Each time that we choose an avenue for how concepts of sustainability can penetrate deeper into the masses of American citizens we must look at the reciprocal costs of reaching such a market and making a green switch. A post on GOOD Magazine’s blog highlights a new spin on the direction of architecture as a way to tap into the large market of single family homes. The angle of designers David Wax and Ben Uyeda is to produce “stock” house floor plans for green homes and give them away for free, calling it Free Green. At first glance this may seem like a great way to send green knowledge through the society, but what is the real cost to our culture and the architectural profession? In this instance I broadened the scope of reflection by asking some other designers to weigh in on Free Green.
In essence, Wax and Uyeda use an advertising model to create a revenue stream for their business by showcasing the products of paying manufacturers in their home schemes. The plans can then be given away for free to a waiting marketplace of contractors and prospective homeowners. According to the designers, it is opening up greener designs to a group of people that are buying stock plans anyway, thereby allowing more green homes to be built. A seemingly noble endeavor.
“I think that the most positive aspect of this model that they are proposing is with the selection of the green features,” said B. Specketer, an architect working in New York City.
They take the guesswork out of the selection for the average consumer. The big question revolves around whether or not FreeGreen can be a trusted clearing house. Only time will tell. It’s a step in the right direction pairing product placement with a previously under-served segment of the homebuilding market, but what this means for architecture and architects is a different discussion.
As designed homes, their aesthetic success is a question of subjective opinion, but it is fair to say they are better than the standard options of Toll Brothers and their peers. Though attempting to achieve the draw of the vernacular by the use of cliché details and stylistic tactics, they achieve a level of resolution that elevates a composition above the baseline that most would fine from a prefabricated design. More so in their “contemporary” designs, a consumer can tell an architect was behind the scenes to figure things out.
However, Intercon focuses on the reactions of events and their repercussions throughout society and this model has a few potentially dangerous side effects.
As one could imagine, the greenest modern buildings in the world are created by architects. At the same time, the profession battles against a lack of public understanding for what an architect really does and why one is necessary. This is especially apparent in residential construction where only 5% of all single family home projects include an architect. Free Green undermines in this tenuous relationship of architect and potential client by devaluing design work and supplementing the cost with ad-space revenue. If this was marketed as only another source for predrawn plans then we could simply lump them in with the other 30% of homes built in America from stock drawings, but it is claiming to occupy some of the forefront of an innovative field of ecological building. Architectural designer S. Doyle notes the inherent risk:
Although these are the types of buildings which typically would not have had an architect on board anyway it is something to be considered that there is a danger of sponsored architectural plans becoming a viable business model where architects are trading intellectual property for exposure.
Put another way, a pair of designers are devaluing their profession so that they can make a quicker, easier buck. Instead of addressing the problem, they wash their hands of it. Intel could get faster computers in more homes in America if they gave away the schematics for their processors, but what would be the cost of value to their industry? With over 22,000 downloaded plans already, some have clearly already smelled the blood in the water.
How green are these homes? A look through their website uncovered the suggested use of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), heating and cooling products, materials like bamboo flooring, LED lighting options and low-V.O.C. coatings. While these are all positive additions to any home, one conversation with a green builder or some dedicated internet research could likely unearth most of these tactics. Doyle points out that “We aren’t going to ‘solve’ climate change by doing what we do know in a better way.” It cannot be said enough that green buildings are not just storehouses of technological gadgets, but designed with a new approach to function and efficiency.
Stock housing plans are also at odds with the idea of achieving sustainability via architecture. Every site, every environment for a home should have a design tailored to make the most of each resource opportunity. By its very nature a green home designed for Worchester would not be the same as a green home designed for Houston. This business venture is potentially misleading consumers into thinking that site-specific design is not inherently linked to performance.
Perhaps the most disturbing eventuality is the false sense of security people can assume after downloading these plans and building these homes, as if they have fulfilled their generational duty to the green movement when they have really only scratched the surface of what green buildings can become. An interesting comparison would be the savings of building a new Free Green home vs. simply replacing windows, a furnace (or air condition given the climate), switching some appliances and using CFLs and not expending the energy and waste on a new house. I imagine the results would be close.
Intercon does champion the goal of educating more people about what can be done to reach a more sustainable society but not at the expense of anything and everything. Is having 200,000 more home customers come into contact with a green concept worth harming the profession that is responsible for the realization of our greenest buildings? I have to say no.
Pop culture’s interpretation of “green” urban landscapes have a tendency to draw a literal representation of a more sustainable city. These “Garden City” visions can include plants growing from virtually every spatial nook and cranny possible. With flowing strands of climbing plants scaling facades and trees not only lining the streets, but poking out of sky gardens stories off of the ground, the idea of a more environmentally responsible cityscape is often presented to the public as being the result of the integration of flora and fauna.
The housing boom of the 90’s brought the explosion of “McMansions” across U.S. suburbs leaving us with hundreds of thousands of examples for a new wave for upper class living. While the recession may have created a lull in the construction of these shrines to excess, there is no data to suggest that Americans have outgrown their hunger for raw square footage and the public perception that space equals societal stature. The idea of a green home two, three or four times the size of the average house is a bit of an oxymoron with notions of efficiency and excess instantly butting heads, but perhaps there are ways for the lives of the luxurious to follow a more sustainable path.