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This architectural mantra of the late '70's was an early definition of sustainability. Integrate flexibility and adaptability to future unknown uses; provide long span, high-load capacity structures, allow freedom of internal configuration within a passive envelope approach. This passive solar approach was one of form and orientation, much like the historical homes and structures that have evolved in different countries and cultures as a response to climate. Sustainability as defined by the Bruntland Commission in 1987: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." A site called Original Green goes into other attributes of "true sustainability", which emphasizes the sustainability of place and the notion of flexibility as the grounds for being sustainable.
This is fundamentally different than the "green" approach as codified by building codes and standards; the presupposition being that it relies on machines to reduce energy consumption. The LEED standards, in particular, are a system of counting up "green" points for certain products and systems that take into account the energy to produce and transport these products. There are points for site location and rehabilitation of existing structures, but again, a formula that may or may not generate good results.
This approach is being studied extensively by the building industry.There's a demonstration project by NASA that will take the extreme measure of an operating facility to see what the "green building" approach can be capable of. The National Audubon Society has built a prototype nature center structure in Los Angeles, and plans to build a thousand urban facilities around the country by 2020.
While the building industry is examining technological methods for energy conservation and reuse which has become the de facto code and LEED approach to the problem of consumption and energy use, there remains a more fundamental path towards sustainable habitation of the land. That has to do with the actual regenerative natural systems that we find in undisturbed ecosystems, which we're beginning to investigate more deeply. This approach is known as biomimicry in many fields, but in architecture it means adapting the strategies and structures of nature and using organic processes to develop and support habitable structures. The Biomimicry Institute in Missoula, Montana is promoting this approach, and has a network of resources and case studies.
In the meantime, as the photo above shows (click to read about collecting rainwater through a "skin"), there are all kinds of creative design experiments going on in form generation that are exploring these more nuanced approaches to sustainability that get to building form as a functioning biological system that integrates with the local site characteristics and consumes very little energy and water. While they're not scientific per se, they open many new possibilities that leave the code-generated "green" structures way behind their exploration of process.
A firm that is taking this process seriously by integrating management change of the design process is DLR Group. Exhibiting leadership in the adoption of the AIA's 2030 Plan addressing global challenges in the built environment, they are adapting their firm's core values to address all aspects of sustainable practice. Part of this approach involves pushing the envelope on digital communications and design technologies in order to manage the massive amounts of data needed to solve complex and knowledge-based design solutions.
The proliferation and power of technology tools, used in concert with building information modeling and other modeling platforms, are crucial to pushing the boundaries of sustainable design. Today, 3-D models created in BIM tools can collect information and accurately analyze the built environment to validate design ideas. Powerful analysis engines such as IES-VE, GBS, and Ecotect energy modeling software can quickly produce meaningful results including energy analysis, daylighting and lighting studies, utility costs, code analysis, and life cycle cost studies.
Serious water issues are impacting California in the near future, particularly considering the Bay Delta fisheries collapse and the environmental degradation it has experienced from being overdrafted. The picture of ground water withdrawals above is from the Ground Water Atlas, online at the USGS website. The site is full of maps and charts illustrating the situation with our water use in this state. Most of the groundwater usage is in the central valley for agriculture, and also in Los Angeles County. In Southern California, this groundwater is not sufficient for our population or industrial/agriculture needs, so we rely on the State Water Project, the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the Los Angeles pipeline from Mono Lake.
Aside from the politics of multiple water districts and their subcontracts, formal supply requirements and allocation of water useage, there's the important issue of the agricultural water. It is being consumed by corporate farms for very inappropriate kinds of produce for the environmental conditions and fed by very inefficient water systems and meters. An illustration of this is a story from Alternet, which covers the story of Roll International, owned by the Resnicks, which controls most of the claimed water in Kern County. The Resnicks became billionaires growing almond and pistachio trees with their takeover of a public water bank. They developed this tree farm on the Westside of the Central Valley, which is marginal land that should never have been used for irrigated farming, particularly water-intensive crops like the trees.
However, the currently dying trees made for good copy for water demands based upon the lingering drought of June 2009 in the valley, creating the impression that increased water supply was critical to propping up this water-intensive crop.
This is an example of the very difficult situations that must be resolved with new Bay Delta policies that need to implement environmental restoration, system upgrades and repairs with a balance of appropriate allocations for use in California. We're at our limit of water consumption, with the aquifers being currently overdrafted and a dwindling supply of water from imported water due to climate change. The BDCP study shifts the emphasis to appropriate use and conservation rather than continuing to consume water in our current pattern. Reform of agricultural water use is thus a high priority. As the article points out,
The Delta is the hub of California’s water engineering system and the current focal point of the state’s infamous water wars. Environmentalists and Delta communities want to reduce water exports. Irrigators in the San Joaquin and their strange bedfellows in the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which draws water pumped through the Delta, want to increase water exports. There is one thing all sides agree on: The Delta is a disaster waiting to explode.
