American Institute of Architects

What Must Be Done?
AIA

What Must Be Done?

Conference on Sustainability
in Architecture and Higher Education

The following texts were delivered at Cal State Pomona on February 27, 2007. Each text addresses sustainability in architecture and the twenty-first century architectural curriculum, answering the question, What must be done?

Statements of obligation, beginning "we need to," "we must," "it is time to," etc, are highlighted. Click on participant names to move through the texts. The up arrow will always return you to the top.


Participants:

Dennis Andrejko, AIA University of Buffalo, Andrejko & Associates
Bruce Blackmer, FAIA NAC Architecture
Tom Fisher, Assoc AIA University of Minnesota
Judith Sheine, RA California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Anne Schopf, FAIA Mahlum Architects

Harrison Fraker, FAIA University of California, Berkeley
Jonathan Bahe, Assoc AIA President, AIAS
David Brems, FAIA Gillies Stransky Brems Smith, P.C.
Kathryn Janda, PhD Oberlin College
Pablo La Roche, PhD, Assoc AIA California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Jack Pyburn, FAIA OJP Architect, Inc.

Mary Guzowski, University of Minnesota
Douglas Kelbaugh, FAIA University of Michigan
Stephen McDowell, FAIA BNIM Architects
Peter Rasmussen, FAIA Architects Rasmussen Triebelhorn
Robert Smith, AIA, LEED, AP Culpepper McAuliffe & Meaders, Inc.

Margot McDonald, AIA, LEED-AP California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Gregory Kessler, AIA Washington State University
Daniel Pearl, University of Montreal
Henry Siegel, FAIA Siegel & Strain Architects
Kim Tanzer, AIA University of Florida

Keelan Kaiser, AIA Judson College
Randy Byers, AIA TDSi
Stephan Castellanos, FAIA Quad Knopf
Heather Flint Chatto, University of Washington
Walter Grondzik, PE Florida A&M University
Donald Tuski, Olivet College


^

Dennis A. Andrejko, AIA
University of Buffalo

EDUCATION PRIORITIES/ISSUES – three components transcending across Equity, Economy, Ecology

PROGRAM BASED – balance need for both breadth and depth

FACILITIES BASED – talk the talk – walk the walk

SERVICE BASED - transition from education to application

ARCHITECTURE PROGRAMS/SCHOOLS/COLLEGES CAN AND SHOULD SERVE AS A NUCLEUS AND CATALYST FOR SUSTAINABLE EXPLORATION, EXPERIMENTATION, DEMONSTRATION AND CELEBRATION.


^

Bruce E. Blackmer, FAIA
NAC Architecture

Statement

While I certainly have opinions on this subject, I am here primarily to learn and be influenced by each of you, so take my comments for what they are – perspectives that reflect thinking before being educated by you.

We must not be so arrogant, nor so naïve, that we believe we can stop global warming.

The climatic change pendulum will move from ice age to warming and back again. Mankind has through ignorance and perceived necessity, added momentum to the pendulum rather than dampening its motion.

So what can we do? We can focus in two areas:

  1. Concentrate great attention on dampening the pendulum through mitigation of the detrimental actions and techniques we have employed in the past, and still use way too often, that contribute to the acceleration of global warming;
  2. Prepare for adaptation within a world that will experience the impacts of climate change.

I never have been particularly enamored with the word “sustainability--we need more than sustenance--we need to flourish. We need to better integrate the understanding and discipline of the science of ecology into the process of designing the built environment.

LEED has been a helpful tool but we must not ultimately put all our “eggs” in the prescriptive “basket” when measuring success. Prescriptive approaches provide an important and effective first step but ultimately may become a deterrent from achieving the performance realities we must pursue. I testified in favor of the successful introduction of LEED as a regulatory benchmark for public facility design in Washington state. It is an effective tool in making significant advances in the reduction of green house gas generation.

But ultimately, it is a consensus based, prescriptive tool that can only get us to the next plateau. To wring out the higher levels toward carbon neutral actions we need to move toward research based performance measures that are uniquely tuned to the climatic and ecological specificity of each micro-environment that we work within.

So what does this mean to architectural education?

  1. To reduce the momentum of the global warming pendulum:

    1. We need to understand precisely how we impact our environment, through our actions in design and construction;

    2. We need deep, collaborative, research with the ecological and biological sciences, to understand how to fine tune our architectural interventions to the unique microcosms of site, climate and environment; and

    3. We need to move from addressing environmental challenges prescriptive ball-park approaches to quantifiable performance based knowledge.

  2. Regarding adapting civilization to a warming swing of the climatic pendulum:

    1. We need to advance education in urban and regional planning strategies that shift investment in the built environment away from vulnerable sites to locations that can accommodate the predictable and unpredictable consequences of global warming;

    2. We need to understand how to design better for catastrophic climatic and other destructive forces; and

    3. We need to learn how to be leaders in addressing the destruction that may follow catastrophic events.

Ultimately, we should not succumb to the temptation to instill answers derived from conventional wisdom and prescriptive tools for addressing the future of our earth into our curriculums, but rather, we must ingrain sound fundamental principles and inspire the quest for deeper knowledge in the best ways to address global change challenges as part of our educational charge.


^

Thomas Fisher, AIA
University of Minnesota

Statement

  1. The way to get faculty to pay attention to sustainability in the curriculum is to gather information about their schools as part of either accreditation or evaluation.

