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Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Art & Architecture Renovations Near Completion at Yale U.
Paul Rudolph's 1963 Brutalist icon is getting a makeover, plus an addition by Charles Gwathmey.
Guest Blogger: Anne Stephenson
Even the greenest construction project increases a college’s carbon footprint.
Other News
Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development
Universities are taking advantage of new ways to develop their holdings through corporate partnerships, a new report says.
U. of Iowa Begins Mucking Out and Assessing the Damage
The university's insurer spent the weekend starting to assess the damage to the auditorium and 19 other flooded buildings.
U. of Iowa Flooding Takes Costly Toll in Research and Equipment
Parking lots are under water, some roads leading to the campus are closed, and the campus utility infrastructure is damaged.
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
Green Features Are No Longer an Add-On, Says a Harvard Architect
The Harvard Design Magazine has a lengthy examination of the significance of the new Allston campus, the design of which puts an emphasis on environmental issues.
Nathalie Beauvais, the principal architect for Harvard University’s Allston Development Group, says that designers no longer have to compromise aesthetics for environmental responsibility. (Some might say they never had to.)
“We are entering an era in which building and landscape performance to minimize negative effects of the built world on nature will take a leading role,” she writes. “The old cliché that the pursuit of greenness in buildings is inevitably in conflict with the pursuit of aesthetic quality is disappearing fast. Green features are no longer being thought of as ‘tack-ons,’ like solar roof panels, but instead as elements as integral as support beams or doors. One must design using green features and making them as aesthetically rich and appealing as any other aspect of buildings.”
Allston will be an “integrated design process,” in which engineers and designers are working closely together, and choices in aesthetics and materials are deeply influenced by materials’ performance.
That’s a trend that many have observed and written about, Ms. Beauvais says. “Rem Koolhaas has written that ‘whenever there is a revolution, or fast change, in architecture, professional barriers break down as specialists exchange roles. Architects become sculptors, engineers become designers, artists turn into architects, and all these job descriptions become fuzzy.’… In Some Assembly Required, Michael Sorkin argues for a reunion of architecture and urbanism both to meet their global and local responsibilities and to fulfill their promise of joy. Landscape architecture and engineering should be added to his list. Sorkin’s statement is idealistic, but ultimately nothing less should drive the making of cities and campuses.”
Scott Carlson | Thursday May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
Previous: Fire at Delft U. Destroys Design Artifacts and Rare Books
Next: Guest Blogger: Tweaking Won't Assure Sustainability—but Reimagining Might
I wholeheartedly endorse Ms. Beauvais’ perspective that green design does not have to be juxtaposed against aesthetics; we need to integrate energy economies and sustainability in everything we do.
HOWEVER to quote Koolhaas’ comments that render architects as sculptors is to forget that people need to learn, heal, work and live in the spaces architects design. Architecture is affirmatively NOT sculpture and if engineers must be designers, it may be because architects have lost sight of their responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of the users of the buildings they create.
— Nora Rubinstein May 15, 03:58 PM #
Architecure is indeed not sculpture, or if it is, then it must be functional, livable sculpture. The incredible work of the architect I admire most – Frank Lloyd Wright – was beautiful to look at, but often very uncomfortable to live in.
— Al May 15, 04:51 PM #
Sorkin’s got it about right: “a reunion of architecture and urbanism both to meet their global and local responsibilities and to fulfill their promise of joy.” Sustainability is a responsibility of designers, as is social justice, as is health-safety-and-welfare, as is the client’s organizational benefit. Sculpture, definitely not. (Koolhaas’ books that I’ve seen are somewhat sculptural themselves, and entirely unreadable. But I don’t think they were meant to be read, exactly… at least not in any sense of the term we’s recognize.)
— Herb May 16, 10:29 AM #