Architecture is the art and science of enclosing space. Unfortunately, the scientific elements of it disappoint when placed under close scrutiny. Never have the environmental shortcomings of our buildings been clearer than today, nor have our technological construction achievements seemed more dubious.
This is a sobering thought on Earth Day. It is also an urgent reminder that architecture is much more than the making of aesthetic statements, or creating fashionable interiors.
America began awakening to the technological flaws of its buildings in the early 1970s. The Middle East oil crisis suddenly made the nation aware that contemporary structures wasted enormous amounts of energy used for heating, cooling, lighting and the powering of countless devices dependent on electricity. And it wasn`t just skyscrapers (their lights blazing all night), but millions of wastefully designed houses and other kinds of energy-squandering buildings as well.
The interrelationships of environmental building issues gradually became clear. As a practical matter, little power could be generated without creating some pollution. Nuclear power was basically clean, but carried the chilling possibility of accidental large-scale contamination. Solar power made sense in only a few states. Wind and water power were limited.
A need for metropolitan planning-historically, a discipline rooted in architecture-also was part of the environmental picture. Suburban sprawl and the neglect of urban mass-transit systems encouraged the proliferation of auto traffic that created serious air pollution and other problems. Unfortunately, post-World War II planners who foresaw the economic and social costs of sprawl were ignored, or given no authority.
Long before the term ”environmentalist” was invented, such visionaries as Buckminster Fuller proposed the doming-over of entire cities, while architects Kenzo Tange and Paolo Soleri drafted plans for enormous
megastructures that would put thousands of persons under a single roof.
Such unthinkably large sealed environments never came to pass, but hermetic skyscrapers became the rule in the 1950s as engineers perfected heating, cooling and ventilating systems that made openable windows taboo.
The penalties of sealed workplace environments were heavy, as it turned out. Today, the ”sick building” syndrome is well understood, if not always taken seriously. Everything from certain synthetic materials to copying machines give off fumes that make people ill and increase absenteeism. Poor ventilation aggravates such health hazards, and is made worse when building owners reduce the intake of outside air to cut heating and cooling costs.
Even more frightening is the asbestos menace, which affects more than 700,000 American buildings constructed before 1980. Asbestos fibers disturbed by remodeling or demolition can cause lung cancer, and federal officials have estimated the cost of eliminating the problem at more than $50 billion. The once mighty Johns-Manville Co., a leading supplier of asbestos, was forced into bankruptcy in 1983 after collapsing under billions of dollars` worth of damage suits.
The triumphs of structural and mechanical engineers have been misapplied. Greedy developers and ego-heavy building owners wishing to build monuments to themselves have commissioned ever-taller and bulkier towers in central cities- and, incongruously, in the spread-out suburbs. The buildings contribute nothing to the commonweal, but create congestion whose costs must be borne by taxpayers.
At least obliquely in response to environmental problems, scientists and businessmen in the public and private sectors have begun devoting vast amounts of money and technical resources to creating closed, artificial environments. The connection between earthly problems and space exploration, for example, is still tenuous but becoming more firm.
On a ranch near Tucson, Ariz., Texas billionaire Edward Bass is constructing Biosphere II, a $30-million, sealed, glass-domed environment covering more than two acres and destined to be the home of eight scientists for two years. The goal is to learn more about manipulating the earth`s fouled-up ecology as well as establishing self-contained colonies in space.
Still more esoteric is the work of such theorist-writers as Dorion Sagan, who seems to suggest that Biospheres may eventually become the only safe oases on a terminally polluted planet and that earthlings will finally have to set up bases on Mars and more distant planets. But as science journalist Gina Maranto recently pointed out in The New York Times: ”Sadly absent from Mr. Sagan`s biocentric and technophilic scenario is any consideration of the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of a future spent in artificial, climate-controlled enclosures.”
Nor is there any guarantee that much-touted space technology can create an extraterrestrial version of Biosphere II. Not long ago, federal experts conceded that the planned $30 billion space station called Freedom is so flawed as presently designed that it would begin breaking down even before completion by space-walking astronauts assembling it in orbit.
Architects who examine all of these seemingly disparate but unarguably linked ramifications of building technology and environmental despoilation in the late 20th Century might understandably respond by saying, ”Yes, but you can`t blame all of this on architect-engineers who design buildings. What about all of the other people involved?”
Well, true enough. The blame must be shared by big business, politicians, scientists and an often supine citizenry, among others. Moreover, architects acting singly and through their professional organizations have grappled vigorously with some of the problems-most notably, energy conservation-with considerable success.
Yet when it comes to the enclosure of space-that is, to architecture-where can the focus fall except on architects? They must take the lead when it comes to the socially responsible use of power, safe materials and a sense of design that embraces the public`s welfare as well as esthetic values. It is not enough to comply with building codes and zoning regulations.
We owe a great deal to the makers of buildings who have given us so much beauty and comfort. But it is not unrealistic to expect of them a great deal more.
