'And', not 'Either/Or'

I have argued elsewhere that Carter did the sustainability movement a great disservice, even with the best of intentions, when he admonished the American public to turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater. In so doing, he immediately framed the discussion of sustainability as one of choosing between comfort (or quality of life) and survival. The subtext was (and in some quarters still is): either sacrifice and save the world or be comfortable and the planet goes to hell.

But as a designer, my training and experience suggest another context. Design without constraints typically does not lead to stunning results. When designing a building, there are the constraints of site, climate, budget, structure, materials, the end-user's expectations, and even codes and ordinances. While some of those constraints are artificial, and many are inconvenient, in the end the synthetic solution to conflicting constraints is what good design is all about. A professor of mine whom I admire greatly, the late Richard Dodge, used to say, "Architecture is about eating your cake AND having it too."

From an architectural perspective, sustainability as a context for design goes wrong when it becomes the only context for the conversation called, let's design a building. The same holds true when any one constraint — the arbitrary nature of zoning ordinances; the cost of a project; the caprices of an owner or the willfulness of the designer; the dictates of a style police — holds absolute sway and drowns out the other voices in the conversation. The result is can be drab lifeless buildings with PV arrays stapled on.

But when sustainability and the energy a building consumes and generates adds its voice to the chorus, the result is a richer, deeper, more meaningful project. Another dimension has been added to building, another perspective now exists for its interpretation and use, another story has been added to its life and the lives of those inhabiting it. In other words, we become concerned with making our world a better place, and living richer lives in more beautiful places. Not either/or, but and.

BIM, small sustainable projects, and VectorWorks

While at the AIA National Convention, I gave presentations of a project of mine at the Nemetschek North America booth. They are the makers of VectorWorks, an outstanding design application for Mac and Windows. A buzzword these day in the practice of architecture (and other building professions) is BIM: building information modeling. Largely seen as a design and documentation methodology rather than a specific technology, BIM allows designers and users to get greater efficiencies out of digital files through the use of data-rich building models. Largely seen as appropriate to large projects with fees to support "left-shift" in the design process, BIM is often ignored by some of VectorWorks' competitors in the context of small projects, at least on trade show floors.

Sustainable design is also often seen as an approach more appropriate to large projects, again where design fees can absorb the requisite additional research and design innovation. Never mind that houses represent about 20% of American energy consumption (see my previous post); energy efficiency in housing is ignored at our peril.

On the other hand, the project of mine that I showed was a single-family residence designed in VectorWorks, using a BIM approach. I've posted a 4.3 MB PDF of the slide show (incidentally entirely built in VectorWorks ARCHITECT with RenderWorks and consisting of "live" drawings, not screen shots). While the slides alone don't do the talk justice, they might be of interest in their own right.