EXERCISES IN SUSTAINABILITY: ANOTHER CASE STUDY

Architecture was once, literally, the study and knowledge of arches. Of course, it meant more than that, but a strong arch and a long lasting building were virtually synonymous. Unless the flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, apses and entries were perfectly designed, in perfect accord with the fundamental geometry of architecture, a building couldn’t last. Today, the discipline has come back to the circle – not a circle of stone, but rather the cyclical principles of nature and human behavior.
Sustainable architecture is first and foremost about re-imagining the relationship between human beings and living systems. The most powerful expression of this relationship is our built environment. How should we build, now that the 7 billionth child was born, now that our supply of natural capital – water, wood, energy, land – must be far more effectively used? How do we metabolize energy and water so that the air and land improve rather than erode? In other words, given how many we are and how much we have come to expect, how will we come to live – and dwell?
Architecture in its traditional role is probably a dying profession. Today, architects must work with systems; they must design new ways of living and working in which buildings play a key role. We desperately need mediators between human need and the enduring cycles of nature. Architects can, and must, take on this new role.