    2. Possible information to gather includes:
  2. The schools need to take the lead in their institutions and regions in helping prepare for the dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases that will be required over the next decades.

    3. The ACSA/CELA Administrator’s Conference in Minneapolis, Nov 1-3, 2007, (held in conjunction with the European Union administrator’s conference in Minneapolis, Oct. 30-31, 2007) will be called:

    “Preparing for the Inconvenient Truth”
  3. We are too focused on efficiency and not enough on resiliency, even though the latter may be more important as we face abrupt and disruptive change.

    4. The ecologist Crawford Holling has demonstrated how nature works in adaptive cycles:

    We need to teach students and learn ourselves how to design a more resilient built environment.

  4. We need to focus more on how we will adapt to catastrophic change and less on incremental improvements

    5. Several triggers for a global collapse now exist:

    Any one of these are probable over the next few decades and architects need to help clients and communities prepare.

  5. We need to envision a new form of our profession and a new way of preparing our students, based less on a medical model and more on a public health model of practice.

    6. The greatest demand for architectural services will be among those who can ill afford them

There will be massive amounts of money flowing to emergency response and rebuilding efforts. Architects are needed not only in the design of structures and communities, but in the leadership of diverse groups of disciplines who will need to work together in new, more flexible ways.


^

Judith Sheine, RA
California State Polytechnic University

Statement

  1. In less than a decade knowledge of “Sustainability” will be considered as basic as knowledge of structures or traditional environmental controls in architectural education (it’s already a SPC in NAAB conditions). As the standard of using Autocad is being replaced with BIM, LEEDs or some sustainable rating system will become the industry standard and be replaced by more sophisticated standards.

    Schools will need to both keep up with and lead industry efforts.


  2. To do this, sustainability must be embedded in the core curriculum, beginning in the first year, in both lecture and studio courses and reinforced throughout the core.

    This will enable interested students and faculty to pursue more advanced areas including research in the later years, both in first professional degree programs and in post-professional degree programs. (CPP – 1st, 2nd and 3rd year courses in B.Arch. and 1st year in M.Arch., followed by topic studios and electives, optional concentration in M.Arch.)

  3. As some schools now provide digital media training (BIM) to their faculty, some will provided training in sustainability to their faculty so that it can be more successfully embedded in courses.

  4. Schools need to convince their Universities to adopt Green standards and to build demonstration projects showing the potential of more experimental energy-saving techniques.

    (CPP - LCRS – Tijuana project, others – and recycled classrooms as affordable faculty/staff housing)


^

Anne Schopf, FAIA
Mahlum Architects

Statement

Priorities for curricula:
  1. In depth study of biological systems including the energy of the sun, wind and water and their impact on building systems.

  2. Students should be exposed to working with associated disciplines (landscape, planning, and engineering), to bring forth the most current thinking in related fields, in a collaborative and thought provoking forum.

    Ideally, this would be in a studio environment to foster more in-depth solutions to complex problems.

  3. Materials and technology should span historic and emerging trends.


  4. Post Occupancy Evaluations can be a powerful learning tool which can also bridge the academy to the profession.

  5. Create open minded, curious, individual thinkers who can identify new approaches to problems in a collaborative and dynamic setting.


^

Harrison S. Fraker, Jr. FAIA
University of California, Berkeley

Statement

  1. “Déjà vu all over again”
    The AIA and DOE did a lot of work in the late 70s and early 80s on curriculum development and continuing education. We should review the material and not reinvent the wheel. I have included some highlights from my own experience as an addendum.
  2. Building Performance
  3. Buildings are Critical but Neighborhoods are the right scale to achieve zero carbon, especially taking advantage of waste streams: sewage, food, green (becomes energy).
  4. Interdisciplinary Collaboration/ Whole Systems Integration
  5. Social/Economic Issues are critical (case studies)
  6. Structure a path through curriculum

Addendum

Note: The bibliography is much more extensive, and should be reviewed to reuse the best material.


^

Jonathan Bahe, AIA
President AIAS

Statement

As The American Institute of Architecture Students, we continue to be passionate about sustainability and the future of our planet, as we clearly have a vested interest in the future of education, experience, examination, and practice. If architectural education is, and continues to be, about educating students how to think holistically about problems and accredited education specifically is focused on preparing students to enter the profession,

it is imperative that we begin including sustainable and ecological design in all aspects of architectural education.

It is our firm belief that the upcoming years hold a tremendous amount of opportunity and responsibility for the profession and academia, should it chose to act.

It is time for the profession, and specifically the five collaterals, to be passionate advocates for forward-thinking and advocates for a better profession.

We are entering a period of unprecedented awareness about the issue of global climate change and sustainability. We now know that almost 50% of the carbon emissions are due directly to the AEC industry.

As current practitioners, we must educate ourselves, and the public which we serve, about the issues surrounding sustainability and ecological design.

This is an issue which is paramount to the foundations of architectural practice and education.

Practitioners should be obligated to not include sustainability as a second thought, but rather an issue of health, safety and welfare.

Educators must be enlivened with the opportunities which sustainability holds for increased thought and exploration.

Students have to be taught sustainable principles from the very moment they enter their education.

The making of form and space, the relationship between form and function, and the Vitruvius principles of firmness, commodity and delight must be enriched with a message of ecology, global responsibility and emerging technologies.

We must not wait for this message to be heard.

Students must be educated now how to design and construct buildings to meet the 2030 Imperative, as it is the next generation of architects and community leaders who will truly implement this vision.

A very important part of the mission of the AIAS is to promote excellence in architecture education, training, and practice. For several years, we have been providing educational opportunities for our members dealing directly with sustainable design and ecological approaches to the built environment. Starting in 2006, we created a Membership Specialization Area for our members focused on sustainability. This MSA provides interested members with information regarding sustainable design practices, specifically through a recent partnership with the AIA Committee on the Environment. Throughout our multiple student design competitions, we also require our members and other students to maintain a focus on sustainable design principles. This is a key factor in the jury process for these competitions. At FORUM, which is the annual convention of the AIAS, we also provide seminars, tours, and keynote speakers who have practical experience with ecological design.

The time is now for the profession and academia to renew their focus on the teaching and implementation of sustainable design.

Architects have the tremendous to regain a leadership position in communities as advocates for our communities, the built environment, and our planet. This conference will play a key role in the transformation of the future of architectural education as we all prepare for the NAAB ARC in 2008. Thank you again for providing AIAS with the opportunity to participate in this event as we strive to promote, foster, enrich, and organize our students to be future architects and leaders of ecologically design buildings and communities.


^

David Brems, FAIA
Gillies Stransky Brems Smith, P.C

Sustainability in Architectural Education for SDiG Education Conference

Self Introduction

Sustainability is an ethic the same as Design Excellence. Ideas about sustainability can be embedded and layered into all the areas of NAAB accreditation listed above.


^

Kathryn Janda, Phd
Oberlin College

Beyond Architecture: Real Buildings, Real People

Janda, K. 2004. "Beyond Architecture: Real Buildings, Real People." In Solar 2004 Proceedings of the 33rd American Solar Energy Society Annual Conference (Portland, OR). pp. 663-668


^

Pablo La Roche, Phd AIA
California State Polytechnic University

  1. Emphasize the Power of Green Architectural Design in Reducing Carbon Emissions
    2. Sustainability in buildings is a very broad topic that includes energy, IAQ, water, materials and site. All of these are important, but buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all energy consumption and GHG emissions annually and seventy-six percent (76%) of the electricity (Architecture 2030, 2006) consumed in the USA.

    Thus, designers should know how to control and regulate energy movement to the building, inside the building and from the building in its different forms: conduction, radiation and convection, keeping it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

    Environmental Control courses have to move away from emphasizing the design and sizing of mechanical cooling and heating systems, and move towards the implementation of design strategies to heat and cool a building with natural means. Students should learn how to manipulate the building fabric and materials to move the energy where it is needed for heating and cooling: passive heating and cooling is much more than simply being energy efficient.

    The students must understand the importance of the sun as the generator of all sources of energy.

    A typical EC course could include:

    Energy is heat, but it is also light and sound. The student must understand their inter relationships (eg effects of solar radiation on temperature and illuminance levels).


  2. Implementing Design in the Lecture Courses and Analysis in the Design Courses
    3. Lecture courses should include design problems in which students implement the concepts learned. At least initially, these exercises should be hands on. Students learn much by building with their hands, feeling the forces of the sun and nature with their bodies. An example: a small space -that they actually build and monitor- in which they must provide thermal comfort without mechanical systems. The space with more hours in comfort wins.

    Just as students in lecture courses should implement concepts in design exercises, students in studio courses should demonstrate the performance and validity of their ideas. Some simple analog tools to demonstrate these ideas are wind tunnels and models with sun dials. Later they can progress to digital tools to quantify solar radiation, temperature, and illuminance levels.

    This leads to a studio metrics to evaluate sustainability: implementation of existing rating systems such as Green Globes and LEED, or using methods developed in house to solve specific problems.

  3. Research in passive solar should be strongly supported.
    4. Passive Solar Architecture is a powerful mechanism to reduce CO2 emissions. Passive solar only uses solar energy and natural heat sinks to cool and heat a building. In many climates a building will not need additional energy. It does not have negative environmental side effects. It is important to make passive systems more efficient. I am a strong believer that they can work better by incorporating smart controllers that would permit them to operate in real time according to relationships between the systems and the natural environment. Passive solar could provide cooling and heating in many regional climates. An idea: AIA could develop a map of climate regions similar to the one that was developed many years ago but maybe now indicating potential CO2 reductions with different strategies and applicability of passive cooling and heating.

     

  4. Promote a 2030 student Competition for a low energy, low carbon, low environmental impact building (house).
    5. The main objective would be to achieve thermal comfort inside a building with little or no energy using only architectural means. Provided energy should be not more than 20% of the amount of energy of a typical building and of course from renewables. Projects should also be below a specific cost promoting the use of recycled materials. The best way to achieve carbon neutrality is not to use energy in the first place. The designer has the power. Other ideas.

     

  5. Sustainability Concentration.


^

Jack Pyburn, FAIA
OJP Architect, Inc.

Statement

My name is Jack Pyburn. I am the chair of the AIA/Historic Resources Committee’s Architectural Education Initiative. The goal of the initiative is the integration of historic preservation values and knowledge into the dialogue of architectural education.

Architectural projects on the boards (on the monitors) and under construction should henceforth be as sustainable as design and technology can achieve. They are however a very small percentage of the total building inventory and once completed immediately become a part of the existing building inventory. The vast potential in achieving sustainability goals lies in the built environment. Achieving sustainability goals in the built environment includes:

The foundation of sustainable architecture must be a set of specifically defined values embraced as important and essential to society and thus to architecture. The current NAAB student performance criteria contains five references to preservation and the built environment including Criterion #15, Sustainable Design, with the words “to conserve built resources including culturally important buildings” There is significant support for sustaining the built environment and even preservation in the SPC. The question is, are and, if so, how are these expressed values instilled in students and what tools are students being given to act on these values. Fundamentally, the issue is what is valued by, the interest of and at the pedagogical command of the faculty. As you all know, the values of the faculty substantially influence the values students carry into the profession.

Historic preservation architecture offers professional education useful and proven tools for teaching the design of sustainable new buildings and how to sustain our built environment through thoughtful, sensitive and creative design. Over the past century, preservation architects have developed concepts, methodologies, research and abilities that successfully sustain our culture and the built environment. One opportunity for the integration of preservation values and knowledge into design education is the use of existing buildings and preservation methodologies for evaluating the character and performance of insitu building materials and assemblies in physical, cultural and economic terms. Integrated into the precedent analysis technique of teaching, existing buildings, analyzed with these deliberate methodologies, can sensitize the student designer to a deeper understanding of material performance, composition and assembly possibilities and the long term issues of sustainability.

The AIA/Historic Resources Committee’s Architectural Education Initiative is committed to the integration of this knowledge and on-going research into the current and ever evolving professional curriculum of architecture. We embrace collaboration and dialogue as the optimal vehicles for achieving this objective.

In the end, architects make judgments based on values. For architecture to meet is commitment to a balanced ecology, we must give equal, if not greater, value the action verb “ sustain” as we are to its more passive variant “sustainable”.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this most important set of deliberations carting the course of the future of our profession and the education that supports it.


^

Mary Guzowski
University of Minnesota

ON ECOLOGICAL DESIGN EDUCATION

How do we build on and give life to an emergent dream of an ecological future? Below are my suggestions concerning priorities for ecological design education:

Process Priorities

  1. Ecological covenant: The process of defining ecological design education needs to be made intentional and it has to be done in community. We need agreement on values, priorities, and what actions might be taken to move architectural education and the profession forward. We need to define common ground (not just shuffle courses). The public act of discussion and discernment is essential. Our dreams form the basis for our words and actions. We need processes to engage the issues in community. We need an ecological covenant, a promise to our students, programs, discipline, and the Earth itself.
  2. Ecological vision: We need to explore our common and individual visions for the future. What do we care deeply about? What ground do we hold in common? What is it we want to sow in community? Are our fields fertile? Can they sustain life? What do we grow in one community or another? Are there ecological connections between seemingly disparate aspects of architectural education? What are we trying to do today, tomorrow, and into the future?
  3. Ecological design integration: Ecological design education needs to be considered by everyone; this is not only the domain of a specialized area of the curricula. Although ecological design may influence some aspects of the curricula more profoundly than others, we all need to discuss how it should be integrated into design education. Ecological design can no longer be considered the domain of the few; the health of the planet and the health of our institutions concern us all.
  4. Ecological balance: Ecological design should not usurp or overshadow the many important goals and aspirations of architectural education, but rather, we need to find its appropriate place in the curricula The urgency of the ecological crisis must be acknowledged. We have to take a stand as a community and profession on behalf of the Earth. The magnitude and depth of the ecological situation requires the insight and wisdom of all aspects of the profession as well as other disciples. We need the poets, artists, theoreticians, historians, technologists, and visionaries to help us design our way into a future that is sustainable.
  5. Ecological content and process: Ecological design is not only about what we teach, but also how we teach and who we are as teachers and learners. The fundamental principles of ecology can and should inform the shape of design education, including: interdependence, sustainability, ecological cycles, energy flow, partnership, flexibility, diversity, and co-evolution.

    6. In the dark of the moon,
    In the flying snow,
    in the dead of winter
    War spreading, families dying,
    the world in danger
    I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
    -- Wendell Berry, poet, essayist, farmer

Action Priorities

  1. Adopt the 2010 Imperative.
  2. Set unreasonable ecological goals and commit to making them happen.
  3. Define tangible actions and take them today, tomorrow, and into the future.
  4. Develop new allies (reach outside the university).
  5. Create and share resources, strategies, and tools.
  6. Know your own ecofootprint and do something about it (help others do the same).
  7. Meaningfully connect with place.
  8. Maintain a sense of urgency and hope.
  9. Don’t wait until tomorrow.


^

Douglas Kelbaugh, FAIA
University of Michigan

Statement

Here's a preliminary, off-the- cuff take on my four minutes. I would appreciate it if you could print this out for me (preferably in larger bold type and 1.5 spaced if at all possible!) to refer to at the conference, as I will not have access to a printer before we meet:

This energy/environmental crisis is our second chance to get it right... in general and in architectural practice, theory and education. We're lucky to have a reprieve, as we didn't do as well as we could have done a generation ago, after some key books and the oil embargo brought us to our senses. This time the stakes are higher, the odds worse, and situation graver. But we're smarter scientifically, more sophisticated technologically, and perhaps more politically savvy. There's also more media coverage and seemingly more popular interest around the world. It feels more international, if not more global.

So how could we have had more impact in the 1970s and 80s? Before the reagan right, the oil industry, and the free marketeers pulled the rug out from underneath us.

certainly, there was progress made and there were important breakthroughs and lasting, positive advances. There was a strong popular and populist environmental and solar movement to be sure. Some of us were very involved in the passive solar movement, which would regularly attract over a thousand participants for its many regional and national conferences.