Sometimes the creative fulcrum is a response to issues that at first seem at complete odds with each other. Let's say you need to fast-track a structure beyond all reasonable possibility due to politics. Well, start by re-using everything and designing as you go into construction. There's this existing building, a dynamic client program, and, oh by the way, an earlier unused design in your hip pocket. The design concept as it was originally born in Pasadena, for Caltech, was unused when that project was canceled. Its original idea was the passive cooling strategies in the taller central core, facilitating air ventilation flows to the exterior.
The "wolf in sheep's clothing" was a response to the need to minimize the materials used in a structure, as well as provide flexibility during construction as the design is actually resolved. Good idea, but wasn't used, at least not at Caltech. But, when the same architect has another design opportunity in a country across the globe that required immediate design and construction to beat a one-year deadline, the mashup happened. A building was re-used, an idea about a flexible construction process with locally adapted materials evolved, and a highly integrated team used a 24-hour design and construction cycle to make the deadline. The result is a highly thought-provoking building that was born in adaptive reuse and came out as a landmark solution. The Nakkastepe structure in Istanbul is the corporate headquarters of two corporations - Vakko Fashion House and Power Media Center.
It involves not only the need for a structure adapted to the language and the culture of Turkey, but also to be able to withstand the severe earthquakes that would challenge even California structural design:
“Given only two weeks after initiating design to submit the Showcase’s steel order, REX and its engineers designed a set of steel boxes that could be assembled in a myriad of configurations. This strategy allowed the steel shapes and quantities to be ordered from the steel mill before the final Showcase design was complete. Ultimately, space use requirements, code restrictions, and a circulation path winding from bottom to top of the tower dictated the final stacking of the boxes.
“Whereas the Annenberg Center’s Ring was a fragile, post-tensioned concrete structure which depended upon the robust, steel interior for support, the Vakko/Power’s existing Ring is painfully over-designed, the byproduct of numerous deadly earthquakes in Turkey."
Yet the simplified steel design allowed for a very effective and streamlined response to the seismic problem; it is a research-driven response rather than computer-generated form for its own sake. The resulting facility is unusual in its expression of these structural issues, which tend to drive a massive scale into some smaller programmatic spaces that become subservient to its overarching physical demands. Intentionally chaotic in its expression, the final form is deceptively calm on the exterior. It's a rather pure interplay of structure, material and purpose due to necessity, and stands as an example of how this problem produced an expressive facility grounded in its culture that has roots in ideas half a world away.
As we begin the season of Advent, anticipating the light of a religious epochal event, we're at the threshold of our own great secular challenge. Democracy Now interviews Derek Jensen about his latest book, "Deep Green Resistance":
"...in the book, What We Leave Behind, what we came to for a definition of "sustainability" is leaving the physical world in a better place than when you were born, that the world is actually a better place because you were born.
A lot of definitions of "civilization" that we see are not really very specific, and the definition I like the most, which is defensible both linguistically and historically, is civilization is a way of life characterized by the growth of cities—once again, defensible both linguistically and historically. And a couple things happen as soon as you—well, wait. Back up. So that’s great, Derrick, but what’s a city? A city, I’ve defined as people living in numbers large enough to require the importation of resources. And what this means, that the Tolowa didn’t live in cities, because they didn’t require the importation of resources. They didn’t live in cities; they lived in villages, camps, and they ate salmon. They ate what the land gave willingly.
And two things happen as soon as you require the importation of resources. One is that your way of living can never be sustainable, because if you require the importation of resources, it means you denuded the land base of that particular resource, and as your city grows, you’ll need an ever larger area. And the other thing it means is that your way of life must be based on violence, because if you require the importation of resources, trade will never be sufficiently reliable, because if you require the importation of resources and the people in the next watershed over aren’t going to trade you for it, you’re going to take it.
And one of the problems with this whole system is that destroying your land base gives you a competitive advantage over the other cultures who don’t. The forests of North Africa went down to make the Phoenician and Egyptian navies. And if you destroy your land base, if you don’t care about the future, you can turn this into immediate power and then use it to conquer, and which is something you have to do, because you’ve destroyed your own land base. And as time goes on, you have to keep expanding. And that’s not a very good idea."
We're at the precipice of the immense ecological impact of the consequences of human consumption. I would hope that we can somehow change the course of our unwitting destruction and create a balance that provides for the regeneration of the ecosystem that gives us life.
So far it's been all take and no give. A Green Resistance could change this course.
Following up yesterday's post on the controversy surrounding the BDCP study, the Los Angeles Times published an excellent article, photos and map of the proposed peripheral canal. Click on the map produced by the LA Times to go to the complete story.
The Bay Delta water issues are coming to a head this week, with the release of a preliminary study of the Bay Delta water allocation now scheduled for final form at the end of the year, just before new Governor Jerry Brown takes office.
