Dear followers
I have been studying green architecture for almost two years now and I have decided to start to blog on it. I have framed my study in western europe and four ( or maybe five) of its cities.
But before I show you some pictures about the practical green architecture which have been built in the last fifteen years in western europe, I like to inform you about the definitions I found in the scholarly world.
I generated three approaches on green architecture:
1. the political approach ( environmental, energy, waste, pollution, co2 emissions, methane emissions)
2. The theoretical / philosophical approach ( Sloterdijk, Scruton, Hagan )
3. The practical approach ( creative designer architect teams)
You may guess which is what.
Green architecture is:
The first to define green architecture was
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon. She writes: Green architecture is where the formal
and the agrarian merge, where the picturesque theory ( if not patterns) is
employed, and where architecture and landscape overlap. Her second definition
is: Green architecture is the common ground between architecture and landscape
and the familiar resemblance between formal and agrarian gardens. (Green
architecture and the agrarian garden, B. Stauffacher Solomon, 1988 Rizzoli,
NY, pg.28).
In 2001 Susannah Hagan gives us an answer by writing: Environmental ( or green ) architectures are
representations of sustainable operations aesthetically, whereby the expression
of a cooperative contract between architecture and nature is as important as
its enactment. ( Taking shape,2001, London)
Brian Edwards and Chrisna du Plessis
ended a large story about green architecture writing Green thinking is a way of giving living presence back to our
architecture (AD July2001, pg.19).
HE Xiao-run: On Green
Architecture: Green
architecture is a kind of building built on the basis of the
harmonious development of man and nature, man's creation and ecological
environment. It symbolizes mankind's ecological civilization and wisdom. - Journal of Zhuzhou
Teachers College, 2002 - en.cnki.com.cn
Three years later, lord Norman Foster defines green architecture, in the same city of London as
sustainable design, meaning doing the most
with the least means. I quote: ’Less is more.’(Where have I read that before?)
In Green gone wrong.Dispatches from
the front lines of eco capitalism, Heather Rogers notes: ‘Green architecture
is a product for a healthier planet, like green cars, green investing and green
energy.’( 2010, p.4)
Remarkable is that hardly any American, French or German
thinkers, philosophers or theorists take part in the practical action ‘green
architecture’ today. A known person is Philip
LeBlanc, a gardener, who is not taking for granted that the cities are not full
of plants and flowers. He merely has an ambition to green la France. I also know a biologist who definitely thinks that planet earth is not green enough ( Dutch biologist, ecologist).
A found more general definitions on architecture and green, which I think of as illuminating:
Hugh Honour and John Fleming formulated architecture as follows: The term architecture encompasses the entire built environment ( The visual arts: a history, revised seventh edition, 2010, in introduction)
Bjarne Ingels recently has said: architecture is a well designed building( www.big.de)
And as a throw out, I found very funny visualisations ( but no definition) made by a European researcher in architecture living in Rotterdam at the moment. You do probably know her name already. Or did you forget?
The image is a bit historical, I have warned you. Next time I show you this can be done much better! More contemporary.
there have arisen a technical problem, how to turn this image to the left? Or maybe you can turn your head to the right?
