The environmental issue is, irrefutably, a social issue of a scope and magnitude similar to, say, that of the housing problems at the start of this century and during the post-war period. In the past, thinking about such problems served to guide and vitalize the profession. But today, it seems, architects have little interest in using the subject of the environment as a catalyst for renewal. Apart from the proverbial exceptions, the architectural community is producing disappointingly few ground-breaking concepts, strategies or typologies which might provide an answer to the ecological dilemma.

Maybe they are put off by the subject, since the idea prevails that our culture and technology – and, accordingly, architecture – are the chief offenders in the decline of nature. If we are to reach meaningful solutions, the supposed wall between nature and culture, between technology and ecology, will need to be breached. Defensive measures like the present legislation on sustainable building, are not enough. The few plans which do deal innovatively with the >green challenge= have in common the fact that their designers define the nature/culture relationship differently: not as two opposing camps, but two mutually beneficial parties. They view technology not as a problem but as a potential solution.

Nature versus culture

In the sixties and seventies, the previous generation of ecological architects almost without exception upheld the view that nature should be protected from the increasing destructive effects of building. Nature and culture were construed as two quite distinct, mutually exclusive systems. Where there is culture, there cannot be nature. Looked at that way, nature cannot never win. We can attempt to delay the disintegration process, but we can never reverse it.
The signs that there are limits to what nature can take are clear enough. So we must look for other ways of using the climate and local conditions. Nature can, above all, be safely tapped for generating power. Solar cells and collectors, wind and water generators, heat production from deep below the ground are examples of responsibly exploiting nature.
However important such facilities may be, though, they can never be an adequate solution to the problem as a whole. Ideally, we might submit fully to nature. This back-to-nature approach requires a cut-back in our economy, our consumption and, ultimately, our prosperity. We should ask ourselves whether it is a realistic option, quite apart from whether we, in the affluent West, can expect other parts of the world to take a step backward, when they are actually striving to achieve our level of prosperity. Hence the nature/culture conflict model will never produce widely-applicable solutions to the present ecological problems.
Nor, indeed, should nature and culture be regarded as mutually exclusive systems. Apart from the major mountain chains, deserts and tropical forests, all landlocked areas of the world contain their own mix of the natural and the artificial. Of these the Netherlands is possibly the most striking example. There is not a patch of land left within our boundaries which has not been touched by human activity. Strictly speaking, the Netherlands has no nature left. Yet it is rarely considered to be a >nature-less= region. We are even adept at creating new nature, sometimes inadvertently, as with the lakes in the newly reclaimed polder of Flevoland (Oostvaardersplassen), but nowadays deliberately to a growing extent, as in the many nature development plans waiting to be implemented. This >polder model=, which is based on consultation and mutual benefit between nature and culture and has consequently blurred the perceived conflict between ‘red and green’, offers far greater scope for the pursuit of new architectural and urban design strategies.

Green machine

If we wish to put nature to optimum use, we might perhaps be advised to first create nature ourselves: an ecosystem for our own use. The recent experiments with Biosphere I and II show that it is indeed possible, on a small scale, to make a closed-loop system work. The only external source needed is the sun. Houses or complete estates might, in theory, be accommodated in Biosphere-type cocoons.
In several recent projects this theory has been partially put into practice. A breathing glass >skin= is placed in front of or over the building proper, or between comb-shaped sections of building. This generates a climatological zone of transition between exterior and interior. The zone softens differences in temperature and can – certainly if it contains plants and water features – provide extra cooling and to filter the air in the microclimate. So this building-in-a-glass-box typology can serve as a model for the interplay between nature and culture, with >nature= deployed as a green machine to enhance the artificial indoor climate. Moreover, the in-between space can be seen as an intermediary, where the transition between exterior (climate/nature) and interior (use/culture) is regulated for the benefit of both.
The model is a typological extension of the architectural repertoire which has meanwhile succeeded in proving itself in practice in variants of differing scope. Although these have as a rule been prompted by technical considerations, the transitional or in-between zones generated by the model have done more than help to improve the physical climate with cleaner air and substantial energy-saving. They also present collective area for informal social contact – which, in the past, in particular in office blocks, was concentrated in the corridors, staircases and washrooms.

