New Mexico’s political debates about environmental issues are usually rooted in conflicting ideologies where economic growth is pitted against concern for the environment. Decisions take time to be made and more time is needed for laws to pass. When a new party comes into power, the decisions are readdressed and repealed in some cases. Some New Mexican industries and citizens need more urgent support. Expanding Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford and Cradle to Cradle, by McDonough and Braungart offer ideas for designers who are interested in helping in the context of industry and in the streets.
Expanding Architecture and Cradle to Cradle were preceded by The Brundtland Report, written by a United Nations sponsored commission called the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The Brundtland Report, named after the chairperson of the commission, acknowledges that, “today’s environmental challenges arise both from the lack of development and from the unintended consequences of some forms of economic growth” (WCED 340). Many affluent peoples demand a limited amount of resources and generate more waste as they consume more goods. Those who are poor and hungry will destroy their immediate environment in order to survive in the short-term. The Brundtland Report defines the problem and suggests generic guidelines. For example, the Brundtland Report states:
Raw materials and the energy of production processes are only partly converted to useful products. The rest comes out as wastes. Sustainable development requires that the adverse impacts on the quality of air, water, and other natural elements are minimized so as to sustain the ecosystem’s overall integrity. (WCED 341)
Environmentalists who were contemporary with the report thought “sustainable development” was an oxymoron that could be used by developers to make capitalism sound environmentally friendly. Industrialists of the time saw the report as a call for regulatory measures that would threaten their financial success.
Cradle to Cradle suggests the idea that environmentalism and capitalism need not be mutually exclusive goals. When seeing through this new environmental paradigm, industry produces nutrients that can be reused, just as nature does. When we have a project, regardless of the project, we can be conscious of the materials we put into our buildings and create a cradle to cradle mentality. The use of a material becomes cyclic, rather than the linear cradle to grave mentality.
New Mexico’s current political debates still center around the issues of regulation versus job creation. For example, New Mexico’s current political discussions regarding the environment include issues such as cap and trade agreements to limit greenhouse gases from large industries, Pit Rule 17 which suggests treatments of oil pits to reduce ground contamination, and the reduction of water pollution by the dairy industry. Ex-Governor Bill Richardson and his supporters initiated these proposals, some of which were signed into law, and our new Governor Susana Martinez and her supporters are questioning them and trying to repeal them. Governor Martinez and her supporters fear the proposals are not based on sound science and will prevent New Mexico from being a competitive state to operate a business in. Legislation can be a slow process.
Expanding Architecture offers an alternative to the top-down control of development. The book offers examples of clever and pragmatic design solutions that are relatively inexpensive address the problems of those people most in need first. When people find that they have no space to act because of political and economic constraints, peoples imaginations can find solutions. For example, a Life Straw is a straw designed to filter polluted water and allow poverty-stricken people in Africa to enjoy clean water without the inefficiency of traveling long distances. The people who use the straws can enjoy water without becoming sick and the straws are much less expensive than healthcare or infrastructure to transport clean water to people in poverty. Expanding Architecture challenges architects to use their drive to be innovative in service of a greater good.
Architects, by definition, are practitioners and therein leys their value and a major difference between themselves and legislators. Debate allows more than one viewpoint to be had and new sources of information to be revealed to a wider audience. Unfortunately, debate can also take us around in circles, and action is never taken. Architecture is not always successful, but it is a laboratory, and includes many people with good intentions. Most often they build because a project comes to them with funding. In this way they act within a top-down system. I agree with the ideas in Expanding Architecture to an extent. Architects should expand the population they serve and actively seeking diverse solutions, even when they have not been commissioned. In doing so they help people and expand their services. Architects need to make a living too though and a balance needs to be struck between paying commissions and pre-bono or speculative design work. Cradle to Cradle offers an optimistic view of both industry and the environment that architects should always keep in mind as they chose and combine materials. How long will the building last? Will it melt back into the earth like some of New Mexico’s earthen architecture? Will it be built of plastics that can be recycled into other industrial processes when the building is no longer needed? These are questions that architects can answer and put into practice to effect the political debates regarding environmental issues.
Works Cited
Bell and Wakeford, eds. Expanding Architecture. New York: Metropolis Books,
2008.
Bruntland Commission. Toward Sustainable Development. 1987.
McDonough and Braungart. Cradle to Cradle. New York: North Point Press, 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment