Analyzing Eco-Architecture Beyond Performance

Carmela Cucuzzella

Description

At a time when environmental architecture is proliferating in all its forms around the world, adopting ever more complex sets of tools, this book provides an overview of the state of the field. It provides a critical introduction to the study of environmentalism in architecture. Written especially for students and researchers who work in the field of environmental architecture, this book reveals the spectrum of approaches practiced today.
The text includes:
An abridged history and overview of environmentalism in the field of architecture.
A clear methodology for analyzing the included 29 cases, which can also be adopted for further guidance in a variety of architectural design projects.
Assessments of 29 buildings: 10 libraries, 10 museums and 9 university buildings from around the world.
Analyzing Eco-Architecture: Beyond Performance is essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners involved in the study and design of environmental architecture today.

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Architecture
• green design

Informations

• Publié par: Éditions JFD Inc
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782897992873
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

1




Analyzing Eco-Architecture: Beyond Performance
© Carmela Cucuzzella
© Éditions JFD inc.
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and Library and Archives Canada cataloguing in publication
Title: Analyzing Eco-Architecture: Beyond Performance / Carmela Cucuzzella.
Identifiers: Canadiana 20190036125 | ISBN 9782897990336
Subjects: LCSH: Sustainable architecture. | LCSH: Library buildings. | LCSH: Museum buildings. | LCSH: Universities and colleges.
Classification: LCC NA2542.36 C83 2020 | DDC 720/.47–dc23
Éditions JFD inc.
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All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or by any means whatsoever, is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-2-89799-033-6
Legal Deposit: 1 st quarter 2020
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Library and Archives Canada
Book layout & cover design: Anghelos Coulon
Icon design & preliminary layout: Hannah Materne


Printed in Canada



Analyzing Eco-Architecture





Analyzing Eco-Architecture
Beyond Performance
Carmela Cucuzzella, PhD






7


Table of Contents
introduction
Eco-Architecture’s Expanded Field 11
Towards Methods for Analyzing Eco-architecture 13
part 1
Shifts in Eco-Architecture 17
Developments of Environmental Discourses 18
The Changing Value Systems in Environmentalism 18
The Reliance on Technology for Environmental Risk Reduction 26
The International Rise of Ecological Modernization 26
Practices in Eco-Architecture 30
Environmental Management and Architectural Design 33
No Single Road to Eco-Architecture 37
Representation and Perception of Eco-Architecture 44
Competing Motivations, Measures, Criteria 46
Competing Motivations 47
Competing Measures 52
Competing Criteria 54
part 2
Mapping Eco-Architecture 59
A Method for Mapping Eco-Architecture 60
Categorizing Eco-Architecture 61
Analysis and Mapping Method 63
Reading and Using the Graphs and Maps 67
Libraries 71
Delft University of Technology Library 72
Ballard Library 76
Minneapolis Central Library 80
Vennesla Library and Cultural Centre 84
Sir Duncan Rice Library University of Aberdeen 88
Bibliothèque du Boisé 92
Médiathèque François Villon 96




8


Toronto Public Library Scarborough Civic Centre Branch 100
Médiathèque de Saint Paul 104
Chicago Public Library Chinatown Branch 108
Comparative Analysis 112
Museums 119
Canadian War Museum 120
Grand Rapids Art Museum 124
Water + Life Museums Complex 128
Ningbo History Museum 132
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History 136
Museum of Liverpool 140
The Dalí Museum 144
Jeongok Prehistory Museum 148
SOF – Danish National Maritime Museum 152
Buk Seoul Museum of Art 156
Comparative Analysis 160
Universities 167
Nanyang Technological University School of Art, Design and Media 168
EWHA Womens University 172
Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies 176
Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Kuchl campus extension 180
The Diana Center, Barnard College 184
The Bertram and Judith Kohl Building, Oberlin College 188
Human Ecology Building, Cornell University 192
Amsterdam University College 196
University of Queensland, Global Changes Institute 200
Comparative Analysis 204
Conclusion
Lessons Learned from the Case Studies 210
Endnotes 218
Selective Bibliography 232
Acknowledgments 237







