Whether cities grow vertically or horizontally, there may be phenomenal increases in all types of pollution with diminished prospects for a high quality life. In these days, people really concern about the environment control including architects, designers, engineers, and even government. Technology has not only failed to ease the conflict between man and nature but also aggravated that conflict. The crisis of civilization that we see today is a crisis of the naive belief in the omnipotence of humanity. The world must abandon the urge to conquer nature and adopt a 'philosophy of limits' based on an understanding that technology cannot solve all problems. As a person who loves architecture, I strongly agree that we should translate the concepts of science and the dreams of humanity into action through the creative applications of planning, design and technology to achieve sustainable development. The ethics, education and practices of our professions will be directed to shape a sustainable future for all generations of humankind.
New technology may be the principal force for change in architecture and lifestyles, because it will give architects new materials and techniques to design whatever suits their fancy. Hence, the architecture that will develop in the next few decades may be excitingly different from the types of structures that now are familiar. Technology is making it more feasible for people to live in the oceans, in space, and underground, as well as in rural areas and in the polar regions. However, most of architects doesn't consider about merging nature and technology, utility-design, and green architecture from my point of view. Because architects can only do as much as the client allows them to do, which leads to the fact that architects also need to have a role in educating not only clients but also architects themselves. I think there are basic principles of sustainability can be applied in architectural and design process: site planning, energy use, the indoor environment, choice of materials, and recycling and waste management.
First of all, when we design a building, we have to consider how this site and a building can harmonized with the surrounding nature instead of destroying the nature for client's pleasure. For example, there are more than 14,500 golf courses in the U.S, occupying an area bigger than the state of Delaware. It destroys national parks, wastes precious water and increases the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides needed to keep greens green. Likewise, when architects design utilities such as water pipes, electric lines and landscape, they must consider the least excavation and ecology of surrounding environment.
Secondly, Just as electric lights, telephones, automobiles, and elevators have all had important effects on urban form, so computers, lasers, and two-way cable television systems promise further major changes. For this reason, people might favor solar energy systems and greenhouse or hydroponics facilities because the sophisticated technology could minimize environmental damage and save energies. Coordinating thermal mass and venting with fenestration that distributes daylight not only improves envelope performance, but it cuts cooling loads further by displacing electric lighting. It is really important to design energy efficient as well as design a space. For example, good lighting systems require only 0.7 connected watts per square foot; with control savings and daylighting, only 0.1 watt per square foot.
Thirdly, as the growing economic, energy, and environmental crises, man deserves better quality of life and environmental system. Greenhouse-interior of hotel designed(Regency Hyatt Hotel, Chicago) by John Portman shows how sunlight and green plants can be introduced into the center of a building, yet residents remain protected from rain and cold. The indoor environment such as green plants, sunlight, atmosphere, and clean air affects to one's health and thought. Accordingly, architects regard more carefully ventilating system, daylight control, and thermal control when they design a building.
Fourthly, you have to choose proper material for proper place with concerning of economic views and to protect earth's exterior environment and interior environment. There are some Hi-tech materials that are corresponding to reasons above such as, floor panels that contain tiny hot-water pipes for heating and precast wall panels made of aluminum and foam or ceramic instead of concrete. The bathroom of the house is single precast waterproof unit made of plastic, with everything from toilet to washbasin molded into it. Japan has also developed two new structural materials. The first, called ultra-high durability concrete, slows down the neutralization of concrete and the rusting of reinforcing rods by ten times. The second material, super-concrete structure, has three to ten times the strength (for only one-third the thickness) of traditional ferro-concrete. This material will make it possible to build ultra-high-rise buildings of more than 100-stories with 40% lower than that of steel frames and 20% lower than ferro-concrete. Also, Walker discovered many preferable alternatives to products she had been specifying for clients that were not only attractive but competitively priced.
Finally, green architects conceive recycling materials and waste management. There decorative items made from banana stalk waste; carpets that do not offgas; furnishings made from recycled plastics; gray-water systems and solar-powered photo-voltaics. Walker demonstrated how plastic bottles could be recycled to create plush, luxurious carpeting. For the waste management, people has to awake that waste must be collected separately by items so that it can be reused for fuel and recycle.
But despite these five suggestions, there is somehow a struggle between the duty to sustain the development seeking alternatives for safe and innocuous architecture toward our environment and the temptation to speed up the development for the technologically splendid and highly profitable architecture toward human nature. It has yet to be resolved successfully, however, no one can deny the urgent need for making the earth "green", which is the one and only way to bond the broken chains of trust between nature and us, and in the long run, practically save our lives.
In this sense, we need to learn the soul of native tribe in Brazil where the deforestation and reckless development is a world concern and, somehow for that reason, the global conference for the Earth Protection took place in 1993. The chief of that tribe said, "The earth is our mother. We came from her and came back to her. But the white stabs her in the heart, cuts her arms and legs and makes us do the same thing." Some people including renowned architecture, builders, and developers might laugh at this statement and consider it childish and primitive. But I think it truly reveals the ethical point for the environmental protection, without which we can hardly move forward to fulfill our task of rehabilitating the earth.
Along with outer factors practically involved in this issue-site planning, energy use, the indoor environment, choice of materials, and recycling and waste management, architects must build up this ethics even though it's non-profitable. And a talented architect can find a way of compromising the struggle between the duty and the temptation. Because he knows good architecture is symbiotic with the nature. It is a fact in 21st century.
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