Sustaining and Sustainable Design

 

 

            The popularity of a recent movie on global climate heralds a reawakening to the obligation to be conscious of how personal choices impact the future of this planet. As freedom loving citizens, we have been insensitive to the repercussions that with 5% of total population we consume 25% of the resources and generate 30% of the waste. In a world approaching seven billion persons, it is plainly unacceptable that such patterns should set the example toward which the other 95% strive. It is important that all act in a more responsible and determined fashion.         

            Buildings account for some 40% of all resource use and offer ready prospects for progress. We can and must educate ourselves to do more with less and move toward an architecture that sustains our physical, emotional and spiritual needs, while being consistent with the sustainable potential of our planet.

            The choice to reuse, rather than discard, is one that benefits all. This is particularly true with the labor and materials embodied in landmark structures. Vintage buildings keep fresh the memories of times of yore, both imagined and recorded. Abandoned historic buildings seem to sit and brood over issues of waste and respect, past and present and individual autonomy versus concern for the future. A successful renovation of this kind of building stands as a visible witness and connection to our past and is confirmation that our lives and stories have meaning beyond our own time. Creative repurposing of such structures enriches the community with novel examples that others may expand upon, to the mutual benefit of all. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

            The incentives for the resident of such an innovative project are not simply altruistic nor the illusory attraction of living in the past. The motivating factor more often is the prescience that life within a building of such out of the ordinary design will unfold in a happy manner, well beyond the standard faire.

            Extraordinary design is not entirely the product of high intent or financial commitment. Often it begins more humbly, initiated by discovery of something quite out of the ordinary. An existing building provides such a generative basis. Like an inert sea shell forced ashore, a cast-off building triggers wonder and uncommon attention. It elicits deep and unexpected human responses. It presents surprise, a call for consideration and the intrigue of uncertain potential.

            In the re-design process, choices arise as to what to keep and what to discard. The building embodies prior aspirations and constraints that must now coexist with current intentions and capacities. There is an inescapable layering of values as new decisions intertwine with old ones. Modern construction techniques encounter traditional practices. The design process becomes multi-generational and multi-temporal. The ensuing architecture speaks in ways that could not be preordained.

            The patina of century-old forms and materials is more a symptom than the cause for sentiments to be enthused by new uses for revered structures. In an ever more virtual world, such confirmation of the human continuum is rare and inspiring. There is psychic delight associated with the act of living with the past and experiencing the echoes of history, which cannot be otherwise purchased or incorporated. Such a home provides both the resident and the community with grounding in the past, affirmation of the future and an otherwise unobtainable and extraordinary design.