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A much needed dash of verve and controversy
Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is the second part of an on-going commitment by audacity.org to investigate and interrogate all aspects of sustainability, said Jackson Hunt of the Building Centre Trust.
Commissioned after a one-day conference held at the Building Centre in July 2000 entitled Building Audacity, the publication offers in effect a second forum to accommodate the stated aim to provide a '... new arena for critical thinking.' In doing so it brings together architects, journalists, academics and legal consultants, testifying to the complexity and slipperiness of this 'subject'.
At the very least the range of the book can be described as multi-faceted covering notions from the everyday by Phil Macnaghten; to 'open lens' globalised perspectives from charlick + nicholson; to judicial constraints considered by Daniel Lloyd; as well as economic and social factors discussed by Ian Abley and James Heartfield, amongst others. On show there are realised projects from the like of Foster and Partners and Wilkinson Eyre, alongside fantastical schemes by Jonathan Schwinge.
Here glossy images seduce the reader, challenging conventional notions of what constitutes a 'green' building and offering the promise of a more invigorating approach to the problems of sustainability than is often put forward.
As eye-catching as these are the real heart of the book lies in the more polemical stances of Ian Abley, Martin Pawley, Shane Slater, Ben Madden and Duncan Price. These essays argue for a more 'connectivist' and radically re-appraised approach to sustainable concerns where real change, if not technological revolution, is urged. Wherever possible this is to be imbued with '... a dash of verve and controversy', as Miles Glendinning and Stefan Muthesius advocate.
One such change called for by the building physicists at Whitby Bird and Partners is transformation to a hydrogen-based fuel economy; a 100% renewable and clean energy supply. The daunting scale of this transformation is recognised, but, so its authors claim, such change is not without precedent in western society, albeit not on this scale. The book does not shy away from the problems affecting sustainable development, such as intermittency and economic outlay.
As the range of sometimes conflicting and contradictory opinion in this book attests, there is clearly a problem defining what exactly is meant by sustainability, and quite what should constitute our response.
All the contributors are of course asking for both individual and collective change but the lack of cohesion means the reader is forced to create links between the chapters - indeed this would appear to be part of the discipline of the editorial process.
Yet common ground can be found. All the authors featured here demand a new manner of thinking where sustainability becomes a process, not an aim, and is no longer treated as an isolated subject within the grand architectural schema. We need sustainablity to be part of a new conceptual framework, say charlick + nicholson, to make the break from token gestures, fundamentalist madness or alarmist statistics.
We must begin to recognise, as does Phil Macnaghten, that '... if we are serious in understanding the conditions for a more sustainable society, we need to recognise that the more directly involved are people in the construction and preservation of their dwellings, the more likely they are to care for and cherish the planet we all inhabit'. Jackson Hunt
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