This document summarizes a lecture on buildings from an NYU course. It discusses past lecture topics on clean tech failures and the Passive House movement. The main topic is paradigms - the shared beliefs that form the basis of a system. It says paradigms give rise to goals, rules and other system elements. Changing paradigms is difficult but can be done by pointing to failures in the old paradigm and asserting the new one. The document outlines assigning students to explore concepts for changing how buildings are made and maintained by focusing on anomalies and possibilities for change.

1. BODIES &
BUILDINGS
NYU ITP LECTURE COURSE SPRING 2013
APRIL 8, 2013
JEN VAN DER MEER @JENVANDERMEER WWW.JENVANDERMEER.COM

2. BUILDINGS:
Part 2: Buildings
7. Clean Tech Failures, Clean Tech Long Term View, March 25, 2013
8. LEED and the Passive House Movement, April 1, 2013
9. Passive House + CoGen, April 8, 2013
10. Generative Architecture, Responsive Design, April 15, 2013
Part 3: Concept Development and Final Presentations
11. Concept strengthening – design thinking exercises, business case
building, April 22, 2013
12. Final Presentations with guest critics, April 29, 2013
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3. PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM:
12. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards)
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (transport networks, population age structures)
9. Length of delays, relative to the rate of system change
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information)
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints)
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure
3. The goals of the system
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system – its goals, power structure, rules, its culture-arises
1. The power to transcend paradigms
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4. 2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system –
its goals, power structure, rules, its culture-arises
The shared idea in the minds of society, the
great big unstated assumptions—unstated
because unnecessary to state; everyone already
knows them—constitute that society’s paradigm,
or deepest set of beliefs about how the world
works.
-D. Meadows.
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5. What paradigmatic assumptions do we follow?
There is a difference between nouns and verbs.
Money measures something real and has meaning.
(people who are paid less are literally worth less).
Growth is good.
Nature is a stock of resources to be converted for
human purposes.
One can own the land.
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6. Paradigms are the sources of systems
From them, form shared social agreements about the
nature of reality, come system goals and information
flows, feedbacks, stocks, flows, and everything else
about systems.
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7. The material apparatus around you
Ralph Waldo Emerson “War” Boston, 1838. Reprinted in Emerson’s Complete Works, vol. XI. 1887.
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8. Why do we build skyscrapers
The ancient Egyptians built pyramids because they believed
in an afterlife. We build skyscrapers because we believe that
space in downtown cities is enormously valuable.
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9. Who has changed paradigms?
Whether it was Copernicus and Kepler showing that the earth
is not the center of the universe
Or Einstein hypothesizing that matter and energy are
interchangable
Or Adam Smith postulating that the selfish actions of
individual players in markets wonderfully accumulate to the
common good
People who have managed to intervene in systems at the level
of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms
systems.
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10. So how do you change paradigms?
D. Meadows paraphrasing Thomas Kuhn:
You keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old
paradigm, you keep speaking louder and with assurance from
the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in
places of public visibility and power.
You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with
active change agents and with the vast middle groun of people
who are open minded.
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11. BUILDINGS:
FAILURES AND
ANOMOLIES
BODIES & BUILDINGS
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12. GLOBAL SUPPLY
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13. ASSIGNMENT:
APRIL 15
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14. Buildings through the lens of science
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15. Parallels
Bodies:
Buildings:
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16. “New starts” is a sign of economic
progress
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17. Failure of measures
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18. More work needed for feedback loops
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19. More work needed for feedback loops
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20. More work needed for feedback loops
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21. ASSIGNMENT
Concept source and exploration?
What part of the system of how we care for bodies, or how we
make and maintain our buildings, interests you the most?
What are the anomalies and failures that irk you?
What possibilities do you see?
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22. READING
Pick any one of the “Facsicles” from ArtFarm on architecture
theory:
http://www.archfarm.org/en/
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23. LINKS AND PRESENTATION
Today’s class presentation is available
http://www.slideshare.net/bettybluegreen/bodies-and-
buildings-nyu-itp-4-8-2013
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April 8, 2013