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Living Buildings
By Jason McLennan, and adapted from Sustainable Architecture White Pages from the Earth Pledge Foundation.
A few years ago I, and a large team of scientists, engineers, and educators were hired to develop a prototype building for the 21st century.
The building, known as the EpiCenter, would combine emerging technologies with age-old strategies to generate less pollution than any conventional building, both in its construction and operation, while enhancing the productivity and creative synergy of the students and researchers that would inhabit it.
We had been given the task of designing the future, or at least of showing what was possible if we dared to dream of a future where our buildings no longer took from the environment, but were restorative.
For too long now the machine has been the primary metaphor for our buildings, which implies a relationship with nature that is exploitative and relies on brute force combined with great amounts of energy to solve problems. It is a 19th-century model that has been carried forth into the 21st century.
I found myself searching for a metaphor that would replace the machine. I found it in a tiny flower. Here was a thriving plant that not only had evolved perfectly to suit its environment, but also enriched it, retaining soil, providing habitat, and storing rainwater as needed. It was a perfect metaphor for the building of the future.
Bucky Fuller once said, “We do not seek to imitate nature, but rather to find the principles she uses.” By following these basic principles we can imagine whole cities operating like complex ecosystems, processing water and waste while generating energy.
I decided to call the future of architecture a future of living buildings. Like their flowering counterparts, living buildings operate from seven simple principles. Living buildings will:
SEVEN SIMPLE PRINCIPLES OF LIVING BUILDINGS
1. Harvest all their own water and energy needs on site.
2. Be adapted specifically to site and climate and evolve as conditions change.
3. Operate pollution-free and generate no wastes that aren’t useful for some other process in the building or immediate environment.
4. Promote the health and well-being of all inhabitants, as a healthy ecosystem does.
5. Be comprised of integrated systems that maximize efficiency and comfort.
6. Improve the health and diversity of the local ecosystem rather than degrade it.
7. Be beautiful and inspire us to dream.
The amazing thing is that we already have the technology necessary to create buildings that can perform like the living buildings I envisioned. From photovoltaics to fuel cells, the technology research we performed and applied at the EpiCenter shows that the future is available, if we only have the desire and foresight to accept it.
Jason Frederick McLennan can be contacted through BNIM Architects.
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9 comments
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Kabin
Konteyner,Prefabrik
mega kabin
Konteyner
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Well baby steps won't do it now. Much too late. Must reduce the cost so more can be built now by everyone on earth
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Well baby steps won't do it now. Much too late. Must reduce the cost so more can be built now by everyone on earth
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
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why is this inappropriate?
I think that we are all here in the best disposition, offering the best we have... is it enough?
I say yes, i say little is much and small is beautiful.
For me it is good that a person dedicated to do only arquitecture is open to incorpore more concepts and starts to learn more about ecofriendly practices... what i say is: keep on and always search for more, walk more, advance in the earth-friendly and people-friendly path.
We are millions, so... there most be millions of true ways of going and doing!
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why is this inappropriate?
If "green" is our mind ,definately our buildings will be green !!
BUT , in countries like India where people dont have idea about thier next meal ,they dont have a proper shelter , they spend months on railways platform..
How can they live green?
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why is this inappropriate?
bla bla bla, this guy is full of it. He wants people to believe TECHNOLOGY is here to save us, we must embrace it, because only TECHNOLOGY can provide living buildings.Don't get me wrong, we need technology as solar panels,etc., but wind mills have been around for a long time.There is good Tech, and bad tech, so lets look at whats been around and works, and build from that. Wake up and look around at what our ancestors built. Homes built into the side of mountains,(cool in summer, warm in winter, provided shelter and was a living building).Thatched roofs(that absorbed ultraviolet rays rather than reflecting them into the atmosphere causing more radiant heat).Adobe buildings,stone,straw houses,bamboo, etc..Tall ceilings in the south, low ceilings in the north, etc.. We can build better more ecofriendly homes, by incorporating these ideas into homes of today. And don't forget TREES(especially fruit and nut),they shade,cool,oxygenate,
and invigorate our Environment.
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why is this inappropriate?
Hi, For all of you who are thinking about a living home you can take a look
at the map on naturalhomes.org where there are some wonderful natural homes.
send green star
why is this inappropriate?
Bucky Fuller had it right if only we learned those principles (or if we new them, they are probably laws like the law of gravity).
I think in todays society it's going to take baby steps.
Why would you not want to live in a energy efficient home with clean air? You can.
Everyone should.
From there we all can start learning about the savings in energy bills.
Then adding all the other good stuff......
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