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RADAR
FEATURES
COMMENT
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| | PRACTICE
| SPECIFYING FOR SUSTAINABILITY |
Architects are well placed to help effect change in the built environment, and specifications are on the way of subtly moving practices towards sustainability outcomes. Lorina Neregna, Manager Sustainability at the RAIA, outlines the issues.
Architects, with their unique relationship to the
built environment, are suitably equipped to meet
the challenges of sustainability in the built
environment. As great “change agents” of design
culture, they regularly resolve specific and complex
requirements of space and light, sound and comfort,
and are particularly skilled in the recondite
integration of multilayered concerns in a
multidisciplined context. There appears to be no
tangible barrier to using these same skills to develop
sustainable building practices. In reality, however,
significant and urgent paradigm shifts are necessary
before such adaptation can occur, and current
paradigms appear stolid and impenetrable.
Specifying for sustainability is not beyond the
efficacy of architects. Nevertheless, the potential to
lead and guide in sustainability of the built
environment requires ongoing commitment and
continuing education. It should not be relinquished
to the perceived comfort zone of regulation.
A plethora of information is available for the
committed practitioner. Although, as Ceridwen
Owen points out, “information is not knowledge,
and knowledge does not necessarily instigate
action.”1
Specification writing has the potential to subtly
effect change and it could become one of the
greatest tools for developing sustainable concepts in
project development and documentation. Starting to
implement such a practice is a formidable step, one
that is not without considerable research, trial and
error, and seemingly unrelated time-consuming
activities in the midst of pressing deadlines. These
are all familiar and regular aspects of the general
course of an architect’s work.
Preparing a specification is an ideal starting
point for addressing sustainability and, at the very
least, instigating positive measures for the building
programme. The basic outline and set categories of
the specification mean architects can analyze
elements in a logical sequence. Much work has
already been undertaken by Natspec with the
“Greening of Natspec” project, which addresses
some aspects of the specification process.
Nevertheless, architects must resist the temptation
to defer all decisions relating to sustainability to a
set template without the application of thought and
consideration.
In the architectural profession the tenacious
persistence required to drive a point or issue home
is part of the design process. Architects are often
referred to, with eyes rolling, as the prima donnas of
the building process – obstinately hanging on to an
ideal or vision in the absence of client or team
support. This characteristic is perhaps the defining
difference between architects and other building
professionals and it means that the profession has
the potential to play a leading role in developing
sustainable approaches.
Architects should by now be reasonably au fait
with the major concepts and themes relating to
sustainability in the built environment. Key
environmental concerns such as climate change and
water/salinity management are no longer seen as
“future mitigation objectives”, they are current
design and operational concerns. Issues such as life
cycle, indoor air ecology, waste and water
management, to name a few, can inform the design
and documentation stages of projects. But, it is not
enough to simply meet current regulatory
requirements of energy efficiency, more thought and
creativity is required to undertake a bone fide
analysis. Sustainability is much broader in scope and
depth than regulations currently express, and the
five stars required for statutory compliance should be
seen as minimum practice, not best practice.
Many architects are capable of, and indeed
succeed in, achieving a higher star rating for energy
efficiency in their built work. Many have been doing
so for many years, and the evolving knowledge and
data sources of sustainability mean that creativity is
a key component of its integration. Nonetheless,
“energy efficient” does not equal “sustainable” –
energy efficiency is probably best understood as the
first generation of a top-down method of
implementing change towards sustainability.
The bottom-up approach can, then, best be
described as putting basic strategies to work. For the
specification writer an appropriate starting point is
as follows – question everything. Where does it
come from? How is it made? How is it transported?
What are the characteristics of its performance over
the life cycle of the building? Is it suitable for reuse?
Does it emit toxic chemicals when placed? What are
the alternatives? The independent appraisal of
products, materials and building systems is best
sought from a variety of sources including, but not
limited to, the suppliers, manufacturers and
representative industry associations. This
questioning is a step away from the “do nothing” approach and a step towards sustainability for the
uninitiated. Architects should remind themselves
that they are capable of much more.
If architects are to consolidate their position as
one of the key decision makers in their industry – a
role which, in the future, will be inextricably linked
to executing sustainable outcomes – then it would
seem prudent for architects to inform themselves of
pertinent themes relating to their livelihood. If we
don’t, we may simply become the irrelevant
window-dressers of the future built environment.