Many active and passive solar buildings were built, courses taught, and writings published. There was a flurry of curricular changes in our architecture schools and universities, even some new degree programs, as well as in K-12 and AIA programs and professional seminars. Some of these cultural changes and the sense of ecological imperative stuck, especially in the southwest and pacific northwest, although every region has its stalwart and heroic advocates and practitioners.

Most of the solar architecture was mediocre at best, with the eceptions produced by a handful of firms. They were often heavy-handed expressions of energy diagrams. This limited architectural finesse gave the movement a black eye, although it's doubtful the star designers - as skeptical then as they are today - could have been truly converted.

a major shortfall was the lack of a sufficiently theoretical argument that was architectural, a costly demerit in the burgeoning heyday of continental european philosophy's hijacking of design theory. It was seen by many as another technical subject to be added to the list of variables and constants of design, an additional burden to be shouldered by specialist consultants, who as that eminence grise philip johnson says are bought by the pound.

because it didn't attract the most talented and accomplished designers, it was relegated to second class status - at least that's the way it felt at the time. (interestingly, the CCA in montreal is going to mount an exhibit on the architectural response to and aftermath of the oil embargo in the early 70s. And there's an abundance of other evidence that a revival is spreading.)

so, how do we avoid this shortcoming again? Get more theoretical? Not exactly - because the two-decade binge on rarefied theory is slowly but surely giving way to a more practical and practice-based culture in our schools. Thank god!

But let's not throw the baby with the bathwater and binge on pragmatics. Do you think we could, just once, stop the pendulum of our interests and conceits in the middle, where, e.g., theory and practice are (god forbid!) in balance. And where both are embued with a healthy appreciation of the challenges and opportunities of design and planning informed by ecology, the environment and energy. The path will neither be theory-saturated nor practice-dominated. It's got to be an amalgam of the two with a floating fulcrum.

I think there's a budding opportunity now to bring two burning issues to the fore in our schools. Both sustainable design and urban design can, imo, capture the imagination and interest of students and many faculty. they are pregnant with rich issues and wonder.

Our college hosted its centennial conference in january on "global place: practice, politics and the polis." (a few of you were there.) there was a geographic, professional, scholarly range of participants and a clear signal emerged from all the noise of discussion and debate. It was that there are two major cluster of challenges, among the many that face our field and discipline: one is the rapid urbanization of half the world's current 6 billion humans and all of its next 3 billion humans, with all the attendant social, geo-political and economic justice issues. The second is global climate change, which should probably call "global climate and ecology change", given all the impending changes in the incredibly complicated and interconnected eco-systems on which our species and millions of other species depend.

There are some stunning new renewable energy techniques and technologies and, what is equally promising are ways that architects and planners can reduce our ecological footprint by reducing our NEED for more energy, built space, auto trips, natural resources, and human resources.

These and related issues need to fill the academic void being opened up as the "critical theory" project loses air (of which it has plenty!) before other fledgling issues that are vying for the limelight, such as "ambience, atmosphere and experience" or other quasi-frivolous matters that may be getting your faculty's attention.

(I don't need to rehearse with this savvy group that the earth's vital signs are already threatened and can not be fully reversed.) Our kids and grandkids will live in a different biosphere on a more stressed planet. we can and must, however, prevent the worst tipping points, the ones that will take down the most species and wreak unknown and unknowable consequences. And, what is more positive and exciting, find ways to actually reverse some downward spirals and improve some trends.


^

Stephen McDowell, FAIA
BNIM Architects

Statement

Peter Burgess was the most influential teacher in the areas of environmental and sustainable principles that I had during design school. An Australian, he embedded a deep understanding of natural and manmade resource minimization and low impact architecture as a means to enduring and inspiring design.

How does architectural education meet the needs of a sustainable future?

Evolution or revolution of education process—which is it?

Encourage knowledge, research and original thought. Encourage and reward honest collaboration in individual and team projects. Encourage deep ecological understanding.

Teach the triple bottom line—planet, prosperity and people in design school and make each evaluation criteria for design work.

Choose and educate faculty and guest critics in sustainability and the triple bottom line.

Make (encourage) sustainable design a core value of architecture schools. Business schools are more focused on sustainable design that architecture schools.

Teach and practice integrated design in design school. Always engage engineering, finance, construction and social expertise in design studio environments and other core classwork.

Recognize the natural progression from intuitive design to scientific design to predictable experience in design schools. Make the scientific process of design available and relevant in design schools. Graduates need skills in modeling building performance as a natural part of design.

It is not fair to suggest change only for education—practice and the Institute each have a role.

Make sustainable design a prerequisite for AIA Honor Awards and other honors programs. The Honors program is the highest level of design recognition for work by architects and the criteria should align with responsible environmental design.

It is time to reconsider the AIA Ethics and insure that sustainability, pubic health and environmental responsibility are truly embraced as ethical responsibilities for all members.


^

Peter Rasmussen, FAIA
Architects Rasmussen Triebelhorn

Statement

NCARB formed a taskforce to serve in fiscal year 2006-2007 to address sustainability as it relates to the NCARB mission to protect the Health, Safety and Welfare of the public.

The recommendations that result from the work of the taskforce will be addressed during the NCARB 2007 annual meeting and beyond. One of the recommendations of the taskforce is that the definition of H/S/W specifically includes sustainability.

The Architect Registration Exam contains significant sustainability components. This is a direct result of the Practice Analysis performed NCARB in 2000/2001. That Practice Analysis is currently being updated. This update will further guide the Exam content.

