2. Timescale(s)
Implicit in our understanding of timescale
is the notion of measurement. To
measure time or land is an inherently
human activity, the framework of
reference of which is culturally
determined. The earth’s ecosystems, in
as far as they can be understood and
measured, are governed by cycles and
timelines of which we are often quite
unaware. In that respect we as humans
are primarily interested in measuring what
interests or affects us as a species, in the
short term of our own timescale.
3. January 11, 2015
Minutes or Hours
While we are aware of clouds coming and
going within minutes or hours, of days and
nights periodically alternating and of
seasons passing, even though their
multiplicity as well as their boundaries are
a matter of social convention, there exist
many processes associated with the Earth
that are much slower than a few hours,
days or months, which may take
thousands of years and present us with
new terms of reference in our
understanding of “cycles" and "variability".
4. January 11, 2015
11 Year Solar Cycle
The Sun's magnetic field is changing its
direction and strength in cycles that take
11 years on average.
5. January 11, 2015
100 Million Years Continental Drift
There are slow circulation patterns in the
ocean that effectively replace water in
the deeper layers after a millennium or
two. The Milankovitch cycles, caused by
various astronomical, periodic or quasi-
periodic oscillations of the Earth's orbit,
including changes of its eccentricity,
recur every 20,000 year.
The continental drift radically changes
the shape of the Earth's continents every
hundreds of millions of years.
6. January 11, 2015
Life spans, long and short
Similarly, there are life spans that rival our
own in duration either because of their
extreme brevity as for the May Fly or
longevity, in the case of the Giant
Tortoise.
7. January 11, 2015
Geological Timeline (mya)
Human activities from evolution through
the building of civilisations to modern
business cycles proceed in parallel with
other important cycles, the magnitude and
frequency of which sit in another
timescale to ours.
The methodologies we adopt regarding
the measurement, representation, and
evaluation of these timescales is driven by
our awareness and understanding of their
relevance.
8. January 11, 2015
Finite Resources
A sustainable approach to design
does not merely mean securing
commercial growth with limited
resources but more importantly
preventing negative impacts on the
environment and society.
It encourages industry to focus on
long-term environmental and societal
strategy and goals for the long term
benefit of future generations, shifting
the focus from minimising the impact
on commercial return to maximizing
ecological sustainability for future
generations.
9. Sustainable Development
We are, as a society and as designers,
embedded in an outlook and lifestyle that
is at cross purposes with a vision of
sustainable development.
Commentators warn that individuals will
have to act as socially responsible
citizens, not self-gratifying customers, and
to care for their neighbours near and far.
10. Technology
The practical pressures of development
and land use constraints, resulting from
the ring-fencing of valuable resources, are
however tainting the discourse on
sustainability; the current approach is one
that stems from a technicist perspective
that fundamentally believes that
technology, supported by statutory
regulation and self-management, will
come to a timely rescue.
11. January 11, 2015
Regulation
UK legislation in the form of the Energy
Performance of Buildings (Certificates and
Inspections) (England and Wales)
Regulations 2007, implements the EC
eponymous Directive and requires Energy
Performance Certificates and display
Energy Certificates.
The reaction to the new legislation from
the construction industry has been mixed
with some fearing the cost burden and its
short term effect on the market and others
criticizing the EU for lacking strength of
vision and not pushing the initiative far
enough, sacrificing long term gains for
short term political stability.
12. Management
As a process, it develops Cost Benefit
Analysis (CBA) methodology, applying it
to the environment, and uses a
combination of data collation and
evaluation tools borrowed from scientific
research and accounting.
Sophisticated methods of analysis, such
as, checklists, quantified or component
interaction matrices, overlays, networks
and simulations have contributed to make
EIA a technical process, creating the
illusion of certainty where there is little or
none.
13. Development Bias
Current environmental policy, while
recognizing the importance of protecting
the environment from harmful effects,
nevertheless endorses, nearly 30 years
after the Rio Declaration, a clear
presumption in favour of the first of the
three pillars of sustainable development:
economic growth.
