Greenhaus

Furniture Sustainability

2010-07-05T08:24:00.004-04:00

The closing quote from Milo Baughman in Modernism's Summer 2010 article about his life and work sums up his deepest concerns:

‘“The structured environment, whatever it is, has to be good for the human inhabitants of that environment. It must offer significant social and emotional benefits; it cannot simply look good … I would like to set this discussion in the most profoundly moral context possible, because that’s where it belongs. In discussing the importance of environment, we are discussing primarily the quality and importance of human life.”’

His understanding of ‘environment’ could not fully anticipate the depth of interest today in environmental sustainability. Such issues were still mostly hidden in a blind spot until about 40 years ago, and only really became mainstream concerns in the last decade. Even today, the unsustainable use of materials to make most furniture and interiors continues. This results in a huge physical burden of waste and pollution affecting land, water, air, the climate, not to mention our interior environments. (The physical effects of poor indoor environmental quality from VOC emissions and particulates on occupants’ health and well-being are better known now, but most of us still live and work in compromised environments with legacy issues).

Designers, manufacturers, and customers increasingly recognize the importance of understanding how furniture can contribute to sustainability through full life cycle analysis of the environmental impacts. (This methodology informs them about the implications of choosing one process or material over another.) Our understanding of the consequences of our choices as well as the design aesthetics that make a product leap off the page or the shelf and into customers’ lives continue to evolve. Without design excellence and a full understanding of impacts, sustainable design is an oxymoron.

If he were alive today, I’m sure Milo Baughman would see the challenge of sustainable design as a logical extension of his concerns, and would apply his prodigious talents to addressing it too.

Usonia - Close to Home

2010-03-23T16:26:00.014-04:00

A friend of mine contacted me the other day to tell me that her childhood home had burned to the ground. Although it was no longer owned by her family, she was stricken with grief. The house had been commissioned by her parents in the late 1940s and designed by a young Frank Lloyd Wright protégé, David Henken, on land in Pleasantville, New York, about 40 miles north of New York City. The community, Usonia, was planned by Wright in the late 40s and contains 3 homes designed by Wright which are excellent examples of his architecture of that time.

Above and Top Podell House, David Henken, 1959. My friend, Stephie, spent her childhood in the house that her parents built. Sadly, all that remains is the foundation and chimney.

Even from my perspective as a kid, 40 years ago, Usonia had a mysterious presence in our neighborhood. I grew up just down the street from one of its nondescript entry points (there were three), and the contrast to our own neighborhood of contractor-built homes with wide stretches of treeless lawns was stark. Usonia’s low-roofed homes gave very little away as one navigated the dark, winding streets barely wide enough for two cars to pass. They tended to open up in back, in the typically south-facing glass facades, and blended into and grew out of the landscape following Wright’s notion of “organic” architecture. The materials used to build the modest homes (small by today’s standards) were wood and local stone (in some cases right from the site), many following Wright’s idea of the “pollywog” design: a utilitarian bedroom wing, to be added to as necessary, attached to the more generous “public” portion of the house. Many of the homes – there are 47 in all – were designed by Henken and architect Aaron Resnick, both of whom lived in the community. Together with the Wright homes, this unified the look of Usonia and gave it a distinctive character.

But what set Usonia apart, as much as its architecture and landscaping, was its community spirit. To be honest, it was a little intimidating to me growing up (and not just because my dentist had his home-office there – was his first name really Icy?) They had built the community themselves, and even after 25 years, there was a sense of pride and love that was completely missing in my neighborhood. There was also a common bond of background: the creators who purchased the plot of 97 acres had moved up from Manhattan; they were young and liberal and cherished the sense of a communal, almost utopian lifestyle. (The original homes were cooperatively owned but that gave way to private ownership when they couldn’t get bank loans to build new homes.)

I no longer have friends who live in Usonia and I don't know if that same sense of community exists today. There have been many additions and expansions of the homes since those pioneer days of the 40s and 50s, and many of the houses have been sold to a new influx of those escaping Manhattan. I'd like to find out if the local pool and tennis courts still exist, if Usonians still celebrate the Fourth of July together as they used to. I would expect that some of the traditions will have faded.