11



Introduction


introduction
Eco-Architecture’s Expanded Field
Eco-architecture is a way of designing and constructing buildings in accordance with the environment by reducing the impact on nature, wildlife and our natural resources. Eco- architecture contributes to the protection of ecological integrity. This book is intended for students and professionals of the built environment who wish to understand eco-archi- tecture in its multifaceted dimensions. Also called ecological or green architecture, the field has evolved considerably since the 1960s. After presenting the ongoing stakes of eco-architec- ture, this book offers an analytical framework and a series of case studies comparing libraries, museums and university buildings. The first part reviews the main shifts in both discourses and practices to better grasp the condition that designers, architects and stakeholders face today. The core of the book provides a methodological tool for looking, reading and understanding eco-architecture. This analytical grid is then applied to 29 cases, selected for didactic purposes in the western as well as eastern social-cultural contexts. The reader is carefully accompanied through a graphic template dedicated to a more holistic understanding of eco-architecture.
Most key eco-architecture books today focus on environmental performance and energy efficiency. For example, in the edited book, Lessons from Modernism: Environmental Design Strategies in Architecture 1925-1970 1 , Kevin Bone examines 25 projects between 1925–1970. Using an explanatory method, he describes how these architectural projects inherently incorporate environmental strategies by considering site and program, far before the term eco-architecture was introduced. In The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise Versus Performance in Sustainable Design 2 , Jerry Yudelson and Ulf Meyer examined some of the highest-rated large green buildings. They interviewed owners about actual performance information in order to assess potential discrepan- cies between original claims and actual operations. Simon Guy and Steven A. Moore in their edited book, Sustainable Architectures: Cultures and Natures in Europe and North America 3 , argue that even if eco-architecture has become the focus of intense technical scrutiny, how to build more technically efficient structures requires different forms of knowledge and practice beyond merely the technical.



12



Analyzing Eco-Architecture


Although the study of the eco-performance is important, it falls short when aspiring to understand eco-architecture in a broader manner. Some authors already look beyond questions of eco-efficiency, in other words, doing more with less resources and a reduced environmental impact. Directed by renowned expert in post-oc- cupancy evaluation, Wolfgang F. E Preiser, along with Aaron T. Davis, Ashraf M. Salama, and Andrea Hardy, the edited book, Architecture Beyond Criticism: Expert Judgment and Performance Evaluation 4 addresses the topic of architecture critique as somehow lost in a world of experts and performance evaluations. It unveils the complexity in which judgment in architecture today is faced within the ever-growing level of environmental expertise. Even the aesthetics of sustainable archi- tecture, in its varying dimensions, has now become an issue. For example, in Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture 5 , Sang Lee questions both qualitative and quantitative traditions of sustainable design. He brings together authors who open a new area of scholarship and debate on sustainabil- ity in the design and production of architecture. The book traces and underscores how the con- sideration of environment and sustainability is directly connected to aesthetic propositions in architecture. James Steele in his seminal book, Ecological Architecture: A Critical History 6 , examines 25 buildings that span the 20th century explaining how each has addressed the relationship between the building’s qualities and the environment. The choice of cases clearly illustrates the shift that occurred in the built environment during the 1970s with the advent of solar technology.
These are only a very few examples of a growing literature on eco-architecture 7 . This small sample already allows an understanding of the general categories of this field: between books presenting a description or critical review of technical best
practices and those questioning eco-architecture in a more encompassing scope. In this second category, the aim appears to bring forth a level of knowledge that would help understand an inclusive vision of this practice. In this latter set, the general highlight is the potential counter- productive outcomes when following technical best-practices only. However, it is important to understand that this second category represents a much smaller focus in the literature.
It is in this current need for more holistic, delib- erately more encompassing approaches that we propose a new way of analyzing eco-architec- ture. Furthermore, it is one of the rare attempts offering a methodological approach that can be implemented by students as well as professionals in the built environment. It opens a discussion about the interconnectedness of the relation between form and its meanings, particularly in an era that involves strict examinations of the eco-performance in buildings. These relationships contribute to the architectural narrative, through the structural, technological, material, formal, constructive qualities. These various choices and the written descriptions are some of the elements that allow us to look at and read a project.
Reading architecture has been an area of study for many theoreticians. A