Dangers of Going Green (original) (raw)
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AGATHÓN | International Journal of Architecture, Art and Design, 2022
AGATHÓN issue number 11 is a collection of essays, studies, research and projects on Greenery | Its Symbiosis with the Built Environment. It recalls the role that nature and greenery, in general, can play in the short term to address the current global warming and climate change challenges. They are caused by deforestation and forest fires, urban sprawl, indiscriminate use of non-renewable raw materials and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. These elements cause a devastating impact on our fragile ecosystem, society and the economy. In 1969, Simon had already guessed the potential of a ‘new ecology’ whose animate and inanimate elements of the built environment characterise a ‘unified’ landscape. Beynus’ studies are a knowledge heritage useful for the informed and responsible regeneration of the built environment. Over the millennia, Nature has perfected strategies and solutions, processes and mechanisms to adapt to different climates and physical conditions through the rationalisation of the use of matter and energy by optimising material and immaterial metabolic exchanges. While the Modern Movement has considered landscape, urbanism, architecture and design as separate disciplines, in the new millennium there is a ‘scalar shift’ in which they are considered part of a unified territorial system, in which we are called to overcome anthropocentrism and to design for man and living beings, in a connection made of profound knowledge and understanding of the trajectories and reciprocal needs of human and non-human beings. The relationship between the parts of the system takes on crucial importance when we adopt a broader and more systemic vision, supported by a holistic and participatory approach. Digital technologies can support this ‘double convergence’ in their shift towards a ‘cybernetic ecology’ allowing us to see the natural and artificial world as a unicum. The theoretical and experimental framework presented by AGATHÓN issue number 11, although not exhaustive of the potential of nature-based solutions, shows that their cross-disciplinary essence can relevantly help – both with traditional and vernacular approaches/techniques and using IoT and digital technologies – to counteract the effects of climate change by creating a more resilient built environment, less vulnerable to erosive transformation dynamics, and to create healthier environments, enhance biodiversity, provide ecosystem services, improve quality of life, foster new economic and social opportunities and create value chains, while acting on urban regeneration processes with the circularity and multi-scalar tools as pillars. To achieve these goals in the shortest possible time and overcome the greenwashing bad practice in design, it is necessary to start a new paradigm based on the ‘shift from an economics of growth to an economics of belonging’ and on a ‘new ecology’ in which man and nature characterize an unprecedented ‘unified’ landscape in a profound bond made of mutual knowledge and understanding to build a relationship based on symbiosis, inclusion and adaptation at the different scales of the project. For example, by stimulating training initiatives such as those of the Valldaura Labs of the IAAC in Barcelona, which aim to disseminate practices for holistically integrated ecological and technological landscapes.
A Social and Sustainable Change: Biomimicry and Biophilic Architecture
Biophilia and Biomimicry are architectural designs that make the natural environment more beautiful and attractive. They are known to be the most powerful business tool today. This design discipline is known as one of the ways by which the above innovation has made the world a better place to live. Biomimcry and Biophilic Architecture brings spaces to life by bringing life to spaces... So then why shouldn't we adapt to Green Building concept more? Why is it crucial to explore Biomimicry and Biophilic Architecture now? "Deep in the trenches of architecture, classicists and modernists are battling for the right to don the mantle of science. If you google “architecture biophilia” you will see a lot of stuff – including buildings – covered with greenery. That’s a form of biophilia – literally donning trees or shrubs to appear natural, hence scientific. But in sussing out the truly natural in design, and the difference between how modernism and traditional architecture embrace natural processes in the design of buildings." Why is this a challenge to change to? Why we should aim to transform the building industry to these topics? How would a Biomimetic/biophilic Revolution come about? How would a Biomimetic/biophilic Revolution change our lives?
Quantum theory, complexity theory, and ecosystems theory, along with anthropogenic climate change and ecosystem collapses are confronting humanity with insights that will crucially inform the re-design of products, processes, services and institutions in order to catalyse the transition towards a sustainable human civilization. In a fundamentally interconnected and unpredictable world, where local actions have global consequences, the intentionality behind science and design needs to shift from aiming to increase prediction, control and manipulation of nature as a resource, to a transdisciplinary cooperation in the process of learning how to participate appropriately and sustainably in Nature.
All Under One Roof: Ecological Biomimicry for the Built Environment
1 Abstract— The benefits of green roofs can be portrayed in a fractional manner and consequently, ecological advantages can be overlooked. This dissertation aims to reconcile this through a holistic framework which works towards a realignment between the different elements. We do so through an investigation into ecosystem biomimicry. We find that as relatively small, anthropocentric ecosystems, green roofs can relate to several conceptual and applied ecology ideas. In pursuing a framework that twins biomimicry and ecosystem services we can begin to conceptualise buildings as dynamic living systems rather than static objects and make sustainability physically manifest in the built environment. This is a win-win strategy which promises to reconcile our artificial infrastructure with nature.