And yet, looking back, I understand why, so many years later and no longer a resident, my friend is so sad about losing her childhood home, even when it’s hard for me to have any connection at all to the house that I grew up in. She no longer lives there, but she is still a part and holds the spirit of that original, pioneering community.

It makes me wonder, could one create something like that today? Can that spirit translate and gain traction in today’s insular society?

I will be blogging more on Usonia, NY, expanding on the notions of sustainability and environmentalism that were the hallmarks of this community established over 60 years ago.

I encourage those of you familiar with Usonia – or other such communities throughout the US – to contribute your comments to the blog.

Stuart

Friedman House, FLW 1948

The development of the circular geometry of this house culminated in the Guggenheim in New York City.

Serlin House, FLW 1949

Although this house is the least progressively geometric of the three, the simplicity of the overlapping forms is understated and masterful.

Reisley House, FLW 1951

Wright's use of the equilateral triangle is carried through all aspects of the house, down to the furniture and light fixtures. Of course.

Usonia, Pleasantville, NY

Note the neighboring treeless lots to the west. The community I grew up in is just to the north, and not quite as barren.

From the ‘Measure of Man’ to ‘What gets measured gets managed’

2010-02-23T12:26:00.001-05:00

The surge in popular and professional interest in sustainability in recent years has led to a profusion of information in the media (with the attendant ‘greenwashing’ and confusion), and also to increasing rigor and precision in various fields and specialties such as sustainable design.

Vague and ultimately meaningless terms such as ‘environmentally preferable’ that still crop up in the press and even among professionals are being replaced with more accurate descriptions of the actual attributes, or benefits, of buildings, products, and processes. While the intent of sustainable design may retain for some the spirit and goals of the 60s and 70s environmental movement, its focus today is much sharper, informed by an amazingly diverse amount of ongoing research.

Among the essential tools for architects, ‘measure’ is one that has maintained its fascination and relevance over the centuries. From the ancients to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, buildings derived their proportions from various systems of number and geometry that were believed to be harmonic with the universe, and that aligned the human body through the structure and great chain of being, to the reigning deity. Vitruvian ‘man’ of the Renaissance is the apotheosis of this in an iconic visualization, where the naked human figure is transfixed by, and simultaneously animates, the primary geometric figures of proportion. Despite the shattering of tradition occasioned by the French Revolution and the subsequent imposition of the metric system which broke with so many ways of proportioning and working, the desire for order through number persisted. Le Corbusier knew the power of images and systems, and proposed to install his Modulor and system of regulating lines as a modern basis for integrating the human scale and aesthetic s in his designs through mathematics. And he was not alone; countless others have sought to do the same.

Today the use of quantification in design and to measure results is pervasive. But among all the systems and types of measurement, one stands out. The iconic metric of our time is the measure of an elementary molecule whose flows may mean the difference between the continuation of civilization, and a bleak, rough, difficult, and much impoverished alternative. This is the measure of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and its equivalents in global warming effect (GWE); that is, the extent to which CO2 and other gases increase the greenhouse effect, raise average temperatures, and change the global climate in ways.

We are just beginning to measure everything we do in relation to buildings in terms of how many tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) are released, stored, or displaced, by the activities required to design, build, operate, and use our buildings. A new icon has not yet appeared, but the closest we have come is the emerging use of a simple scale and rating for all buildings called the ‘Building Energy Quotient.’ Very soon, all buildings will be required to bear a rating of how efficient they are in their energy use, and hence, CO2e production. While this is not Vitruvius, Palladio, Le Corbusier, or Wright, it may be the new measure of our ability to create and sustain an environment in which we and other life forms can thrive, and in which the poetics and sensuality of space do not come at the price of catastrophe.

Michael

Preamble

2010-02-23T12:24:00.000-05:00

Stuart and I have known each other a long time, and decided that the opportunity to blog together here would be a way to share and develop our thoughts about design, modernism, and sustainability. We hope that our engaging each other on these topics will be engaging to you, our prospective readers, and we invite you to join our discussions. With that, our first posts.

Michael