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Aesthetics of Sustainability: How the Aesthetic Implications
of Sustainability are Changing and Challenging Modernism
Erich Friesen, HDI/HBE Corp.
Throughout the 1990's, the Post-Modernist answer to the perceived
deficiencies of Modernism had begun to be rejected by most practitioners.
What resulted was a re-emergence of Modernism. However the many
deficiencies that had given rise to Post-Modern movement in the
first place remained, embedded within the re-emergent Modernism.
As Sustainability has become a priority, Modernism has been evolving,
and there are directions emerging that point towards answers to
the problems of Modernism. These new directions deserve clear theoretical
articulation. Because of their role in serving the scientific community,
Laboratory Buildings have been and should continue to be, on the
cutting edge of this movement.
Findings:
Some of the ways that the deficiencies of Modernism are addressed
by Sustainability include:
- The possibility of a new regionalism in Architecture, based
on local climate and materials, both of which are given new and
non-trivial importance by Sustainability.
- The formalism of Modernism as a set of received forms is challenged
by Sustainability, which asks for measurable rationale for formal
development, which sustainability as high-performance building
design reinforces.
- Flowing from Sustainability, approaches such as bio-morphism
and bio-mimicry articulate a new method of deriving forms.
- Buildings are regaining their didactic purpose.
- Changes in the design process are having formal implications.
Multidisciplinary teams produce results that are different from
those produced under the 'architect as heroic designer' process.
Although both Modernism and Post-Modernism clearly stated that
they represent a break with the immediate past history, Sustainability-informed
design is evolutionary rather than revolutionary in its methods
and outcomes. Thus the changes have been incremental in nature,
and have not been as immediately recognizable as the Modern/Post-Modern
juncture, but the effect, given enough time will be just as radical.
Labs21 Connection:
The evolutionary development of architectural design, informed
by sustainability, is a multidisciplinary endeavor. The architect
who seeks to move forward in this new paradigm of action is required
to be much more informed, in a literate and numerate sense, than
the practitioners of the past. This is important for architects
and those who work with architects to understand. The entire team
must challenge its focus from one of design as a process which results
in a heroic architectural form to design as a process that completes
a building as an integrated system/organism, built of materials
that represent flow of data and energy in an ecosystem.
Biography:
Erich Friesen is employed at Hospital Designers, Inc/HBE
Corp. of Saint Louis, MO. Friesen formerly designed laboratories
for Flad and Associates from 1998 to 2002. Major efforts included
the design for the Genetics Institute Building One in Saint Louis
MO, the design for Pharmacia's Chesterfield MO Vivarium and four-story
laboratory tower, the design for Steris Corporation Laboratories
in Saint Louis, and the design for Genetics Institute Mammalian
cell culture cGMP Suite, Building 2. Friesen received his Masters
of Architecture from University of Detroit-Mercy in 2003, where
he also published Sustainable Initiatives for the Post-Fordist
Urban Landscape. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from
the University of Detroit.
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