The preliminary BDCP is posted on the state website for the Department of Natural Resources. The proposal has been in development for five years and is finally being completed in draft form. Unfortunately, it is considered seriously flawed by a coalition of Northern California cities and agencies because of the inclusion of a peripheral canal which removes more water from the Bay Delta ecosystem. The consensus is that this ecosystem is already over-allocated, and there is disagreement about how this proposed canal (a holdover from the original state water plan that was never built) would affect the estuary. The Northern California groups contend that it's a Southern California water grab.
It's an issue that's been controversial for years, with protests from some of the stakeholders. The plan generally focuses on old engineering and dam technologies to pipe water around, as opposed to using natural systems to relieve the demands on the ecosystem. The Bay Institute, a member of the BDCP steering committee, publicly criticized the plan. The environmental organizations are at loggerheads over this draft, principally with the Westlands Water District .
According to the PCL Insider,
This week Westlands Water District (Westlands) issued a press release withdrawing its participation from the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process. Jean P. Sagouspe, the President of Westlands’ Board wrote to the Department of Interior, "As a public agency, Westlands cannot continue to spend millions of our ratepayers' dollars on a project that is likely to deliver no more and potentially less water to the public than they are receiving today.”
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that diversions from the Delta must be reduced in order for its ecosystem to be revived. Although Westlands does not like the broad scientific consensus, they are beginning to realize that diversions will be reduced, not increased.
Westlands’ withdrawal does create the possibility that the other parties to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, including the yet-to-be appointed Brown appointees, will be able to develop a reasonable approach that will provide what everyone really needs, not just what some want.
It will be a special challenge for the new Governor to resolve these issues, given the support of the BDCP peripheral canal solution by Schwarzenegger, Feinstein, and the Metropolitan Water District. Once again, it will come down to big agency politics, water profits and a possible intervention by mother nature - her diminishing ability to provide sustenance to natural systems and the demands of human habitation. In the face of global warming, studies have shown that there are clear impacts that must be accounted for, as required by another state agency concerned with future statewide resources.
Left hand and right hand need to work in concert, and not confuse public policy.
Update Nov 29th: SEC Should Investigate Westlands: The (Salmon Water Now) letter asks, how could the largest irrigation district in the United States with declining revenues, highly leveraged debt, an uncertain water supply, and few actual water rights, borrow $50 million in a bond market still reeling from the credit collapse of 2008? Add to this Wall Street mystery, the fact that the borrowing was to quietly finance the early phase and highly uncertain phase of California’s most controversial public works project--- the “Peripheral Canal” -- a massive project previously defeated by the state’s voters in 1982.
California is famously "the golden state" because of, well, gold in 1849. This kicked off a boom in mining, growth, development, agriculture, and settlement in a wild west that operated under a loose legal status. It was a place of new beginnings and great opportunities for wealth. This legacy of resource consumption drove tremendous increases in population, and sparked the Intercontinental Railway project that connected Sacramento to Omaha and five additional lines that were completed by 1893. California became legendary for its growth and development, and ultimately in the postwar period it became known for its missile and rocket production, aerospace industry and the developed technology for the atomic bomb. The subsequent explosion of babies, homes, cars and highways is legendary.
Yet California has always had a strong environmental streak and an affinity for wilderness preservation, as Kevin Starr points out in his sixth book of his "California Dream" series - "Golden Dreams, California in an Age of Abundance 1950 - 1963". Under Governor Pat Brown in the 1960's, a resistance to the massive growth pushing California into the position of the largest state in the union was already taking shape. The Sierra Club, led by David Brower, emerged as a leading force in the state's environmental movement.
Today, the issue has come full circle. California has reasserted its commitment to ecological sanity and sustainable habitation even as the population strains the resources of the State Water projects and saturates the highways, railways and transit lines with commuters and cargo. Urban and suburban development has sprawled across the state and created immense pollution and heat island sinks, adversely impacting the land, the water and the air.The statewide vote to retain its environmental regulations in this past November's election has unleashed some long-planned initiatives to turn around a state that's no longer golden and is on the brink of fiscal and infrastructure collapse.
The Governor has seized the opportunity to take the lead on global climate action by using the third Governors' Global Climate summit to introduce global leadership through the R20, a nonprofit incorporated in Geneva. This organization is a coalition of governments that plan to take leadership positions to expand the global green economy, create new green jobs and build commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Governor has issued a position paper on this commitment.
California is creating alliances with other governments and countries in order to accommodate global initiatives which will be discussed with recommendations, starting at the COP 16 meeting in Cancun, Mexico next month.The R20, while outside the United Nations framework, will maintain a close working relationship with the United Nations and play a complementary role. The Governors' Global Climate summit is being held in partnership with the UN Development Programme and the UN Environment Programme.
The hope is that science and economics will provide a synergism that will rapidly push innovation, business and production into a new direction of clean technologies and businesses in order to address the climate change that is upon us now. Lacking leadership in Washington, DC, California has decided to go for leadership in the greater environmental sphere, largely in the hope that the state can redress its increasingly out of balance political and fiscal structure while it rebuilds the promise of its postwar legacy.
It's a historic moment, as California reaches for the green.
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