TOWARDS A GREEN
ARCHITECTURE
Frank Harmon
Since the Industrial Revolution in the
1800’s, architects have firmly believed
in the power of technology to solve
environmental problems. Architects
solve problems of lighting, heating,
cooling and ventilation of buildings
mechanically. We no longer deal with
heat and humidity by opening the
windows. Just the reverse: we close
them up tight and crank up the AC. As
post-Industrial Revolution architects,
we have “transformed nature” by
creating artificial environments, what
the critic Reyner Banham called the
“architecture of the well-tempered
environment.”
Ironically, buildings built prior to the
Industrial Revolution were very much
in balance with nature and solved
problems in a very natural way: buildings
were smaller and, consequently,
used less energy; windows opened;
construction materials were indigenous
to the area in which they were used.
Today, instead of solving environmental
problems, architecture creates them.
Our buildings use over fifty percent of
all energy created in the United States,
consume one third of all the trees that
are cut, and siphon twenty-five percent
of the nation’s fresh water. As a result,
today’s architects are searching for
more high-tech ways to use less energy.
Yet to make our 21st Century buildings
more environmentally responsible,
we should not only look towards
technology, but we should start looking
backwards to lessons we can learn
from pre-industrial construction.
Speaking of pre-industrial… on an
August night several years ago, my
wife and I drove to Taxco, a silver
mining town on the central plateau of
Mexico. We got lost on poorly marked
mountain roads, swerved to miss a
truck while driving in a thunderstorm,
and arrived at our hotel at 2 AM,
shaken and exhausted. The night
watchman showed us to our room,
where we collapsed, barely noticing
our surroundings.
At dawn, however, we awoke to
discover sunlight saturating the
whitewashed adobe walls of our room
and illuminating a roof made of gnarled
tree trunks. Outside our room, a
terrace overlooked the town of Taxco.
And from that vantage point, we could
see thousands of adobe houses which
seemed to grow from the hillside,
melting into the rocky hills outside the
town.
Fastened to the terrace wall were
several green glass bottles of the
sort we throw away every day in the
United States. Someone was growing
vines in the bottles, obviously caring
for the plants each morning. We felt at
home in this place, in contrast to the
frightening night on the road leading to
it. In Taxco we were surrounded by the
—
“picturesque” and “ravishing.” And I
believe that what underlies its beauty
are three quite elemental principles, or
qualities: deference to the land, respect
for simple, indigenous materials, and
careful use of energy. The people who
built Taxco understood these principles.
Those who live there today still do. And
these three principles—indigenous
materials, energy conservation and
responsible land use—are universal
concerns for architecture today.
Sticks and Stones
Why do most of the ancient buildings
we admire so much seem so naturally
rooted to their places? Because prior
to the Industrial Revolution, buildings
were made of materials that were
Yet in 2004, we build quite differently.
The architect Glenn Murcutt creates
houses sublimely connected to the
land of Australia, yet he then uses
sunscreens built in Norway and
fireplaces imported from South Africa.
When I built my own house in North
Carolina several years ago, I was
surprised to see a truck arrive at the
construction site piled high with steel
roof beams manufactured in Texas.
How strange that a roof for my house,
so carefully designed for the climate of
Raleigh, came from 1500 miles away,
nearly in Mexico.
It was at that point, I believe, that I
began to think locally. For an outdoor
classroom on the Scuppernong River in
Tyrrell County I specified Atlantic white
cedar has been used for generations
in eastern North Carolina to make
shingled houses and shrimp boats
because of its strength and resistance
to rot. The classroom’s contractor,
however, wanted to use western red
cedar from British Columbia, 4000
miles away. It was cheaper, he argued.
But, I countered, using a local material
would reduce the pollution caused
by transporting the red cedar and
encourage the growth of sustainable
forests nearby. If the forests are nearby,
we’ll be encouraged to take good care
of them. Besides, who wouldn’t want
to create a building in eastern North
Carolina that is as familiar and friendly
as a shrimp boat?
Taxco is built of mud, sticks, and the
fronds of palm trees. Its buildings show
the marks of their making like a clay pot
shows the fingers of the potter who
formed the bowl. Since the Industrial
Revolution, we have become detached
from our environment and alienated
structures because
believe that, just as
clay pitcher when
shared physical world
our
to those
principles so evident
resources
turn to technology
energy, we will find
Photovoltaic cells
for example, can
warmth of the sun
below a factory
use the constant
to heat and cool
the workspace. My office is currently
designing an Ocean Science Teaching
Center to be located in Beaufort, North
Carolina, where for two centuries
traditional buildings have collected
the ocean breeze for by facing into
the wind. Our building faces into the
wind also, and with geothermal wells,
a photo voltaic rooftop, and a wind
turbine it will generate all the energy
the center needs for lighting, cooling,
and laboratory equipment. The teaching
center will use fifty percent less energy
than a normal building because its
windows open to porches that shade
the walls and catch the southwest
summer breeze.
Of course, buildings that conserve
energy cost more to build. The Ocean
Science Teaching Center will cost
about fifteen percent more than a
conventional building. But compare
that to what it costs for our military to
make oil safe for SUVs. The science
center will pay for its extra cost is less
than five years. How long will it take to
replace the trees that are being killed
on our Blue Ridge Mountains from
pollution from coal-fired power plants?
For many people, energy conservative
design is synonymous with thick
walls and small windows. “Efficient”
buildings mean boring buildings. Yet
nothing could be farther from the truth.
Sustainable design doesn’t mean
bland design. Look at the old houses of
Charleston, South Carolina, to see what
I mean. Charleston’s original planter
families wanted their brick mansions to
recall English country houses. Before
long, however, they noticed that their
slaves were more comfortable in the
hot, humid summer than they were.
Modeled on African houses, the
slaves’ cabins had porches and were
one room deep, allowing the evening
breeze to flow through the structure.
Unlike the brick mansions, those wood
cabins didn’t hold the heat at night.
Thus the Charleston “single” house
evolved: one room deep with porches
opening to walled gardens. And they
are as desirable and comfortable today
as they were then.
In Taxco, thick adobe walls temper the
hot summer sun and release it into the
rooms at night when the air is cool. As
we learn to use energy more wisely, the
air around us will be fresher and cleaner,
and we’ll want to open the windows.
—
In Taxco, the building sites were made
by man and donkeys. Each rock ledge
and declivity inspired creative building
because the earth could not be moved.
As individual as the houses are, the
town’s landscape enjoys a unity akin to
a vine growing over rocks.
In the South, rural fields contain houses
and barns built of flimsy materials, yet
they seem as at home in their place as
cows standing in a meadow. Farmers,
not architects,
designed and
constructed
these houses
and barns, yet
today we cannot
build as well as
those farmers,
who were forced
to respect the
land and the
natural landscape
without benefit of
bulldozers.
I believe that we,
as architects,
are ethically
challenged to design and build in such
a way that enhances the land—that
makes it better than the way we found
it. And I’m not arguing for a retreat
from technology, but, rather, for a more
profound use of it. So how can we, in
the age of the Internet, air conditioning,
and photovoltaics, create the sense
of wonder found in a thatched hut in
Mexico? Good architecture lives in
complicity with our senses. Ultimately,
architecture is measured by simple
things, like sunlight sparkling in a coffee
cup. For architects, the act of building
should be an act of caring. By building
sustainably, in the words of the late
Sam Mockbee, “What we build are
shelters for the soul as well as houses
for our bodies.”
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