More often than not EIA leads to CBA,
whereby the loss to the ecology is
accepted and, when possible,
compensated for elsewhere, be it through
carbon trading, forestation or green taxes,
ultimately allowing development to
proceed.
14. Loss of Bio-diversity
Long-term baseline surveys, which
capture the flow and flux of natural
systems, do not fit easily within
anthropocentric commercial timescales.
A sustainable approach should encourage
a focus on long-term environmental and
societal strategy and goals for the benefit
of future generations, shifting the focus
from minimizing the impact on commercial
return to maximizing ecological
sustainability.
15. January 11, 2015
Long Now
Our design thinking is often limited to
relatively short development periods;
Stewart Brand caricatures our civilization
as “revving itself into a pathologically short
attention span”.
The trend may stem from the acceleration
of technology, the short-horizon
perspective of market-driven economics,
the next-election perspective of
democracies, or the distractions of
personal multi-tasking.
This translates itself into shortsighted
project timescales that constrain
architects to the design and delivery of
short-lived buildings.
16. January 11, 2015
Comfort Criteria
The fundamental premise behind
sustainability is the assumption of a
uniformly controlled environment, which
accompanied the emergence of a certain
notion of modern comfort based on the
application of science and
democratisation of technology, should be
abandoned in favour of one where the
notion of comfort is in tune with natural
eco-systems and local conditions.
Comfort is a temporary and precarious
social and cultural achievement; it is
important to challenge contemporary
conventions, the relentless reproduction
of which threatens to condemn society to
ever-rising energy consumption.
17. January 11, 2015
Patterns of Use
Most modern buildings contain
wasteful technology systems; this is
particularly true of lighting and air-
conditioning.
Legislation has consequently been
focusing on improving the insulation
of the thermal envelope contributing
to the overall performance of the
building.
18. January 11, 2015
Light foot
Certain nomadic cultures, like the
Inuit, Tuareg or Aborigines, may
appear unsophisticated, if culture is
measured by monumental
construction, but their light-footed
approach is borne out of respect for
the environment and out of an
instinctive understanding, passed on
through generations, of the necessary
balance that must be struck between
man and nature.
19. Educators
Education of and by architects ought to be
playing an important role in generating
environmental awareness of project
development and in promoting values that
are conducive to the practice of
sustainability.
The approach to the application of
sustainability in architecture should be
predicated on developing professional
skills around three important tools of the
design process: consultation,
representation and evaluation.
20. Representation
The issue of representation of
environmental impacts of projects
and their significance is important in
the development of a language and
methodology that would eventually
support the architectural
investigation of sustainability.
21. Consultation
Consultation plays an important role in
environmental awareness both as a data-
gathering tool and as a consensus-
creating mechanism, recognising the
diversity and plurality of points of view;
above all it offers necessary project
verification as part of a cyclical process of
design.
22. January 11, 2015
Evaluation
The issue of significance in the
evaluation of aspects is central to
EMS as it affects the subsequent
setting of objectives and targets,
operational controls and monitoring
needs, yet the meaning of
significance is subjective, contingent
upon values, and dependent upon
the environmental and community
context, including time constraints.
23. January 11, 2015
Broader Outlook
Environmental management tools such as EMS and EIA share a fundamental “cyclical” approach to
continual improvement with the design process. An intrinsic understanding of the practice of
refinement through consultation and balancing of complex and contrasting parameters could
potentially place future generations of designers in a position of leadership in developing
sustainable stewardship of the environment.
As Bernsen stated:
The design process is not linear, but cyclic. It goes back, not only in small loops to check whether
the design fulfils the requirements initially stated, but also in a bigger loop to re-examine and maybe
redefine its purpose.
24. Curators
A balancing corrective action is needed to
encourage the long view and the taking of
long-term responsibility, where the Long
Now is measured in the scale of
centuries.
Hence, architects, keen to facilitate the
transition to sustainable development,
should be promoting a longer time-horizon
and a broader set of goals than
traditionally is the case as well as
encouraging a wider and more
collaborative approach to brief taking and
design development.
