is green architecture really good to look at?

[Natalia]

is green architecture really good to look at? i'm not so sure, i guess when you imagine it i see hippies, will this stigma ever be removed??

[TJCaine]

Natalia, the question brings about an interesting debate. Is green architecture a methodology, or it is a style? Do green buildings really have to look "green" or is sustainability merely a group of ideas and methods and perspectives that all buildings should incorporate on its own?

The former would say that green includes and endorses the use of growy vines, tree stands and winter gardens as a way to display a building's "greenness" even though that most often, the most green things about a truly sustainable building are not visable to the layman. Energy efficient lighting, underfloor air handling, advanced air filtering... these things are part of the guts of a building and not something that flowers and sprouts. One Bryant Park, in New York City will incorporate an on-site, natural gas fired, cogeneration plant that will produce the bulk of the building's power and raising the efficiceny of that energy over three fold from taking it off the grid. Of course, the plant is hidden, not part glass, curtainwall image that the tower will show to the public.

The second look says, all buildings should be energy efficient. All buildings should manage their waste from construction. All buildings should have tight exterior envelopes. Many view this as common sense. If you can make a better performing building, then why wouldn't you? Under this mantra, "green architecture" doesn't have to be climbing and plant-filled because it's not a style, it's a way to design buildings better. Another example would be fritted glass. Now frit gains its popularity largely from being able to build glass buildings that still have some level of positive performance--a green idea. But most people won't associate frit with "green."

The first comes under a lot of fire because in the end, the second option seems to make a lot more sense. There is no fundamentally good reason to be building sturctures that perform poorly when doing the opposite is not a great deal harder. My only support to actually planting the vines and expressing green like the Orangery in Monticello is that it allows those who are not architects to connect to the goals strides of the profession. The common passerby will not see proportions on the side of a building and know that they have thicker floors due to under-floor air. If there is a green icon associated with a project then people can point and say, "that building is probably doing good things for the environment" or "that is a green building, let's build more." It allows people to be connected and more easily recognize the existence of the movement without having to become green experts.

Of course... even in that, you can always get the buildings that are covered in plants but are not very sustainable. Alas.

In the end I don't think there's a definitive answer yet, but as sustainability continues to become more of a way of life, more of a business generator, more of a technological driver and less of a half-hearted, marketing wash that gets added on to win some brownie points in the conscience of its users, I think it will continue to become reinterpretted, reincorporated and a staple in our built environment.