To begin with, architects should take a close and
unbiased look at some of the most common
materials specified in a project – timber, concrete,
glass, steel. This will raise many issues for the
conscientious designer. One respected resource for
such information is the BDP Environment Design
Guide. This tome, which has been some ten years in
the making, covers salient themes relating to
sustainability in the built environment and takes a
multidisciplinary approach to addressing sensitive
topics such as product and material appraisal, case
studies, and general notes on policy papers,
directories and bibliographies. Guidance is offered
on water and waste management strategies,
renewable energy sources, passive design, indoor air
ecology and greenhouse gas mitigation.
Great buildings are inextricably linked to the
often-great architects who created them. The great
buildings of the future will not be judged by the
paradigms of a past era, when fossil fuel
consumption permitted building types and
architectural dogma to evolve that were
unresponsive to climatic concerns. Indeed, in the
not too distant future many of today’s great
buildings may only be suitable for human
occupation with the retrofitting of major passive
design elements. The evolving implications of
climate change on architecture, and the extensive
use of the two most consumed substances on earth,
water and cement, lie within the domain of
architectural decision making.
Ceasing to use either water or concrete are not
realistic options, but architects can do a lot to
ensure that all building materials are used
judiciously and knowledgeably. At least one tonne
of greenhouse gas is emitted for every tonne of
cement produced, but cements can be blended with
by-products from other extractive industries to
produce eco-cements – resulting in up to a forty
percent reduction in the embodied energy.2 Eco-cements are currently available in Australia.
High mass construction is a significant element of
passive design, so reducing concrete consumption is
not the answer. Instead, if, from today, every
architect familiarized themselves with the
application and specification of eco-cements
powerful positive changes could and would follow.
Timber is as indispensable as concrete in our
built environment and compelling arguments from
this industry in Australia assure consumers that we
need not abandon our penchant for polished
floorboards and conventional construction methods.
But what of the exotic timbers sourced from
threatened reserves in Third World rainforests?3 Mahogany, for example, is listed in the appendix of
the United Nations Convention of International
Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).4 Can the
designers who specify exclusive mahogany rooms
verify that the timber used is sourced from
sustainable forestry operations?
Plastic consumption in building, and in
everyday life for that matter, provides an important
example of how architects could raise issues such
as site waste management and product stewardship.
Anyone in doubt of the dire consequences of
reckless plastic disposal (of which we are all guilty)
should refer to Charles Moore’s disturbing account
of coming across a literal sea of plastic trapped in
the Pacific Gulf Stream while sailing from Los
Angeles to Hawaii in 2003.5 However, as William
McDonough points out, plastics can also be
understood as a technical nutrient (as opposed to a
biological nutrient) endlessly available for recycling
and reuse.6 This is contingent on diligent waste
management practice.
Citing these examples and highlighting these
issues is not a finger-pointing exercise. Rather, these
are the types of questions all architects should be
asking from now. Past sins forgiven, we have the
ability to effect change and to make a significant
positive contribution from this point on. This
article – not unlike our efforts to date regarding
sustainability in the buildings we have designed –
merely scrapes the surface. The challenges of
sustainability should not be seen as extra
appendages to how we have designed in the past,
instead architects have the inherent ability to go
back to the drawing board and to reinvent the
design process to reflect the buildings we need from
now. This should not than hamper our creativity –
it could be a meaningful way for us all to address
the true dilemma of our age: climate change. The
built environment we help to create will define our
position for generations to come.
LORINA NERVENGA IS MANAGER SUSTAINABILITY AT THE RAIA.
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NOTES
1. Ceridwen Owen,
“Sustaining Edg(e)”,
Architecture Australia
vol 94 no 4 (July/August
2005) p. 32.
2. Sourced from the
Concrete Centre
www.concretecentre.com
3. See “Illegally Logged
Timber Imports Make it
to Australia” news report
regarding the Overview
of Illegal Logging report,
commissioned by the
government. ABC News
Online Saturday 28
January, 2006.
www.abc.net.au/news/
newsitems/200601/s1557
009.htm
4. United Nations
Convention on
International Trade in
Endangered Species
(CITES). Planet Ark,
www.planetark.org.
5. Charles Moore,
“Trashed: Across the
Pacific Ocean, Plastics,
Plastics Everywhere” Natural History vol 112,
no 9 (November 2003).
Online at http://www.
mindfully.org/Plastic/
Ocean/Moore-Trashed-
PacificNov03.htm
6. William McDonough
and Michael Braungart
Cradle to Cradle:
Remaking the way we
make things (New York:
Northpoint Press, 2002).
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Copyright © 2010 Architecture Media Pty Ltd
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