In a very short time America has realized that global warming can transform our lives through storms, floods, invasive pests and mystifying environmental change. But we’ve yet to engage the fundamental question: what to do about it beyond changing light bulbs? The big talk is of hydrogen-powered cars and elaborate, yet-to-be-invented means to store huge amounts of carbon.
By contrast, adapting buildings and communities promises rapid progress in reducing America’s carbon footprint — as well as making more vibrant and appealing places to live. Many strategies are low-tech and low cost (like making bicycles a bigger part of our lives) and others are free or offer handsome paybacks — but only if we confront ingrained habit.
Why buildings? A wide variety of tested tactics exist today to dramatically reduce the impacts of buildings on the environment, from old-fashioned awnings to new ways to light buildings with the sun and ventilate them with breezes. If we do not take on the conservation potential of buildings and communities — the easy tasks — it’s extremely unlikely we’ll make the enormous commitment it will take to develop pie-in-the-sky clean-energy strategies.
Why communities? Rather than devote enormous amounts of time and treasure to build SUVs that get 50 miles per gallon on the way to the discount superstore 30 miles away, James S. Russell argues that intelligently designing the way we lay out our towns and get around them could reduce that trip to a few miles or eliminate it entirely. That&rsqou;s just one way that building (and rebuilding) communities can dramatically reduce the energy we consume (and the aggravation we endure) in the course of daily tasks.
Why buildings and communities? Energy efficiencies pay back more quickly when building strategies are coordinated with neighborhood layouts and urban networks. A group of buildings can amortize the upfront costs of a geothermal well much more quickly than sinking wells for each structure. Thinking about the design of an entire city block together, rather than as a collection of buildings, means that every room in each building can be flooded with daylight so that few rooms need rely on electric lights. Or one structure can shade another from the heat of the afternoon sun.
Coping with climate change cannot be compartmentalized when the urban places we share face so many other challenges. Broadly speaking, The Agile City shows how communities can develop the capacity to adapt to circumstance — whatever those circumstances may be. Real progress can only be made if tactics that engage global warming offer collateral benefits — as many do.
The future seems so challenging only because we’ve allowed our adaptive skills to atrophy. We’ve accepted the idea that communities grow, mature, stagnate and decline by economic forces as immutable as the tides. In fact most of the mechanisms that drive development and building design are artificial inventions of government and finance — unique to America, if not particularly well-suited to what America has become. But facing the tumultuous future is as much about understanding the forces acting on us, examining our long-held but often undiscussed values, and having a national conversation about what kinds of urban places we want to make and how to make them.
James S. Russell, editor; with essays by Gary R. Hilderbrand, Peter G. Rowe, and James S. Russell
Published by 2wice Arts Foundation, 184 pages.
A monographic treatment, gorgeously illustrated, of two house projects by architects Salvatore LaRosa and Ronald Bentley, of B Five studio in New York. These works were painstakingly developed over time, and are deeply considered from the scale of the landscape to custom-made items of furniture and decorative arts. They engage history, nature, rituals both sacred and everyday, and the meaning of domesticity.
James S. Russell, editor; with Christine Saum, Executive Director, Mayors’ Institute on City Design; and Mark Robbins, Series Editor
National Endowment for the Arts Series on Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2002, 124 pages.
This illustrated volume concisely explains how to successfully use design in public projects. Brief overviews cover the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, urban planning, and art. They especially focus on the esthetic modes these fields employ and how they can usefully shape—and be shaped by—public expectations and public desires. Essays by an array of experts in urban design, urban history, design criticism and urban economics offer a variety of perspectives on the nature of design and the city. The texts are illustrated by numerous examples and augmented by brief, “best practice” case studies. The book should be useful to officials, citizens’ organizations, and students that are interested in what designers do, how they work, and the way that design can help reconcile contentious land-use and planning issues.
Designing For Security: Guidelines For Using Art and Design
James S. Russell, writer, with Elizabeth Kennedy, Meredith Kelly, and Deborah Bershad. The Art Commission of the City of New York and the Design Trust for Public Space, 1999, 2002.
The publication looks from several perspectives at the ways in which the design of public facilities can enhance security and discourage criminal behavior. It is aimed primarily at architects and designers, but the text is nontechnical, and can be usefully consulted by anyone who is concerned about the security of buildings and public settings.
Chapters summarize research on the relationship of crime and environmental design and discuss means by which the design and management of public environments influences behavior. Texts suggests ways that people who manage and use facilities can contribute to both the perception and the reality of safety. The publication offers as well specific guidance on all aspects of site and building design. Although it does not specifically describe antiterrorism tactics, many of the considerations offer lessons to managers dealing with antiterrorism concerns. Numerous illustrated case studies are included.
An excerpt:
Conceptual Ways of Looking at Crime