The book places the futuristic world of Jonathan Schwinge next to the world of apparently hopeless facts, and despite the broad selection of case studies that sit between the individual chapters, offers no applicable code for best practice.
There is an underlying question when reading this book - 'what really can we as architects ever hope to achieve?' The enormity of the task, which is reinforced by a few rather cumbersome statistics laden chapters, leaves you feeling like you are stuck in a reed bed without a paddle. The book raises important issues that go far beyond the popular debates of urban/rural development densities, the integration of strap-on environmental control devices and tortuous embodied energy calculations.
Isn't construction by definition a 'harmful activity', asks Austin Williams? Are we prepared for more restrictions that could send us architects to the dock to defend ourselves and our 'environmental duty of care'? Can we indeed have a non-contractual civic obligation to the environment? Can future generations sue us for our decisions that compromise their ability to meet their own needs? Is sustainability a bleak vision based on little more than paranoia? Are architects, as Martin Pawley suggests, only of marginal significance, simply flattering themselves by exaggerating the effect that their designs actually have on reducing carbon dioxide emissions? Can architects really add strategic value? The questions abound - and if you can absorb them all they are truly searching.
This is not an easy book to digest, but every self-professed environmentally conscious architect must read it.
While there is no clear connection between all the writers, the majority of the chapters are well written with a handful of excellent pieces. These include the exhilarating chapter by Whitby Bird and Partners on the future hydrogen-based economy; the clear analysis of Peter Walker about the changing relationship between architect and client, and the absence of an industry based 'architectural custodian'; and the provocative chapter from Austin Williams entitled 'Zen and the art of lifecycle maintenance'.
If Williams is correct, and if sustainability results in little more than a form of 'yogic posturing' in the search for 'purity of purpose', then there is a real danger that some architects will lower their creative aspirations in the search for this new form of moral validity.
If sustainability has become a new religion, and if this is one of the books of its Bible, it is certainly not the Good News. Perhaps it is more like Revelation, a provocative book of imagery, prophecy and interpretation, which gives one or two answers, but in so doing poses many more questions. Rob Gregory
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