"Hedonistic Sustainability"

METROPOLIS published an article online recently on incorporating activity and pleasure into sustainable technologies. Drawing sustainability out of the realm of science and placing squarely into peoples' lives is essential for building public support and expanding our expectations for how sustainability ought to interact with the built environment.

Leave it to Bjarke Ingels to win a competition for his proposal for a new waste to energy plant by designing a 31.000 m2 ski slope. The competition, which yielded 36 proposals in fall 2010, was the largest environmental initiative in Denmark. With a budget of 3.5 Billion DKK, competing teams designed structures to replace a 40- year-old Amagerforbraending plant in Copenhagen with a more sustainable waste energy plant. 

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) decided to approach their design in a way that truly celebrates the idea of sustainability. What they call “hedonistic sustainability,” refers to design that improves the quality of life, both directly and indirectly- ecologically and socially.

Physical exercise and fresh air are rarely associated with waste treatment plants. But here the ski slope reaches out to citizens and gives them a new recreational facility, even as it creates a new relationship between waste plant and city. It shows a connection between shaping a healthy future and disposing waste. And it employs the latest technologies in waste treatment, while focusing on environmental performance. This is not a hidden, isolated, utility structure, but a celebration of health and well being. 

BIG really topped itself this time. While the firm’s buildings continue to be green, innovative, and never fail to surprise, here they propose the ultimate in sustainability. The ski slope, made from recycled materials, sits atop a building wrapped in a green facade formed by plant modules. Beneath this living skin are new waste management and energy management technologies. This building takes the idea of mixed use to a whole new level. Shouldn’t all our buildings strive to do the same?

In Los Angeles, like most cities, sustainable practices are integrated into things like building design or streetscape improvements but rarely is the sustainable technology itself the focus of the design exercise. Ingels' design forces us to rethink our understanding of "sustainability" and conceive of new ways in which Los Angeles could leverage sustainable technologies (like waste to energy plants) as cultural and social resources. Creating a symbiotic relationship among these concepts can advance the sustainability of the region while also adding to its vitality and livability.

Reading Place

Masdar in Abu Dhabi

I just came across an interesting piece from the blog myurbanist on "reading the evolution of place." The author articulates his message through a brief analysis of eleven pairs of images of various places throughout the world, mostly cities.

Some of his commentary is insightful and strikes at the core of what this blog is trying to accomplish: establishing a new contextually sensitive discourse, systemic and holistic in scope, about sustainability and what it means for the future of the Los Angeles region.

Barrios of Caracas, Venezuela

"Today, we are driven by a new sustainability ethic, necessarily systemic in scope. Carbon-neutrality is the rage, and location efficiency, clean energy and the return of neighborhood are the watchwords of change. Formulas and metrics, and new regulatory systems attempt results, and show the quest to measure how close we are to achieving ideal forms of location and development.

But...context is key, and adaptation to a multi-environmental sense of place, associated imagery and sensation is an essential element of building design, urban development and innovation going forward. Creating beautiful buildings that are able to work for the environment, or crafting appropriate enabling regulations, should also be considered as part of a broader, holistic effort. There is no use in having architects, urban planners, developers and lawyers thinking in isolation about a better future."

Street in Valletta, Malta

His last point about a "broader, holistic effort" is usually directed at our understanding of the environment; a point mentioned to underscore the importance of thinking of the environment in its entirety, rather than as discrete systems. However, I think he's talking about something slightly different and less obvious - that in order for place to be legible in the "sustainable city," architects, urban planners, developers and lawyers need to think and work together. Sustainability is just as much about environmental outcomes as it is about process and collaboration. Without a sustainable practice for producing the sort of urbanism our cities and environment demand, we are never going to make progress toward carbon-neutrality, water independence or any other pressing environmental issue. This is true for Los Angeles just as much as it is for any other big city.