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A world in flux: architects gather to ponder it all
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Architects from across the country and world are gathering this week in San Francisco at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) national convention. For many, if not most architects, the big topic will be how to make it through the most challenging economic times most of them have ever faced. But will architects take a moment to look at the bigger underlying questions that face architects, developers, engineers, and builders?
Those questions can perhaps be summed up in this way: “What does a sustainable economic and environmental model look like in America and, by extension, the world?” A second question is: “Can architects lead or shape or influence that more sustainable model?”
Architects, like anyone running a business, have to take care of that business and keep their doors open and the projects humming along and the bills paid. That has gotten pretty difficult in an economy that has shrunk by 6% two quarters in a row. I don’t know any architects that haven’t trimmed their staffs with the exception of one person firms.
But somehow, eventually, the American and world economy will rebound. Architects will design new buildings. Builders will construct them. Banks will fund them. But I’m left with a nagging suspicion; in the relief that we’ll eventually experience in a better economy, will we have learned any lessons that will help us avoid a replay of the “Great Recession”? Or will we, giddy with flowing credit, revert back to an unbridled and unsustainable growth?
This is the question that architects (as well as many others) must grapple with. Is it sustainable to continue the sprawl of our cities? Will it still be the middle class norm to not only own a home but to also acquire two or more homes as a show of success? Do we need balance and restraint instead of wild expansion?
I’m not talking about building “green” houses; I’m talking about questioning how many houses we actually need and whether we change our attitudes about serial acquisition of houses as though they were cars that we trade in every few years. I recently saw a beautifully designed house in a magazine that had every green feature imaginable and was a model of energy efficiency. The house was a whopping 6,000 square feet for the two people that occupied it. It would have been “greener” to build no house at all.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we enact laws that make it illegal for people to build what they want or like. I’m suggesting that architects (and anyone else who cares) be the thought leaders in changing social attitudes about our patterns of settlement and urban/suburban design. That’s what I hope the architects who have gathered here in San Francisco, and of which I am one, will debate and deliberate and demonstrate leadership in.
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