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bexywexy
Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 1
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Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:19 am Post subject: sustainable design - proactive or reactive |
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| What are peoples opinions on sustainable design. Is it something that is provided to clients proactively or reactively. Are architects ready for when sustainable design is the most important element of a build? |
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Architorture
Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 1327
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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| since many of the elements that are called 'sustainable' are also just 'good design' it often times comes in the form of proactive design... although there are many more clients today interested in green design from the get go |
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TJCaine
Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 53 Location: New York, NY
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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I think a strong goal for the profession and society as a whole is that sustainability in our built environment continues to be proactively pursued by architects. Given that we are still in the infancy of sustainability and how we can tune our buildings towards better environmental response, for many designers even the basics can be a proactive search for them, acquiring new knowledge and experience. Clients are even worse. On the whole, the vast majority of clients are fairly ignorant about the possibilities for sustainability in their workplace or even their home after a solar panel and a wind turbine.
Proactively endorsing and using sustainable principles and strategies helps educate a flagging public knowledge on what much of (as Architorture notes) should simply good design practices. At the same time, the reactive response shouldn't be viewed as all negative if it's coming from the consumer. The more clients that ask for green designs indicates the growth of that knowledge base, which is very positive.
Over time when sustainability is more mature and more common, when we achieve the norm of some basic sustainable principles as being commonplace, then I think reactively responding to sustainability from designers is a pot hole to watch for. LEED already comes under some fire because some people see it as growing to be a checklist--something that you can simply go down and implement things (sometimes even outside of the design process) and with a flick of the wand, you have a green building. Others see LEED as a base, a guide to lead innovative ways to make a building more ecologically sound and fundamentally pair a design with appropriate environmental response. |
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