Diagram Architects

Rule 7 – Houses don’t use energy; people do.

Paradoxically, one of the biggest mistakes that architects tend to make when designing ‘Eco’, ‘Green’ or ‘Sustainable’ houses is concentrating too hard on the stuff they know.

Seeing themselves as manipulators of form, space and material, they produce artful arrangements of (you guessed it,) form, space and material, full of the coolest technology, and every feature that opens, shuts and whistles. And then wonder where the savings in water and energy went, why the wastewater treatment tanks has gone septic and why the wonderful new building is neither as warm or as cool as it should be.

It shouldn’t be such a surprise. The most powerful design factor that leads to houses that use resources efficiently is not insulation, thermal mass, sun angles or embodied energy, or anything that can be drawn on a plan or scheduled in a specification.

It’s human behaviour.

An operable sunshade is of no use if nobody operates it. The most sophisticated waste sorting system is just waiting to become landfill if nobody uses it. A curtain that nobody closes is a dust collector, and a curtain that nobody opens is a wasted window. 

These technologies should be saving us money, or making our homes more efficient, but they’re just another case of empty consumption unless they fit into the way we live our lives.

Good architecture – and good architects – respond to this in two ways. The first, very difficult, way is to learn about their clients, and design a home around the way they live. This isn’t easy stuff, and involves a lot of searching questions and patient observation during the briefing stage of a project; a lot of to-and-fro with the Client, and some insight on the Client’s behalf. This is vital in all good architecture – whether focused on sustainability or not – and takes time, trust and clear thinking.

The second way, very easy to do badly and extremely hard to do well, is to design a home that begins to shape the behaviour of the people who enjoy it.

Some really, really great architects seem to do this stuff almost intuitively. The great minimalists challenge their clients to live minimally.  The best Regionally responsive architects design places that encourage their occupants to accept the beauty and benefits of the climate they live in, and not feel compelled to shut out their surrounds with air conditioning or plate windows.

My approach? I’ve seen too many arrogant designers come unstuck presuming they could redesign their clients. But I’ve always felt that all of my clients already have the beginnings of an image in their own heads about better ways to live, and how shaping their environment might help shape that.

If that sounds familiar, I’d like to hear from you.

The fantastic image of the light switch above was submitted to Flickr Creative Commons by Rex Roof.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:42 pm and is filed under 10 rules for energy efficient house design, energy efficiency, green house design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.