Book Review: Hyperlocalization of Architecture

How do we come to terms with the fact that Sustainable Architecture can encompass everything from Japanese microhousing to Mexican shopping malls?  The new book Hyperlocalization of Architecture: Contemporary Sustainable Archetypes by Andrew Michler gives us some new tools to understand this vast, disorganized movement.  I recommend it to anyone who wants a richer understanding of what's going on, globally, in architecture.

Michler traveled to several destinations around the globe and found (for the most part) unfamiliar architects working out new ideas about sustainable architecture.  The format, which juxtaposes interviews with the architects and well-illustrated projects, is outstanding, because the reader can toggle back and forth to assemble meaning out of words and images.  The effect is one of discovery.  What does Sean Godsell mean when he talks about "playing with childhood memory"?  I turn the pages and begin to locate what this means in the building images.  Michler also offers some interpretive passages, and rather than being intrusive they tend to offer more clues.

Michler's book is full of wonderful revelations.  The real strength of the book is in its curatorial sense of adventure.  Who knew, for example, about the wonderful Spanish architect Berta Barrio and her projects such as Biblioteca de Can Llaurador?  Now I do!  I love her notion that "We are not comfortable if we are just looking for shape when we design."  (This theme of anti-formalism seems to run through the book.)

Like me, Michler loves Japan and seeks to understand its peculiar customs.  His observant essay "Japan Condenses" begins with this paradox: "A new house may have practically no insulation but the toilet seat is always heated."  What does this mean for Sustainable Architecture?  His answer cleverly touches on everything from building science to urbanism to Japanese shopping habits.  Michler's ability to deftly connect the dots across disciplines results in insights which are both smart and fun.

I wish Michler had included London, which has in my opinion the most well-developed building culture in the world.  I expect he stayed away since he is understandably averse to the 'starchitects' like Zaha and Foster, and because global capital is driving much of the agenda in the city right now.  Still, I think he would have found some smaller firms --- like Cullinan Studio, Waugh Thistleton, and Juice Architects --- doing exceptional work and exploring new ideas with an exciting pragmatism.

Of course Sustainable is a slippery word and it's a common criticism that Sustainable Architecture is interpreted differently in different places.  But I think Michler wants to celebrate that Sustainable Architecture will look different in one place than another.  And his term Hyperlocalization even suggests, I think, that sustainability goals will be achieved differently in one place than another.  In other words, Michler is arguing For a Contingent Architecture, one produced as people respond to the peculiar physical and cultural needs and opportunities of their place. 

I would argue that this is akin to the developmental period of modern architecture in the 1920s.  At that time, architects all over the world explored new ideas about space and form, and though they shared a basic agenda, they produced different kinds of buildings.  California's modernism was different from Paris', which was different from Germany's, and so on.  Did Bijovet and Neutra wring their hands about the fact that their strains of modern architecture were different from one another?  Of course not!

Likewise we shouldn't be anxious about the imprecise definition of Sustainable Architecture.  What Michler's book finally shows us is that the world of architecture is pluralistic and dispersed, and it's at the beginning of a profound revolution; this is really exciting stuff.

Disclaimer: Andrew Michler is a friend.  But I wouldn't write anything here that I don't believe.

Related: Elrond Burrell's review (May 2016)

The Conservatory Effect

As readers of The Solar House know, I discovered that concerns about overheating were central to the development of the solar house.  Early modern architects found that too much glass can easily lead to an uncomfortable house which requires air conditioning; this is the subject of chapter 2, "The Solar House and the Glass House."  Proper shading became central to the definition of the solar house from the 1930s.  Glass house architects like Mies van der Rohe ignored this fundamental issue, and clients like Edith Farnsworth suffered.

It appears that some green homebuilders today are learning the same lessons.  (They should read more.)  British writer Mark Brinkley asks: "Are Eco Homes prone to Overheating?" 

Brinkley calls this by its British term: The Conservatory Effect.  He says the effect is created by large, unshaded, south-facing glazing, plus inadequate ventilation. This produces spaces which are rendered almost uninhabitable during the day time.

Many of the characters in The Solar House would have been well-acquainted with The Conservatory Effect (though they didn't use that term); they worked hard to find techniques to mitigate it. 

I like this label, The Conservatory Effect, because it implies that modern architects should be more familiar with the history of climate control innovations in greenhouses (conservatories) in Victorian Britain (which I recently discussed here).  I'm going to start using it!

Marcel Breuer's Villa Sayer

Here's a project which offers some fascinating insight into problems of environmental control in modern architecture.

Marcel Breuer's Villa Sayer (Normandy, 1972-1974) is currently featured in an exhibit at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris.  It's a house built with a concrete hyperbolic parabaloid roof.  During the design process, Breuer made extensive notes questioning the design problems related to heating and cooling:

There is a persistent notion that Modernists like Breuer were insensitive to issues of thermal comfort.  This is clear counter-evidence: an inquisitive effort to create a 'well-tempered environment'.  Yet it is also telling that Breuer asks his designers "Is this house air-conditioned?" at a relatively advanced stage in the process.  An architect sensitive to energy use would certainly know the answer.  (Energy use was not a concern to architects generally at this time.)

Here's a link to the page about the Villa Sayer at the Cité de l'Architecture.  Also more here.

The Cité de l'Architecture seems to have a strong interest in these issues.  Last summer I wrote about their display on Solar Geometry in France, 1961

Related: Straight from the Desk of Marcel Breuer, at Dwell.com

What is the floating world?

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has an excellent collection of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.  Ukiyo-e means 'Pictures of the Floating World'.  This is how the V&A explains this genre:

What is the floating world?

Living only for the moment, turning our attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and maples, singing songs, drinking wine, and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating, caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current; this is what we call the floating world.

From A Tale of the Floating World, by Asai Ryui, about 1665 (trans. Richard Lane)
 

The Palm House at Kew Gardens

I recently visited The Palm House at Kew Gardens---an amazing experience and recommended to all.  I knew it to be a seminal building in the history of environmental controls due to its use of tinted glass, thanks to the work of my friend Henrik Schoenefeldt.*

Behind the glass and wonderful iron structure, I found the Palm House to be highly sophisticated in its methods of heating and cooling.  The building has in-floor ducts, steam radiators in specially-designed wall cavities, and ventilating panels at the bottom of the wall!  These are clearly integral to the original building, completed in 1848.

In The Solar House I wrote about the use of ventilating louvers (which use the same type of tilting panels, behind louvers) in houses of the 1940s and 1950s**, but I was not aware that their origins were in Victorian England.  There is so much more work to be done in understanding the history of the well-tempered environment!

The first principle is clear: buildings with a lot of solar gain need a lot of ventilation.  It's remarkable to see that this principle was so well-understood so early. 

And a final note: Inside the Palm House is a catwalk structure which you can climb and walk among the treetops.  I'm guessing it's about 24 feet above the floor.  On the day I visited and climbed, the temperature difference was profound, probably on the order of 15°F higher up top---serious stratification!  I wish I had measured it.

*Schoenefeldt, Henrik. "The use of scientific experimentation in developing the glazing for the Palm House at Kew." Construction History (2011): 19-39.
**Also discussed a bit here: Solar Principles and Laramie's Hitchcock House and here: Keck's Sloan house II: a new look