Sustainability

These days architects are not exactly encouraged to look for solutions of that type in their day-to-day work. On the contrary, they are confronted with legislation that is primarily defensive by nature. Standards and regulations, environmental measurements and manuals refer only to insulation values, materiality, detailing. These rules and recommendations have come about from assessing the situation as it exists. Insulation is always a good thing, materials which get poor marks in the environment stakes are out, materials with top marks get promoted. Owing to this evaluation of current techniques, the number of possible solutions actually decreases, whilst no new openings are created. Things that are >wrong= are not allowed and those that are unfamiliar are automatically suspect. Low budgets for house building mean that sustainable building is restricted to minimal improvements. The rough spots are ironed out, and that’s all. A check-list is used to ensure that the correct materials are applied, as a sop to the consciences of client and architect alike.
Given this largely restrictive legislation, sustainability is hardly a source of inspiration for innovative architecture. New building typologies are not sought – existing ones are simply supplied with ecologically >correct= materials, with possible bonuses such as solar collectors or wind generators. Moreover, legislation tends to stress a little too emphatically the small scale of the building and too little the larger scale of urban planning. A politically correct dash of environmental awareness does well in the marketplace, so sustainable building is in. But not too compact, please, and of course with enough parking space in front. All the environmental benefits of a new sustainably-built housing district are undone at a stroke if it is less than compact, if there are no jobs or satisfactory public transport in the area (your average Vinex site, in other words).
Sustainable building is largely a clip-on affair. The all-in approach, in which sustainability measures are automatically part of the architectural terms of reference, is still an exception.
In addition, there is the confusion caused in this country by regarding sustainability in building as the same as building for the long term. The ‘sustainable development’ of English-speaking countries by contrast is concerned with strategies for a development that can be sustained. The >long term= for which buildings are made tends to forget that changes in usage follow in ever more rapid succession. This holds for components of buildings – office façades currently have a cycle of around ten years; for partitions, air conditioning and cabling the turnover rate is even lower – but it also applies to entire buildings: much of the housing stock erected in the period of post-war reconstruction is very hard to adapt to current standards; the useful life of an industrial building can even be as little as five years. In view of the short-term uncertainty of future developments, in terms of technique and planning as well as function, a strategy proceeding from short replacement periods, cyclical adjustment or even on aborting in the long term, might actually be far more >sustainable=. Lightweight, short-lived buildings might well be smarter than heavy, long-lasting ones.

Smart buildings

Proposals for light urbanism and architecture largely consist of intelligent uses of low-tech. Why should we make something complicated and heavy if it can be made simpler and lighter? But there are interesting developments taking place at the other end of the technological spectrum too. The high-tech architects who were the talk of the town in the eighties with their expressive steel and glass palaces, have been focusing in the nineties to a growing extent on more natural climate control and reduction of energy consumption in their buildings. Headed by such celebrities as Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, we now have a complete platoon of so-called eco-tech architects, formed partly for self-preservation but also out of social awareness. The large glazed front has changed from a consumer of energy to a complex regulating system often based on the climate façade principle.
It is not unusual for present-day architectural theory to refer to the skin of a building. But the theory remains literally only skin-deep: it identifies the visual and tactile characteristics but not the biological functions the skin can perform. Compared with even the simplest of single-celled organism, the skin of the average building is primitive and inept. Medical science may be capable of developing machines to take over bodily functions and generate and manipulate cells, but building technology is still stuck in the nineteenth century.
Research into the way biological and ecological systems work, with a view to developing new energy and climate control concepts for buildings and cities, is still uncharted territory. Why isn’t there a building-specific study into the functioning of the skin of cold-blooded animals, for example? Such animals are perfect at adapting to changes of climate in their surroundings. A cold-blooded animal=s skin could be taken as a model for a smart, interactive façade, one that could harmonize changes in the desired microclimate and conditions outside much faster and better than at present. The façade as a system of active regulation rather than of passive protection. The more interactively or >smartly= the façade performs this role as an interface between interior and exterior climate, the less dependent our buildings need to be on an overkill of services.

Biological buildings

Clearly this development cannot stop at the skin; the entire building should be approached as an interactively regulating system capable of identifying and responding efficiently to changes in internal use and external climate. A cross between the formal and the technical vanguard of architecture would be a goal worth aiming at. The formal avant-garde, with its interest in what is fluid, virtual, changing and indefinite, in purely formal terms, is already well ensconced in the information age, whilst building technology – certainly technology as applied by the selfsame vanguard – is still well and truly lodged in the machine age. Why do Greg Lynn=s designs look like animals, but not work in the same way? Why don=t Frank Gehry=s >scaly= façades breathe in the same way as a reptile=s skin? With information technology as the common interest and biology and ecology as the common metaphor, surely a medium exists in which to develop entirely new responses to the green challenge?

Jacques Vink and Piet Vollaard are architects and the founders of Stichting SL.A, a foundation promoting >smart architecture= (www.smartarch.nl).