This writer recognizes the strong tie between Practice and Education and would certainly expect that tie to extend to elements of sustainability.

Peter T. S. Rasmussen, FAIA


^

Robert P. Smith, AIA, LEED, AP
Culpepper McAuliffe & Meaders, Inc.

Priorities

From my perspective as the Managing Principal and de facto hiring manager in our mid-sized design firm (55 people +) my concerns about sustainability education are less focused on students / recent graduates and more focused on individual practitioners who have been away from the academy for a while.

In my experience, the recent graduates we hire tend to arrive at our firm with a reasonable background in sustainable design and very strong motivation to apply that knowledge in practice. Older design professionals, in both our firm and our community, are much less connected to the culture of sustainability and the attendant knowledge base. This dichotomy concerns me primarily because our young people quickly become disillusioned about sustainability in practice simply because the people above them on the team are not quite so knowledgeable and not quite so motivated to pursue sustainability strategies as the design process commences.

While I easily can support strengthening sustainability education in the academy, going forward I believe the greatest challenges lie with the more established practitioners, who often are not deeply concerned about either the design or societal issues related to sustainability. Along with the AIA, the academy can help address this challenge by developing, and delivering, strong continuing education programs on sustainability that are aimed at practitioners who have been away from school for a while.


^

Margot McDonald, AIA, LEED-AP
California State Polytechnic University

Statement

Introduction



There are two primary issues in designing any new course or curriculum and it surrounds the questions: What we teach? And, How we teach it?  In developing the idealized curriculum for eco-literacy and sustainable design (SEDE) we distilled the “what” into the Outline of Topics (found at http://www.calpoly.edu/~sede/topics.html) and the “how” into a few key points (paragraph below) related to student learning. As usual, the devil is in the details and we (architectural educators) are suffering from a monumental dirge of faculty qualified to teach the specifics of sustainable design. Therefore, our next best step as a collective concerned about practitioner and student learning is to Educate the Educators in an eco-logical boot camp of sorts so that they can gradually develop the confidence to engage their students on the topics of sustainability. The students themselves are always well ahead of the curve and will appreciate the guidance (and, more importantly, acceptance) of their professor’s toward sustainable design and will continue their non-sequential, informal search for the information they need to design for the environment.





Foundations for SEDE Curriculum



The basis for a sustainable environmental design curriculum incorporates many pedagogical models but in particular should involve place-based, problem-oriented, and participatory learning. Place-based learning demands knowledge of site conditions and their relationship to micro as well as macro scale. This pertains to ecological as well as socio-cultural, economic, and aesthetic conditions. Problem-oriented learning sees the advantage of working with a real, concrete, and complex set of circumstances rather than dealing in a  pure, abstract, and simplified world. Participatory learning requires physical and mental immersion in an educational setting of place-based, problem-oriented study.


^

Gregory Kessler, AIA
Washington State University

Initiatives and Curriculum focusing upon Sustainability

Curriculum

Current initiatives:


^

Daniel Pearl
University of Montreal

Greening the Curriculum: Canadian Initiatives

Sustainable Education and Sustainability in Architecture: Critical issues to Discuss

  1. Facilitation and enabling IDP (Integrated Design Process)

  2. Critical Perspective on one dimensional or monochromatic initiatives:

  3. Blurring the Boundaries: Our fixation on “simplicity” over “messiness” - "Messiness and contextualism:" Going beyond current evaluation tools in search of urban sustainable living?

  4. How to encourage the involvement and appropriation of sustainable education by our theory and history colleagues and Design Studio professors

  5. Accessing the most powerful university administrators and mobilizing support for a dual approach: top-down and bottom-up

  6. Lessons from POE’s (including socio-economic & cultural): Intersection between Practice & Academia


^

Henry Siegel, FAIA
Siegel & Strain Architects

Statement

I am vice chair of the COTE AG I have taught at UC -- into to sustainable design and design studios I am (mostly) a practitioner

I want to bring all three of those perspectives to the table.

I attended the COD/COTE conference on the design and sustainability, which started to make stronger links between the design and sustainability worlds within the AIA. Even so, on the final day, I was on a summing up panel and the gentleman next to me commented…”I learned about design with climate in school, that was boring…”

I found this a little shocking, and realize we still have a long way to go in bridging this gap between the worlds of design and sustainability. I grew up in rural places and was attracted to architecture through landscape and vernacular buildings and the synergy between buildings and the landscape. Design that creates a sense of place has always motivated me.

And while many of the very well known architects who presented were strong and passionate o the subject of conceptual design ideas, and some even presented design ideas inspired from biological or ecological notions that were quite poetic, when they got around to talking about how their buildings worked, or performed -- if they talked about it at all, and mostly they didn’t -- it was clearly a different kind of conversation.

When we talk about things that move -- cars, airplanes -- performance is a part of the equation: its fast, it handles well. It is a real and visceral experience. With buildings it is much more subtle and develops over much longer time. And then it is about comfort, light, sound, not about MPG or kBtu/sf.

Buildings don’t move, of course, or at least don’t move because we want them to. So how do we communicate with passion, to our students and to our clients, about building performance.

We certainly can talk about poetics of place and connection to it. We can teach first principles of place-based, climate based design -- an important part of every program. Can we also talk about a poetics of performance? I think we need to think about how to teach this as well. And we need to build more bridges between building science and design. Place based deign is one bridge, comfort is another.

