After a series of blog entries about issues related to urban sustainability, I would take this opportunity to do a blog entry that is related to myself. My exposure towards 'what is sustainability' throughout my career as an architectural student and how it has influenced me in both, directly as well as indirectly. A self-reflection on my take as a building designer.
Evidently, our work reflects our maturity as time progress. Our thinking in how the building is responding not only towards its surrounding context, as well as towards the sustainability development of the context in the long run. As Norman Foster described " As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown."
With modern digital technology advancement, architecture joins the hyperbole of advertising techniques serve ti supplant our consciousness and diffuse our reflective capacity. (Holl, 2012) Evidently, I as a student often struggled and relied on digital imaging throughout the design process and forgo the importance of one's experience of the site. As noted by Pallasmaa, "Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey"; in which creates a distance between the maker and the object.
Due to convenience and negligence, we often forgo the impact of the objects we create on the environment. I think partially due to the fact as students, we are not exposed to the bigger picture, the seriousness of the issue globally and we often assumed everything are separated from one another, in fact, everything is interrelated. Believing that the environment, the cities can continue as they are, fueling a system and process of unsustainability.
Artist Impression of the proposed building on site. Source: Author
During my graduation project in final year, our studio was integrated with an environmental subject related to the "Environmental & Technical" side of a building. Apart from the aesthetic side of a building, we had to approach from the environmental point of view. A balance and integration of "sustainability & built aesthetic". Although there was no shift in values and ideology, I honestly profess that I had no conception of waste water management, rainwater harvest system, structural integration or anything related towards an integrated sustainable design. Of course, all the techniques and proposed sustainable features were tested via software such as ecotect as well as calculations.
The orientation of Built Form to minimise Thermal Heat Gain. Source: Author
Autodesk Flowdesign Wind Analysis to take advantage of the natural breeze . Source: Author
Shadow Analysis from Ecotect to determine Shading device Placement . Source: Author
Interior Lighting Analysis to take advantage of natural daylighting. Source: Author
The most important lesson to me was the mindset of "sustainability should be a part of the process the moment the first stroke is drawn on the drawing board"; which is not something we 'install' later in the process. Arguably, the 'depth of our being' stands on thin ice as technological advancement within the architectural profession. Sustainability should be exposed and integrated in the earlier years of education in order to fully understand that it is a never ending process as buildings tend to stay up for many years to come.
Resource
Pallasmaa. (2012) "The Eyes of The Skin", Architecture and the Sense. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
