Time has a way of treating seemingly similar buildings very differently. More than just the years of abuse from the elements and the course of daily use, the change in priorities and cultural trends of how we live and work ripples through the built environment, re-calibrating the value of buildings at any given time. The empty warehouse spaces of SoHo that seemed valueless in the 40’s and 50’s were viewed differently twenty years later when artists filled the open floor plates with studios and differently again when they were replaced with high end retailers at the turn of the century. The iconic landscape of commercial office towers in New York is going through a similar transition as demands for office space continue to evolve while a great deal of the building stock is not the gleaming, glass facets of One Bryant Park. Some office space, built in a specific time for a specific purpose, has fallen from grace in comparison to newer brethren. Continue Reading…
Archives For architecture
Most of us probably have a friend that is either an architect or an environmentalist. Okay, maybe not. Perhaps most of us know someone that is either in a creative design profession or cares about the natural environment–enough to know that both groups have some common threads. Both work too many hours for too little money despite being devoted to their work. Both find it difficult to convey the full range of their roles to those outside of their profession. Both struggle with the task of trying to achieve greater relevance in the eyes of American culture. Architecture and the environment; an odd pairing perhaps given that buildings and nature are not exactly best friends right now, but their similarities could result from the fact that both groups ultimately face the same uphill battle. Continue Reading…
In our culture we have a tendency to look for new technologies that can make it easier for us to do things the same. The topic of sustainability and mitigating our effect on the environment suffers from this more than most despite the fact that the real opportunities for sustainable progress will come not from gadgets and gizmos, but a behavioral shift. Technological advancement can help us gain a bit of ground and buy us some time, but no matter how hard some innovation strives to keep the status quo intact, the realm of unexpected repercussions can be unavoidable. Our reflex needs to shift from assuming we can operate without change to one of automatic reassessment.
Over the course of modern American history we have continuously improved our ability to separate our homes from the natural environment. The exterior envelopes of our buildings can now be tighter and more efficient than ever, bringing opportunities to reduce the amount of energy and resources needed to heat, cool and clean the places we live and work. This evolution is positive in many ways, but the culture of how we build space doesn’t necessarily evolve as fast as the walls around it. Having a super tight–even airtight–envelope can bring some drawbacks if our building practices don’t evolve to respond to a new set of functional realities. Continue Reading…
When it comes to sustainability and NIMBY sentiment, the preservationist mindset can brew its own unique vintage of opposition to environmental goals for building stock. The same boilerplate assumptions of solar panels and wind turbines that draw fire from locals can quickly be amplified when the project in question is the alteration of buildings that have been around for over a century. Even within the architectural community the topic of how to treat our historic building fabric is consistently a topic prompting controversy and healthy debate. While there is a great deal of cultural heritage locked into the innards of old buildings, the danger of “freezing” these structures in time is that we also end up maintaining their striking inefficiencies. As an aging country, we need ways to provide an evolutionary track for the older buildings that are often most notorious laggards in efficiency. Continue Reading…
As parts of the Northeast leave behind days waiting for power and water, Hurricane Sandy’s late October run prompts the question of what we can do to make our urban areas more resilient to minimize the time that we need to keep residents without the bare essentials. There have been a number of articles (here and here) recently written about the comparison between “resiliency” and “sustainability” in an attempt to make a case for which we should ingrain into our cities. Facing the two terms against one another struck me as odd because though we can strive to satisfy one and not the other, there is a great deal of overlap between the two. Sustainable design and construction is often proposed on the merits of environmental stewardship, a healthier indoor environment and opportunities for monetary savings from increased efficiency, but its underlying goal also advocates quality, ensuring that we make buildings that will last over time. In many cases greener buildings can provide a better means of weathering the aftermath of the storm, leaving us better prepared for the inherent variability of nature. Continue Reading…
Sustainable architecture is often pitched as having benefits beyond simply a pat on the back for being more environmentally responsible. In addition to the possibility of monetary savings over time for increased efficiency, the positive health aspect of greener buildings can be a valuable attribute, sometimes the most valuable. While there is a certainly portion of the population that is less enticed by energy savings, talking about changing the building practices that are making us sick resonates with just about everyone.
The problem with the generation of hype and buzz words is that particulars tend to fade from popular discourse and lots of things start to mean the same thing in the eyes of those outside of the industry. Green / Environmental / Ecological / Sustainable / Healthy. These terms are undoubtedly related, but do they really mean the same thing for buildings? If you are building a greener building are you definitely getting a healthier one? Continue Reading…
Regardless of your opinions of former President Bill Clinton, the guest list of the Clinton Global Initiative is nothing to sneer at. Those in attendance comprise a who’s-who at the international level from foreign dignitaries to business bellwethers. Yet despite being surrounded by some of the greatest minds in economics and political governance, President Clinton kicked off this year’s CGI gathering of his by tapping the design population for finding solutions to world problems. Continue Reading…
Plant Chicago, NFP/Rachel Swenie
Here in the U.S. we have no shortage of unused industrial space. In cities across the country there are blocks of old warehouses laying dormant and forgotten. While some find second lives being renovated into hip residential lofts, many of these buildings have a hard time being fashioned with new uses. The manufacturing industry has not exactly rebounded in America and conversion into retail space can be complicated for buildings too far away from active streetscapes. For most of these icons of a former era, the easiest option is vacancy which levels double the weight on a commodity filled with latent energy that was once so useful. Not only are empty buildings a waste, but foregoing maintenance for long enough eventually degrades the components of the building to the point where it truly is unusable.
In Chicago’s West side, a group of entrepreneurs saw one such building as an opportunity and fashioned a multi-faceted program mix to utilize old warehouse space and create a complex that will be energy-neutral, waste negative and resource positive. Dubbed “The Plant” the facility that is currently in the construction/renovation stage includes multiple parts revolving around food production that create an interconnected system of reflexive benefit (what some could call an Industrial Ecology). According to the owners, when the facility is complete it should be producing food, fish, beer and tea all as part of an on-site ecological system. Continue Reading…
New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has raised some commotion with his newly released design competition to endorse his proposal of “micro units,” describing apartments that are 275 to 300 square feet. There are few rentable spaces that someone in the Big Apple will not shell out some cash for. I have even spotted tent space in a backyard for rent on Craig’s List. So given that the question is not whether or not people will fill these units (they will), it leaves whether or not the addition of hyper-small living accommodations are a positive addition to a more sustainable city or a step over the line in a way to just squeeze more rent out of buildings on New York real estate. Continue Reading…
When it comes to building more sustainably, the time is now. A feasible rebuttal could be, “The time to build greener buildings has been every day for the past decade.” This would be true. However, the current conditions present a ripe opportunity for buildings with more ecological stewardship not only because building greener makes sense, but because we may be at a point where an advance in green building practices can make the most difference for the industry’s future growth.
But the construction market is strapped now? Precisely. Continue Reading…