How do we get studios more excited about buildings that connect to place, to nature, to climate? About designing unplugged buildings? About taking back performance as the exclusive world of engineers through good passive design? How do we encourage whole systems thinking -- the kind of territory Bill Reed is exploring? How do we encourage ecological systems as models for design.

We all know that there needs to be more emphasis on this in studios. I also wonder how much those in building science talk about the importance of design: that it can’t just work right, can’t just be good place-based design, it also, in the words of David Orr, has to be beautiful to be sustainable.

We interview recent graduates from all over the country for jobs in our office and it is interesting to see how different their educations have been. Some students show highly theoretical projects with no connection to place or, in some cases to human habitation. We don’t hire them. Some students show a grounding in site design and design for a particular place -- it is really refreshing to see when expression of place & expression of climate is taught well

Collaboration is a key concept -- across disciplines and departments studios with building science students, with engineers, with natural resource students. We need to create webs that encourage and inspire cross disciplinary collaboration

A few specific ideas: Team building science students and design students in introductory studios. Have building science teachers be part of the studio team for introductory studios. Teach facilitation and collaboration -- a course or part of a course.


^

Kim Tanzer, AIA
University of Florida

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture: Steps Towards Sustainability

Premises

For academic architecture to embrace sustainability it must move well beyond energy and other issues typically embedded in technology courses. It must embrace excellent design, landscape and settlement issues, materials cycles, and changes in professional practice. Academics must look inward at what and how architecture is taught, as well as at revised subject matter. Change will probably be driven by students and by society.

What we have done:

Next steps:

  1. Embrace feedback loops. Reinvent post-occupancy evaluation to incorporate weathering, building performance, social utility and behavioral responses, and other critical measures of long-term sustainability.
  2. Try things, and abandon failure quickly. Many of today’s failures were well-intentioned responses to past crises. We must act quickly and tactically, and without fear of failure. Indeed, failures should be shared and corrected, to strengthen the discipline’s reputation in the public realm.
  3. Engage entrepreneurship. Today’s models of practice will not successfully engage a changed world. We must react, imagine and create as quickly as the inventors of Google or You Tube, but with the goal of creating a world fit for tomorrow’s citizens.

An Afterward:

“Imagine a fishnet-like set of linked lines extending ad infinitum across horizontal and vertical dimensions of space. Then add more nets criss-crossing on the diagonals. Imagine an endless number of these nets criss-crossing every plane of space. At each node in every net there is a multifaceted jewel that reflects every other jewel in the net. There is nothing outside the net and nothing that does not reverberate its presence throughout the net.”

Called the Jewel of Indra, this is how I understand sustainability. Every aspect of every architectural act or form is a jewel. We must begin to envision the net and to create responsible reverberations.


^

Keelan P. Kaiser, AIA
Judson College

Statement

I have the honor of serving as the ACSA Board of Directors liaison for a Topics Group on Sustainability (led by Walter Grondzik) which is now underway. So I, with my colleagues in attendance who are on the Topics Group, will hopefully be able to serve as a synergistic link between the two collaterals of ACSA and AIA.

The ACSA Sustainability Topic Group has informally identified the following key issues related to the handling of “sustainability” in the NAAB Conditions and Procedures for Accreditation.

With regard to NAAB Conditions for Accreditation, student performance criteria are a good place to start to invigorate sustainability content within architectural curricula, but I suggest that a more central and meaningful statement or condition of accreditation find its way into the next NAAB C & P beyond the student performance criteria. I suggest the strongest means by which the topic of sustainability can secure a place in the C & P is to find its way into the current 13 conditions of accreditation. This would put it on the same level of importance or “value” as “Studio Culture, Social Equity, and various “Resources.” The student “performance” criteria are only one of the current 13 conditions. Since the matter we are discussing is as much about cultural change, it seems to me that it should be weighted as such.

FYI…One significant way Judson College (University in August 2007) is modeling sustainable practice is by building a new low energy building, which will serve as an on-site case study and laboratory for the next generation of architecture students and faculty. Our new architecture building, which houses both the Division of Art, Design and Architecture and the Central Library, will be rated LEED Gold and includes a number of design integrated features: a hybrid naturally ventilated mechanical system (both stack and cross-ventilation, with high thermal mass content, and using night cooling), passive solar, abundant daylighting, building integrated photovoltaics, and extensive landscape architecture, including onsite stormwater management through bioswales and native plant species. The result of an invited design competition, won by C. Alan Short, Cambridge, the new facility will be a significant built work in the Chicago metropolitan area. Several pre-occupancy papers have already been published on the building both here and in the UK, the 2007 Illinois State AIA convention will be held at the College, and Judson has entertained students and faculty from many regional architecture schools on campus to learn about the building and observe the work in progress. The building is projected to use 50% of the energy of a conventional academic building. To be sure, in 2030, we will likely look back at this facility differently, but for the near future, it sets a standard that is worthy of emulation, and provides a meaningful context for architectural education as well as the broader collegiate community.


^

Randy Byers, AIA, LEED, AP
TDSi

Introductory Comments


^

Stephan Castellanos, FAIA
Quad Knopf

Statement

Design Literacy

What is design? How does design impact our lives, enhance our communities and improve our environment. Increasingly we are seeing design move from the practice of using intuition to the use of evidence. This is even more the case as we move to a more sustainable world through the adoption of more sustainable practices. These practices are not the domain of architects alone. As a profession we share the responsibility of playing a more integrated role in society with citizens, decision makers, clients, industry as we seek solutions. This entails an approach that begins at much earlier stages in the education of future citizens, and prepares young people to better address the development of the built environment, whatever their role.

