The Greening of Architecture by Tabb Phillip James; Deviren A. Senem;

Author:Tabb, Phillip James; Deviren, A. Senem;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

4.6 Critical Regionalism a) Brion Tomb b) Mississauga civic centre (permission Kirkland Partnership, lnc) c) MiT Rehan House (© chant Avedissian / Aga Khan Award for Architecture) d) Sydney opera House (courtesy “Shutterstock”)

POSTMODERN GREEN ARCHITECTURE

Deconstruction, a development of postmodern architecture, began in the late 1980s and was brought into public attention with the Museum of Modern Art’s 1988 exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture in New York City. The exhibition featured works by Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, coop Himmelb(l)au, and Bernard Tschumi. Deconstruction grew from post-structural philosophy and literary criticism, and its development in architecture was characterized with fragmentation, distortion, dislocation of architectural elements, and an interest in surface or skin. A few, though tenuous, connections can be made relative to the benefits of deconstruction to the development of green architecture at this time. Both shared a desire to break from modernism’s constricting simplicity and overly reduced language. Where deconstructivism sought unpredictability, confrontation, disconnection from context, and to some degree chaos, postmodern green blended regional context and contemporary programs to the linage of vernacular forms. Neither deconstruction nor green postmodern embraced ornament, yet both had precarious traces of modernism. Deconstruction subverted functionalism and postmodern green reacquired it for environmental purposes.

Relative to the greening of architecture, deconstructivism had mixed influences. Even though it was considered a development of postmodernism, on one hand the exciting and complex designs reinvigorated a waning discipline that was disenchanted with both modernism and postmodernism—over rationality versus superficiality. Deconstruction provided a brief creative outlet from the regressive with explorations with non-rectilinear shapes, fragmentation, distorted forms, and infatuation with design and qualities of surface. They tended to express through more public and high-profile building typologies, such as museums, monuments, and arts facilities, which often was the case for the designs of Gehry, Miralles, coop Himmelb(l)au, Koolhaas and Hadid. Deconstructivitism produced designs that were exciting, spontaneous and often chaotic, and they were generally well received by the public and academic institutions.24 on the other hand simultaneously, they were complex with inherent energy inefficiency and largely were an expression of conspicuous consumption. Complex forms usually produced greater surface areas generating higher levels of heat loss or gain, additional corners that were susceptible to thermal bridging, increased volumes with greater heating, and cooling and ventilating loads. Complex shapes and geometry usually resulted in higher material costs and increased construction waste. The complex compositions fortuitously allowed, in some instances, the inclusion of sustainable technologies that otherwise might have been considered obtrusive and aesthetically disharmonious to more traditional, as well as modernist, designs.

A common ground can be seen with the example of the Solar House in Breisach-am-Rhein, Germany (1992) by Thomas Spiegelhalter. It was a complex and sculptural arrangement of architectural volumes juxtaposing renewable energy components and exterior space-defining elements. This project was referred to as “Vila Deconstructa.”25 its systems for using ambient energy and rainwater collection, its integrated conservatory/greenhouse, and its indeterminate form gave flexibility that it could grow and change with the lives of its occupants. While this

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