Urban Green: Book Review
Urban Green: Architecture for the Future
Speaking candidly, there’s really no shortage of ideas floating around regarding how we can change our attitudes toward building design in such a manner that allows us align with the context and capacity of the natural environment. There’s the LEED standard, the focus on eliminating sprawl espoused by the Congress for New Urbanism, you’ve got Low Impact Development, and even the government is on board with the EnergyStar construction standard. None of this is good enough for Neil Chambers. I’ve read my fair share of books on sustainable architecture, design, and urban settlement, but honestly Chamber’s Urban Green: Architecture for the Future sets itself apart by driving a harder line for sustainability-focused human settlement. It’s not enough that we reduce energy use or conserve water… according to Chambers we need to take a step back and have a more realistic conversation about how our infrastructure is capable of performing and what our end game is.
Urban Green is a short-read. It’s interesting, it’s fast-paced, and it covers a variety of captivating topics (almost to a fault). However, I finished the book and walked away sort of pissed off. It’s been two weeks since I’ve read it, and it’s taken me this long to digest the material that’s there. Sure, I’d like to believe that super efficient electrical grids and cars we can plug in at the local McDonalds are going to ensure the quality of life and prosperity that I desire for my kids, but I shouldn’t lie to myself. That’s exactly what got me so pissed off about Urban Green… it’s a reality check… it’s essentially 244 pages of Neil Chambers pointing out that in many ways we’re greenwashing ourselves toward disaster. Harsh.
Chamber’s main point (or at least my synthesis of it), centers around the idea that design and architecture should be contextual. Installing a sustainable office park in the middle of a desert doesn’t mean slapping in some low-flow water fixtures and plopping some solar panels on the roof. In fact, it might mean not placing the office park in an area where its very installation is going to exceed the carrying capacity of the local ecosystem. Sure the low-flow fixtures are great, but they don’t totally mitigate the volumes of water we are sucking out of water tables that aren’t regenerating fast enough. They certainly don’t account for all the externalities of the infrastructure necessary to move the water to the site from more water-abundant regions.
Image from: http://www.jennifermgoodwin.com/
Image from: http://www.eastsidegm.ca/chevrolet-volt/
Chamber’s goes on to murder the latest bastion of Americanized-sustainability by pointing out that electric cars aren’t really sustainable when the energy source they’re using hosts more environmental problems than the energy source they’re meant to replace. It’s sad, I know when you find out that the advertisements shown in the pictures above, should in reality look more like the picture below.
Image from: http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/12/new-chevy-volt.html
Urban Green presents a fresh (albeit disturbing) look at the way we think about the built environment. It stings a little bit, but Chamber’s plays the role of Drill Sergeant in driving home the point that our efforts aren’t enough. We have pay even greater detail to the ecological context of the areas that we are working within and ensure that we are planning in a way that supports not only our own perpetuity, but our fellow species. As Chamber’s would say, we have to start acting like a keystone species (meaning that we have to take into account our profound ability to alter the existence of our biological companions).
Pick it up. Read it. Get pissed off about hearing the cold, hard truth. Then go do something about it.
Josh O’Conner is a Planner/Zoning Administrator in Asheville, North Carolina. You can find him on the web at triggerhippie.com, localplan.org, or twitter.com/joshoconner. Contact Josh via e-mail (josh -at-localplan.org). He was provided a copy of the book by the publisher for review.
[...] it wants to grow, and it will continue to harm the environment in the process. Yet this isn’t green-washing. It comes off as a genuine attempt to get people to start thinking about sustainable [...]