The Built Environment

• 40% of the economy’s material throughput

• 65% of electricity• 30% of GHG

emissions• 60% of ozone-

depleting substances• Our everyday

environment

Principles of a Green Economy1. The Primacy of Human Need, Service, Use-value,

Intrinsic Value & Quality 2. Following Natural Flows 3. Waste Equals Food4. Elegance and Multifunctionality5. Appropriate Scale / Linked Scale6. Diversity7. Self-Reliance, Self-Organization, Self-Design8. Participation & Direct Democracy9. Human Creativity and Development 10. The Strategic role of the Built-environment, the

Landscape & Spatial Design

The Ecological Built-Environment

• Qualitative Development is Place-based• Eco-efficiency: tied to spatial design• Need to Integrate structures of Invisibility: “home” & “workplace” formal & vernacular landscapes

Industrialism: The Divided Economy

Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value “Consumption” “Production” People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

Dematerialization & the ESCO model

• Savings as a virtual source of energy• The Green Economy: creates Wealth through

savings (or dematerialization) • Savings as a source of Investment

Challenge of financial design: dealing with first costs

The Centrality of the Landscape

“The industrial age replaced the natural processes of the landscape with the global machine…while regenerative design seeks now to replace the machine with landscape.”

…John Tillman Lyle

Energy & Spatial Organization

• Energy & the Landscape

Eco-infrastructure: going with nature

• The Eco-system Model: eco-infill

• Integrating the Divided Economy

Every place a locus of eco-production

Buildings as producers not just

consumers of energy

The Post WW II Waste Economy

Permanent War Economy

The Suburb Economy:

Oil / Autos / Subdivisions

“The greatest misallocation of resources in human history.”

…James Howard Kunstler

Key Areas of Green Building

Green Building Certification

--new construction --retrofit --neighbourhoods

• Natural Building & eco-community design

Organic DesignThe Timeless Way of

BuildingBioshelters / Living

Machines

History of Green Building

earliest ‘green buildings’: hunting-gathering Neolithic, ‘vernacular’

1973 Energy Crisis

Superinsulation

• late 70s/early 80s• emphasis on holding

the heat in.• dangers:

– condensation: if not airtight enough.

– bad air: if too airtight• result: more attention

to ventilation and healthy materials

1980sIndustrial Ecology: Living Machines

Roots of Certification: the Rainforest

1990s

Metrics of Sustainability Natural Building

“Waste” & Building

Shearing Layers

Deconstruction