Nature, Technologies, and Living Infrastructure - A Theoretical Perspective for Future Cities
Humanidades e Ciências Sociais: Perspectivas Teóricas, Metodológicas e de Investigação III Nature, 2023
The integration of nature into cities has become an increasingly important topic in urban planning and design, as cities seek to address the challenges posed by rapid urbanization and enhance the well-being of their residents. This integration can take many forms, ranging from the inclusion of parks and gardens within the city fabric to the integration of wild natural corridors. The concept of green cities, where nature and the built environment are seamlessly integrated, has gained significant traction as a way to promote sustainable urban development and improve the health and well-being of city residents. In this context, the relationship between a good city and living infrastructure is a crucial one. A green city, where nature is integrated into the urban fabric, can have a number of benefits for human health and well-being. However, the integration of nature into cities is not without its challenges. There are concerns about the sustainability and viability of such projects, as well as their impact on wildlife and the environment. In addition, there is a need to consider the views of different stakeholders, including residents, city authorities, and the wider public, in order to ensure that green cities are not only functional and efficient, but also healthy, harmonious, and sustainable in the long term. In this paper, we look at the integration of technologies, nature, and living, to what have some theorists thought about, and their range of views on this complex issue, both positive and negative, opening up to utopic and dystopic questions and implications.
Dealing with Complexity – Knowledge, design, and management of the built environment
AGATHÓN | International Journal of Architecture, Art and Design, 2024
Complexity (from the Latin verb ‘plectere’ = to weave, ‘cum’ = together) is a condition in which many elements intertwine together to form a unit. The ‘complexity’ of the Planet’s condition is evident: cli-mate change, according to Amitav Ghosh (2017), is not a danger in itself but rather represents a ‘threat multiplier’ that stresses and amplifies the instability and insecurity already present in some areas of the world, even more so because many industrialised countries have already greatly exceeded their relative ‘biocapacity’, effectively becoming ‘ecological debtors’. In this view, ‘complex’ should be brought back to its etymological meaning of ‘woven’ or ‘held to-gether’, connecting different forms of knowledge in the virtuous circle of a body of knowledge articu-lated in a systemic view of the real world based on the principle of ‘co-evolution’ of social and ecolog-ical systems (of culture and nature) and the awareness that it determines; on the one hand, the inter-weaving of multiple causal chains (e.g., although the pandemic crisis is a health crisis it has also be-come a biological, ecological, economic, social, cultural and spiritual crisis) with interdependent ef-fects, and on the other hand, effects that also retroact on causes since causality is circular. According to Ceruti and Bardi (2021), unfortunately, it isn’t easy to translate this vision into the workings of every-day life and to guide both the observation of the world and the project, which is an expression of our being in the world. How we live, regardless of where this happens, has an impact on the biosphere and determines chain reactions in different areas that affect both nature and human beings on a global scale: climate change, health risks, loss of biodiversity, indiscriminate use of non-renewable resources, inequalities, and accessibility contribute to a condition of ‘polycrysis’ that amplifies the state of uncertainty about our future and the vulnerability of the entire ecosystem, especially since the actions put in place do not address the cogent environmental issue in a systemic and holistic key. Therefore, the question is, how do we transform complexity from challenge to opportunity? How do we deal with the complex issues that concern the knowledge, the design, and the management of the built compared to the now essential pragmatic indicators of environmental, social, and economic sus-tainability? Which strategies, measures, actions, and tools can Architecture disciplines implement in a holistic view and with a systems approach to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement? How do we iden-tify those with the best cost/benefit ratio capable of producing synergies to achieve the largest possible number of the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the United Nations? How do we rethink extractive (production-based) economic systems and direct them toward regenerative ones (based on the enhancement of that which already exists and of services)? How to put into practice new systemic design approaches capable of addressing today’s complexities from their roots, developing solutions through which entire societies can intentionally transition to a more sustainable, equitable, and desira-ble long-term future, including through co-created visions capable of informing the solutions of the present and paving the way to a desirable future? How do we place knowledge and learning into a sys-tem to better understand the current era’s multidimensional, fundamental, and global issues in their ir-reducible complexity? The articles published in issue 16 of AGATHÓN offer valuable insights into addressing the complex issues surrounding the knowledge, design, and management of the built environment in light of the in-creasingly urgent pragmatic indicators of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, demon-strating that the complexity of the built environment, rather than being a challenge, can become an op-portunity to advance the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The published contri-butions certainly do not fully encompass the fields of inquiry, strategies, measures, and actions that the scientific community and the construction sector can implement to contain human activity within planetary boundaries and make both the built environment and biophysical systems more resilient. However, they provide an initial theoretical-practical framework on the topic, which will hopefully con-tribute to stimulating the scientific debate and inspire new research initiatives based on multiscalar ap-proaches, capable of leveraging the potential of digital technologies to address the pressing challenges of contemporary times, including the global goals of climate and carbon neutrality.