Green light.

Although the development of concepts of sustainability is dependent on the self-interested forces of politics and commerce, architects can still provide a crucial impetus for change through the enlightened application of new and existing technology and the tactful re-education of clients and building users.

Around half the energy consumed in Europe is used to run buildings. A further 25 per cent is accounted for by traffic.[1] This energy is generated by inexorably diminishing, non-renewable fossil fuel, that will not be available to succeeding generations. The emissions produced by the conversion of this fuel into energy have a proven deleterious effect on the environment. Furthermore, unscrupulous intensive cultivation, together with a destructive exploitation of raw materials and a global reduction in the areas of land given over to agriculture are leading to a systematic diminution of natural habitats.

Such facts may be common knowledge, but are worth restating, if only to emphasise the increasing precariousness of our tenure on the planet. Since the oil crisis of the early 1970s precipitated an `exogenous shock'[2] to the Western economy, green idealism and architecture have been fitful bedfellows. The outcome of their liaison has been various bizarre and experimental offspring (so called `muesli architecture') but, as Martin Pawley notes, the events of the '70s `produced no massive lifestyle changes and, in architecture at least, no design revolution'. Over 20 years later, we still continue to build air-conditioned glass stumps from Dallas to Dhaka, (because we have the quick fix technology to do so) and we still defend our right to pursue disparate work, shopping and leisure activities by car (because commuting distances are much greater, public transport is unreliable and cars are a seductive expression of individuality). Paradoxically, most inhabitants of the first world are dimly aware that such lifestyles are not tenable in the long run, and that this short-term expediency must be replaced by more sustainable patterns of living, but at present very few people are prepared to depart from their untenable habits. To a large extent, this is due to a lack of fully developed, credible alternatives. However, the promulgation of concepts of sustainability (from shopping bags to cities) is still dismayingly contingent on the lumbering and self-interested forces of politics and business.

Yet there have been some quiet advances, not in the physical form of architecture, but in its attendant technologies. These include more stringent thermal performance standards, eco-labelling schemes (of building materials and products, particularly in Germany, Canada and Japan), `green' audits for the entire design and building process, and increasingly sophisticated monitoring of the energy performance of buildings once in use. In addition, new ranges of products and systems have been developed for the outer skins of buildings, such as translucent thermal insulation, improved shading and daylight-deflection systems, new types of glass and new types of facade construction. Of this capacity for technological progress Will Bruder writes `We must become greater inventors and throw off the burden of working only with what are provided in catalogues. We must work to maintain an expertise of working with the materials of the past, but rigorously challenge the industry that serves us with questions about the needs of the future. We must search always for the poetry of basics'.[3]

Yet the benefits of such advances are useless unless applied in an enlightened and socially beneficial manner -- `Technology must be social before it is technical',[4] remarked Michel Foucault. This misappropriation is compounded if we fail to take account of the multi-dimensional synergy of nature. Despite the lack of training and technology, our ancestors instinctively knew how to engage on a symbiotic dialogue with the natural forces of the environment. A building raised on stilts with a sloping roof is appropriate for hot regions with high rainfall; the roof sheds the rain and captures a layer of air, cooling the living space, while the height provided by the stilts prevents flooding. Similarly, a building with thick walls, small windows and a flat roof is appropriate for a hot dry climate. It is clear that intuitive, vernacular traditions still have much to teach those who will listen.

In seeking to adopt a more holistic approach to design, architects must also attempt to challenge preconceptions concerning building form. Notable recent examples of this include Pearce Partnership's enormous mixed commercial development in Harare, Zimbabwe (p36), which uses the huge thermal mass of the building to maintain an equable internal temperature. The architects convinced their developer clients of the economic (and other) benefits of this approach, and although the building is quite unlike a conventional office block (with its heavily articulated facades and huge ventilation chimneys), in the context of Zimbabwe's climate and resources, it is entirely appropriate. In Malaysia, Ken Yeang is successfully designing speculative office developments (p66) that incorporate the principles of `bioclimatic skyscrapers' (AR September 1994). In the ruthlessly reductivist world of property speculation, if Yeang's designs could not compete on a commercial level, they simply would not get built. That they have, is proof that the existing order can be challenged. The process of tactfully re-educating clients and building users not to expect sleek, sealed glass towers or air-conditioned absolutes is an urgent necessity, and one in which architects have an important part to play. To this end, Brenda and Robert Vale observe `As car design has moved from a concern with surface styling to a concentrated effort to improve engineering performance, so architecture needs to be similarly distanced from its current concern of appearance only. It is time to stop putting the fins on the Cadillac'.[5]

[1] Preamble to the European Charter for solar Energy in Architecture and Planning, drawn up by Thomas Herzog between 1994-95, and supported by the European Commission. The Charter is reproduced in its entirely in Solar Energy in Architecture and Urban Planning, a series of case studies edited by Thomas Herzog, Prestel, Munich, 1996.

[2] See Martin Pawley's article in the AR, September 1990, p94.

[3] From the transcript of a discourse on Architecture and Materials for the Next Millennium, Munich, 1996.

[4] Quoted in an essay by Greg Lynn, Anywise, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996, p95.

[5] Green Architecture, Brenda and Robert Vale, Thames & Hudson, London, 1996, p14.