As building-industry professionals, architects have a big influence on the use of materials and resources in the development of buildings, cities, and landscapes. This exhibition shows ways in which architecture students and faculty are looking at everything that goes into and out of the built environment and for ways of both reducing its harmful impacts and enhancing its benefits through design.
Beginning in the early 1970s, many architecture schools started to actively encourage students and faculty to study how different ways to design or build could reduce the use of endangered natural materials, impacts on ecosystems, or carbon footprints, improve air and water quality, and still provide beautiful, functional structures and neighborhoods for people. This area of study has been called SUSTAINABILITY after its goal: to sustain human settlements without upsetting larger natural ecosystem balance. In addition to history, structures, and design, sustainability has become a fundamental topic in architecture school curriculums and part of the ethos of professional practice.
While the architecture profession has created different programs to encourage the use of these practices with clients — for example, LEED certification through the US Green Building Council — the goals of sustainability can work on many levels in day-to-day practice. For example, in a new housing development, a designer might consider:
• where does potable water come from and is the source sustainable?
• where does waste, both sewage and garbage, go and how can it be reduced, recycled, or composted?
• how far do you have to transport construction materials to the site?
• which of those materials come from renewable resources?
• do any of those materials cause environmental damage when obtained?
• how is paving or roofing used on a site, and how can a designer reduce the reflective, or "heat island," effects?
• will the development damage the surrounding water resources, soil, or habitat through deforestation, runoff, or hazardous waste?
• how can you design outdoor lighting to prevent light pollution affecting insect or bird migration?
• will any actions at the site create damaging sound to surrounding neighborhoods?
• how far will people living there have to travel to work or shop, and can people walk, bicycle, or take public transportation?
• what kinds of energy will be used to heat or cool the homes and is it from renewable sources?
• is it possible to reduce energy use by designing structures to take advantage of sun or shade?
• is it possible to add power generation to the site through solar panels, geothermal energy, or wind turbines?
• where will people buy food locally, and is there a place where they can grow their own sustainably?
• does this project eliminate successful local agricultural land or natural migratory or food-web patterns?
• who are the people working on the project, do they have safe places to live, and are they paid a living wage?
This is a really long list to consider on top of making sure you conform to code requirements and land-use permitting, meet your budget and schedule, make your client happy, and design something you love too. Welcome to the challenge of architecture!
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Image 1 - 3 > A design contribution to the war against poverty by proving that small-scale architectural interventions can propagate large-scale economic growth.
Image 4 & 5 > Coal-fired power plants produce 65% of Ohio’s electric energy. More than 35 power plants dot the state taking up residence near large bodies of water. This proposal outlines new and alternative uses for the aging facilities. This project was a winner in the ARCHIVE100 Being Resourceful competition!
Image 6 - 9 > This work proposes an adaptive infrastructural scaffold to build the resilience of ecosystems and populations to water scarcity and desertification. This project was a winner in the ARCHIVE100 Being Resourceful competition!