Taking Shape - A New Contract Between Architecture And Nature - Architectural Press - Review

Architectural Review, The, August, 2001 by Adam Voeloker

Susannah Hagan. Oxford: Architectural Press. 2001. [pound]29.99

If the title of this book is unclear, the remainder does not get a lot clearer. One of the main arguments would seem to be that the aesthetics of environmental architecture (we once called it 'green', then it became 'sustainable', now Susannah Hagan uses the term 'environmental') must be as important as the ethics of building sustainably, and visual form (not 'style', she is careful to stress) must rank equally with operational function, not least because architecture has the power, through its tangible visual nature, to draw people to the sustainable cause, even inspire and excite them. Hagan charts the history of ideas and innovations connecting architecture to nature as a way of introduction, and then attempts to answer key questions, such as:

* why is the form-giving by architects of sustainable buildings so conservative and unexciting when the science has now become so sophisticated?

* are formal and functional expression mutually exclusive?

* how can a more co-operative relation between built and natural environments be found (the 'contract' of her title), without going backwards to pre-industrial arcadia?

* is an architecture which expresses its sustainability more or less valid than one which operates sustainably?

Three criteria are suggested as ways to identify, judge and even produce environmental architecture: 'Symbiosis', the degree to which architecture co-operates with nature rather than works against it; 'Differentiation', the way buildings differ as a result of local variations (eg climate, culture, site etc); and 'Visibility', the degree to which environmental buildings display themselves as expressions of sustainable architecture.

Four projects are chosen to illustrate how these criteria perform, but these form a small part of the book, and will be disappointing to practitioners. I don't feel the book is for practising architects at all. It is a book that plays with words and ideas, often for their own sake, and so will find a useful place on students' and academics' shelves. Personally, I would prefer to see more discussion about actual built projects which illustrate Hagan's perfectly reasonable call for appropriate visual expression. Surely architects such as Short Ford Associates, Renzo Piano, Future Systems and Feilden Clegg (and no doubt many more) deserve a full discussion in this respect, as they are striving towards not only environmentally responsible buildings but ones which also achieve this in a beautiful and poetic manner.