Title: Greening Modernism by Carl Stein (affiliate link)

URL: Greening Modernism by Carl Stein (affiliate link)

Purpose: Greening Modernism’s author, Carl Stein, makes a case for a more unified and holistic architecture that reaches a sustainable synergy through building reuse, with particular attention to the balance between the qualitative aspects of science and the more effect-driven aspects of utility and human experience.

Merging the Finite with the Wisdom of Occupant Experience

This beautiful book, Greening Modernism (affiliate link), encourages readers to take on the finite nature of natural resources, as they may serve as impetus to design buildings which offer occupants more meaningful human experiences. In his discussion, the author Carl Stein, highlights the relationship between occupant and building — where “limitation” can be used to re-frame design problems, and thus, lead to more holistic and cooperative design solutions that invite occupants to connect with their environment in ways that meet today’s environmental challenges while still offering, what Stein calls, the “authentic human experience”.

Often emphasized in this book is the notion of how the authenticity of experience is frequently missed due to our lack of awareness regarding the finite nature of that which surrounds us: the environment, its resources, and the energies which buildings utilize (for their demolition, construction and operation). I agree with Stein as he eludes to the notion that authentic experiences are hard to come by these days, as there is an epidemic of “devalued experience”, which may be a by-product of the lack of awareness that our resources are, in fact, limited.

As you may surmise, Greening Modernism offers a narrative that will lead you through the strategies, relationships and consequences of how to “build” sustainably for our time, complete with color images that often serve to reinforce the links between what we need to do, and what has been done.

Energy, Restraint and Smart Reuse: Beyond ‘Buildings as Objects’

As one delves deeper within Greening Modernism (affiliate link), Carl Stein invites his reader to look beyond ‘given’ systems of analysis — to question what already exists, to decipher what will be required to meet human need, and to weigh architectural design strategies to find new and smarter ways to both preserve and reuse resources.

Astutely, Carl Stein investigates the interrelationships between ‘quantified analysis’ and ‘subjective effects’ with such questions that weigh the thought process of decision-making between specifics like the importance between a “5% increasing cooling load [versus] a visual connection to the outside world”. (Stein, 192) Thus, through both its big-picture and detail-oriented lens, Greening Modernism is an insightful read in that it juxtaposes architectural design’s larger challenges with specific scenario-based solutions and applications, so you can see how truly sustainable and holistic architectural design thinking might play out.

Building Systems and Controls That Interconnect Rather Than Divide

As an architect, reading Greening Modernism (affiliate link) will be time well spent. It offers strategies to tackle both the simple and complex with the intent of keeping building occupants in touch with what is most important — achieving a more sustainable architecture and way of living where, through occupant behavior, they never lose ‘touch’ with that which surrounds them.

For instance, Carl Stein explains how automated and manual building control systems may serve different purposes when each is taken to its extreme. And as such, each scenario has caveats as well. The fully automated building system that self adjusts and self corrects may be more efficient in real time, but as Carl Stein explains, it may further disconnect building occupants from their environment, in turn, making them lose touch with the cause-and-effect relationships between their building, its operations, other occupants and the larger surrounding environmental context. (Stein, p. 215)

In the end, Greening Modernism (affiliate link) presents a way forward where sustainable design becomes more than just about efficiency and quantitative analysis — Carl Stein, instead, suggests how meaning can be further developed within architecture, particularly when that architecture has been designed in true synergy with the environment, not for the sole purpose of saving limited resources, but to also design buildings that are truly worth experiencing.

To learn more or to buy Greening Modernism (affiliate link), please click here. (affiliate link)

Review by Maria Lorena Lehman, Founder of Sensing Architecture

Citation:
1) Stein, Carl. Greening Modernism: Preservation, Sustainability, and the Modern Movement. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.

Disclosure: Please note that the book entitled Greening Modernism was provided to me for free by the publisher for the purposes of this book review publication on Sensing Architecture. For more information, go to Sensing Architecture Disclosures

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

image: phoosh | Flickr

As new emerging technologies surface, the idea of “transition” will take on entirely new form. Not only will “transition” continue to exist between building materials (like you see in buildings today), but “transition” will also be present within a material’s properties — changing the very nature of how a particular material behaves at any given time.

For instance, smart materials will be able to change in real time as certain variables like temperature, light or stress trigger them. Similarly, new sensing technologies will come together to yield smart environments where ubiquitous computing is tuned to give occupants a more personalized experience.

Furthermore, as nanotechnology and biomimetic systems rise into the forefront, you as an architect will need to consistently rethink how building materials typically function — by building for them from the bottom up.

The “rules” behind designing for material behavior are changing and new smart material systems will give you a new kind of flexibility which you can optimize by taking both function and form to entirely new levels.

A key to doing this is to rethink your notion of design “transition”.

A Systems Approach to Designing with Building Materials

The biomimicry expert, Janine Benyus, says it best as she states that “The material is the system“. You see, it is within materials that we as designers can unleash new forms and functions to optimize our buildings — making them more sustainable, healthy, meaningful and beautiful.

By thinking of building materials down to the nano- scale, your design decisions as an architect will involve more of a “systems” way of thinking as opposed to the, as I have heard Janine Benyus call it, more typical “layered” approach to solving design problems.

Use “transition” as a way to unlock problems within an existing design system and as a way to capture inspiration from external forces that will trigger and react to your built environment. Think of how your occupant will experience your space, in all of its dimensions, and then ask yourself to rethink “transition” as you design.

To get you started, here are three questions to ask yourself:

1. If materials within your building’s design could “move” in real-time, how would you want them to move and why? Think aesthetics, function, efficiency, sustainability and human comfort. (As if your materials could gain “super-powers”, think beyond what materials today can do.)
2. What would be the resulting effect of such transient material “movements”? What new forms and functions would they allow? How could they help or hurt your occupant’s experience or the surrounding natural environment?
3. Is there a way to incorporate new transient materials to not only strengthen your building’s weak spots (design challenges) — but to ultimately strengthen the building as a whole (design opportunities)? What would your materials need to be able to “move” in the way you want? Think self-actuating, kinetics, weathering, interactivity, adaptation and so on.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman