Sustainability becomes the mainstream?

After the publication of Agenda21 by the United Nations, sustainability becomes a crucial topic in the 21th century among nations. It plays a role of everything from legislations to the way you manage your daily waste. At the end of 2015, a new version of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) is announced to set targets and indicators for UN member states over the coming 15 years.

Many governments and non-governmental organizations follow the UN’s steps. In the specific field of architecture, for example, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) wisely adopt the “2030 Challenge”, which seeks for carbon neutrality in the industry, to encourage practitioners to create a sustainable future for the planet.

Nevertheless, in recent years, the AIA announces to remove sustainable design from members' annual continuing education requirements. The reason given is that sustainable design practices are realized as a mainstream design intention in the architectural community.

Building usually occupies high percentage of the energy consumption. For instance, in the US, buildings account for half of the energy and three quarters of the electricity consumption. It could be really benefit for the environment, if most architectural design could take sustainability into consideration. On the contrary, “sustainable design” is now still a “myth” to a considerable number of architects. In the reality, only 2% of AIA member firms have signed to the “2030 Commitment”, and less than 1% are actually reporting on their progress. So much for the mainstream. Why’s that?

After discussing with my friends, we found education might be one cause. In universities, many compulsory or elective curriculums relevant to sustainability are open to students. Nevertheless, in many design studios, tutors still concentrated on volume, form, location, orientation and spatial experience. Very few requirements of sustainability are mentioned in the brief. There seems a gap between “good design” and “green design”. Moreover, when talking about innovation and creative design, parametric structures or fancy materials could be the first two things to show on website. Like Fran Gehry said, green building standard might only be a ‘bogus’.

Another cause could be related to clients. At this stage, some newly developed technology should be applied in sustainable projects, which means the cost might be more or less higher than normal projects. However, one of the most important things for clients is money. Although sustainable design could be financially efficient in the long term, it is still hard to forecast when the buildings could get profit. Furthermore, clients usually care only about whether the architects meet all their requirements. Other factors, such as energy consumptions, electricity and ventilation are less important.

In this case, the removal of sustainable education announced by AIA is quite critical. Sustainable design is still far away from mainstream in industry. To enhance the consideration of sustainability, there is still a long way to go.


Reference: http://www.aia.org/practicing/2030Commitment/