A change in thinking is also required regarding the role of the architect. What is design? How do we measure design benefit? How can we begin to better communicate across disciplines? All these changes in behavior, necessary to create a more sustainable built environment, require more emphasis be placed in establishing a core design literacy.

Architectural Education

Architects have moved away from core areas of practice that at one time provided their greatest strength. Over the years, key areas of practice have moved to sub-specialties, so much so that now, questionably, architects are relegated to organizing the team and designing the enclosure. Design education must return to a more rigorous course, developing in young professionals the ability to provide key areas of solution development. Design is moving quickly now to an area that is more about building performance over time. As a profession it is important that architects remain relevant and involved in creation of the built environment in times where performance level are measured and viewed as the primary value of good design. Certainly, increased integration among industry partners, clients and end operators requires a change in behavior as well, and this is first taught in the academy. Regardless, architects cannot be full partners in a redefined process, without the rigor, knowledge and wisdom identified with professional input.

The Importance of Sustainable Practices

A practice that is focused on sustainable strategies, in an integrated environment is fast moving to be the defined standard of care as viewed by clients and industry. This is an ethical construct that must be embraced by the architectural profession. Health, safety and welfare have defined the privileged status of architects in practice; however, we have failed as a profession to fully embrace each of the three foundations of the profession equally. We use minimum standards as sufficient. We fail often to understand adequately the influence on health and societal welfare and equity that design imposes. We fail to learn from our own experience and share failures as well as successes, and we have an insufficient and inadequate core body of knowledge available to us to make and inform better decisions.

Sustainable practice is dependent on a closer alliance with the academy and research, the integration of the design and construction industry, and rigorous measurement of the products we generate on behalf of society.


^

Heather Flint Chatto, LEED, AP
University of Washington

Statement

Conference on Sustainability in Architecture and Higher Education As a student, I am humbled to be here among so many learned participants. Addressing the how’s and means of incorporating sustainability into our practices and academic programs, we are first challenged define sustainability and ecological design. As I thought about this, I was comforted by Ilza Jones’s insightful words that “we are ALL students when it comes to sustainability.” I realized that is only through collaboration like this, and the sharing of successful strategies and research, that we can really begin to define and then incorporate sustainable design into our classrooms and built projects.

One of the hats I wear today is for the Alliance for Ecological Design Education which works at this very purpose. We are a regional advocacy group of students, educators and practitioners working to advance ecological design at colleges and learning communities in the Northwest. As the director of the Alliance, I am pleased to bring you all a copy of our new report on the status of ecological design education. The EDES Report summarizes a recent perception-based survey of ecological design education offerings targeted at students in accredited architecture, landscape architecture and planning programs at West Coast institutions.

Results of the survey identified a significant gap in the level of interest of students in eco-design compared to what is actually available. The survey identified strong interest in pursuing not only certificate and emphasis programs in this field but also in advanced degrees focused on interdisciplinary studies in eco-design. Additionally the report identifies several challenges to and recommendations for providing this education. This resource is available online on the Alliance website (www.aashe.org/aede). With funding, we hope to do a national survey of students and invite you to get involved.

As for priorities: Based on my own student experiences and the recommendations of the EDES Report, I would suggest the following for integrating sustainability into curricular and extra-curricular efforts:

Thank you so much.


^

Walter Grondzik, PE
Florida A&M University

Thoughts from Walter Grondzik, PE

As a member of both the Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) topic group looking at sustainability and National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) criteria, I will be listening very closely on behalf of the SBSE and ACSA groups to what transpires at this meeting. The following thoughts, however, are my own and do not represent the opinions of SBSE or ACSA.

These introductory thoughts are presented as three propositions.

Proposition One:

The moderator’s summation of the recently broadcast Global Emergency Teach-In (for The 2010 Imperative) included a comment to the effect that there was so much information presented that it might be difficult for participants to digest and process the input. To this opinion I suggest the opposite. We (the design professions) must quickly process the proffered information—and immediately seek more information. The year 2010 is now just three years off. We need tools, methods, techniques, new ways of thinking about the problems outlined in the Teach-In that will permit the rapid implementation of solutions. I don’t believe that adequate and appropriate tools exist today to properly address the problem of global warming (and it’s larger relative—sustainability). But I do believe that those in this conference and their affiliated organizations can develop and disseminate such tools. And do so quickly.

Proposition Two:

Sustainability must have a rational meaning for all those in the design professions. It cannot be allowed to assume whatever meaning is most convenient for a given situation and/or individual. Energy efficiency has been benchmarked and claims for such a condition can be verified. Green has been benchmarked and claims for such a condition can be verified. If the word sustainability is to be used with any purpose (other than as a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” mantra) it must be clearly defined and benchmarked by the design professions. Abundant evidence suggests that this is anything but the case today.

Proposition Three:

An interesting question was raised near the end of the Global Emergency Teach-In, regarding the relationship (conflict?) between “style” and “sustainability.” I believe this question must be made irrelevant by the designers seen to hold the keys to style. If not, style will simply lose (along with design in general). A society that is struggling to survive (that has been proven to be unsustainable) can rarely afford to engage in the arts. Architecture is art and science—and they must coexist (if not co-prosper) on the road to sustainability.


^

Donald Tuski
Olivet College

Statement

Missing