Some Facts about Air Conditioning

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), 2009.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy, 2011 Building Energy Data Book, 2012.

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 655.

Solar Futures: The View from 1978

The history of solar energy is full of predictions that were not realized and appear in retrospect to have been too-wishful.  Here's an example from 1978:

"No one's crystal ball works very well in examining energy futures, but based on available information and recognizing the uncertainties we view the following goals as optimistic but achievable if we commit the necessary resources to them:
...solar energy technology could meet a quarter of our energy needs by the year 2000.
...It is now possible to speak realistically of the United States becoming a solar society.  A goal of providing significantly more than one-half our energy from solar sources by the year 2020 should be achievable if our commitment to that goal and to conservation is strong."

Source: Solar Energy, Progress and Promise, Council on Environmental Quality.

See also: Solar Futures: The View from 1973

Best of 2015

In reflecting on 2015 I realized I had some amazing architectural experiences.  I thought I'd share them!

1. Maggie's West London Centre, by Rogers Stirk Harbor Partnership (RSHP)

It's a few years old but this is the best new building I've experienced in some time.  It's a cancer care facility---a medical institution---but meant to feel like a home.  I loved it: highly imaginative and beautifully designed at every level.  Who puts a diagonal roof structure on a square grid of columns?  Here it makes perfect sense.  I was also struck at how the design revealed the straight line of influence from mid-century California to the London School.  (It is not open to the public.)

2. Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, by Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Here, as at the Maggie's Centre, we were fortunate enough to have a private tour and be alone in the building.  A once-in-a-lifetime experience!  The rooftop reading room is the centerpiece of Piano's design, and it's one of the great rooms in Paris---a city with a lot of them!

3. Chartres Cathedral, mid-renovation

A major restoration is underway at Chartres Cathedral.  I couldn't miss the opportunity to see it in-progress.  (The left image shows the choir completed versus the South transept in its old state.)  I don't agree with Martin Filler that this is "scandalous" but it's certainly a departure from the dark and gloomy interior to which we are accustomed.

4. Le Corbusier: Mesures L'Homme exhibit at Centre Pompidou

Everybody loves Le Corbusier, and there's always more to learn about him!  I thought this exhibit was very well curated and the presentation was brilliant.

Also visited for the first time:
Lawn Road Flats (Isokon building), by Wells Coates
Kew Gardens (link)
St. Bride's Church, by Wren
Saw Swee Hock Student Centre, by O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects
Walkie Talkie Sky Garden, by Rafael Viñoly
Fondation Louis-Vuitton, by Gehry Partners
Musée du quai Branly, by Jean Nouvel
"la Caixa" Foundation, Barcelona, addition by Arata Isozaki (and Aalto exhibit - link)
Milwaukee Art Museum, old by Saarinen, new by Calatrava
Charnley-Persky house (SAH) and Madlener house (Graham Foundation)

The 1970s: the Attitudinal Barrier

After the energy crisis of 1973, a number of architects quickly became interested in solar architecture and other energy-efficiency measures.  However, these practices did not appeal to many of the establishment and "star" architects of the time.  By the late 1970s the resistance became a point of frustration for those in the solar architecture movement, as seen in this passage from Greg Franta:

The attitudinal barrier of architects themselves may also be a major constraint. Philip Johnson, FAIA, is a world-renown architect (of nonsolar oriented buildings) and winner of the 1978 AIA Gold Medal Award. Mr. Johnson was recently asked when he would start including solar applications in his design process. His response was, "...only after all of the other architects do." Another leading architect, John Dinkeloo, was quoted during the judging of the 1977 Progressive Architecture Awards Program as saying, "I'll be glad when 10 years have passed, and everybody has gotten off this solar kick. They'll find out what a bunch of bologna it is, and get back to work." The attitudinal barriers of leading architects may be a much more serious problem than many people care to admit.

---Gregory Franta, "Commercializing Solar Architecture," Solar Energy Research Institute (March 1979).

See also: A note on the solar architecture of the 1970s

Richard Levine: A 1970s Solar Architect

When you look at solar houses from the 1970s---there were dozens of books which described hundreds of houses---you find a lot of solar architects, often unfamiliar.  You wonder what became of them.

One such architect is Richard Levine.  I quoted Levine in The Solar House, in an overview of the aesthetic issues in 1970s solar architecture.  (The book focuses on solar houses prior to 1973 and only surveys the 1970s briefly.)  I included this quotation because I thought it represented a strong idea:

The first steam powered vessels to cross the Atlantic looked like awkward sailing ships not steamships (just as the first automobiles looked like awkward carriages, not Model T’s).  They carried a full complement of sails because their reliability was well below 100%.  It was not long before they achieved the reliability necessary to evolve their own form and their own structure, vastly different from the form of its progenitors.

Solar building is beginning to embark on this same sort of evolution—awkward, not able to do the job alone, working with adaptations of unsuitable existing forms.  The turning point will be when we change our commitment from an add­-on, booster mentality to a 100% solar sensibility.  At that point evolution will be swift and irreversible.  Solar devices, solar buildings and solar villages will rapidly develop appropriate forms and structures.

Then, I wrote: "Such an evolution did not mature in the 1970s."

So what became of Richard Levine?  He is a professor at the University of Kentucky.  Today he was profiled in the Lexington Herald-Leader, featuring his Raven Run house as well as some thoughts about the future of energy-saving homes.  It's a excellent piece, because it clearly connects that experimental period, which can seem so remote, with the problems and opportunities of today and tomorrow.  I borrowed the photos above from the article.

Link to Lexington Herald-Leader article: "Early solar architect sees big changes ahead for American homes"

See also: A note on the solar architecture of the 1970s