SHaC 09: Competing logics of sustainable

architecture in a NZ competition

Dr Allanah Ryan

School of People, Environment & Planning

How green is this house?

Sustainability criteriaTechnological criteria e.g.• Energy efficiency – savings in energy use and embodied in

building materials• Thermal performance• Water efficiency• Waste minimization during construction• Building products provenance (what and how produced,

life-cycle assessment)• Indoor environmental quality

Social criteria e.g.• Sustainability of neighbourhood & transport

Metrics of sustainable buildings

• Technical criteria suggest that sustainability can be

measured in largely quantitative terms e.g. HERS rating,

Green Stars etc

• „Environmental realism is founded on the notion that

“rational science can and will provide the understanding of

the environment and the assessment of those measures

which are necessary to rectify environmental bads”.

Further, implicit in this model of consensus is a “process of

standardisation” which means that “particular local

conditions” and competing “forms of local knowledge”

tend to be ignored‟ (Guy & Farmer 2001:140).

The pluralism of sustainable architecture

Individuals, groups, and

institutions embody widely

differing perceptions of

what environmental

innovation is about. Each

of these actors may share

a commitment to

sustainable design, but are

likely to differ greatly in

their interpretation of the

causes of, and hence the

solution to, unsustainability

(Guy & Farmer 2001: 14).

SHaC & logics of sustainable architecture

Successful green

buildings rely as much on

the social location and

framing of sustainability

as they do on technical

considerations

Logics of sustainable building include ...

• Image of space: e.g. global context or fragile or alienating or regional or polluted etc

• Source of environmental knowledge: techno-rational or sensual postmodernism or social ecology etc

• Building image: new age or authentic or harmonious or polluter parasitic or democratic home etc

• Technologies: integrated or energy efficient or intelligent or autonomous or passive or participatory appropriate etc

• Idealised concept of place: organic or global/urban or compact & dense or natural etc

Logics of sustainable architecture

• Eco-technic – global place

• Eco-centric – place of nature

• Eco-aesthetic – new age place

• Eco-cultural – authentic place

• Eco-medical – healthy place

• Eco-social – community place

Typologies of sustainable architecture

in SHaC09

• Eco-technical – Conventional, affordable, anywhere (4

teams)

• Eco-socio/cultural in Aotearoa – authentic & community-

based (3 teams)

• Healthy, social housing (1 team)

• Regenerative aspirations: imagining a new type of urban

place (1 team)

Typology I: Eco-technical

Conventional, affordable, anywhere

Team Canterbury Team WaikatoEco-Crib Team Dunedin

„Sustainable living without the composting toilet‟

„This stylish home is “normal” as possible while containing a wide

variety of accessible and sustainable products and services‟.

• efficiency of energy & water use

• affordability

• conventional passive solar design and „look‟

• relocatable – „can go anywhere‟

Typology II:

Eco-socio/cultural in Aotearoa

Whareuku Team Central Otago Te Hira Whanau Bach 101

„Sustainability has always been inherent in the typology of the classic Kiwi bach.

You design and build it yourself, you reuse found and local materials, and you and

your family progressively build a real connection to the place. You also become a

kaitiaki or guardian for a piece of our precious coastline‟

• participatory – residents & wider community

• culture - e.g. kaitiakitanga & appropriate house design

• place – central to design of houses

history

culture

bio-physical

Typology III: Healthy, social housing

Team Housewise is interested in how Housing New Zealand can develop a

renovation package for a 1950s state house with useable technologies that

facilitate more environmentally and socially sustainable performance in-use

(„hardware‟) as well as facilitate a learning process with residents („software‟) to

support more sustainable living.

• health – IEQ

• affordability – inspire HNZC to extend retrofits to other properties

• participatory – engage resident family in design process

- learning process for tenants

Typology IV: Regenerative aspirations

The Plant Room The Plant Room applied to a Wellington apartment building

• cradle-to-cradle philosophy• improving IEQ of apartment• new urban place – post-oil crash society, living more compactly

We are interested in exploring a particular logic of “green architecture” that goes

beyond some current ideas of sustainable design. Our aim is to create a

“regenerative” habitat where people will be delighted, community will be developed

and sustainable living will literally “grow”.

‘Anywhere’ or ‘here’?

The role of place in sustainable building

• Does „anywhere‟ mean „nowhere‟?

• Place – „here‟, draws on meaning, culture, history, bio-physical environment

• People in place

Sustainable architecture as a matter of concern rather than a matter of fact

• e.g. Bach 101 – HERS rating = 2

not viewed as problematic by the team because:

(a) occupation of the bach mostly in the summer,

(b) broader reference to the „Rangitoto bach typology‟, where the bach„encourages connecting with the outdoor environment (as opposed to a modern cocoon)‟.

Sustainability is about “the unique Rangitoto bach typology and whanau connection to the bach and its wider environs.”

Sustainable architecture as

a matter of concern

Rather than pursuing more performance targets

(a measurable quantum of „greenness‟)

we should be expanding the space for dialogue

about the appropriate relationship between

technology, nature and society, in the places we

live