Wanna Be An Architect?

I’m an architect. Always have been. It’s been my lifelong passion. I love making buildings, places, parts of buildings, oak doors, bold glass windows, tupelo tables, pine benches, steep roofs, douglas fir floors, concrete foundations, steel beams—all of it. Now my passion is to make, and help others make, zero emission community buildings. Buildings that contain dwellings, gathering places, workplaces, play places, Nature places, sun places, garden places, joy places.
Sometimes it seems to me about half the people I meet say to me, “You know, when I was in high school or college I thought about being an architect.” Maybe you’re one of them? Well, here’s your chance!

There are two major categories in the design of a zero emissions community:

1. The social arrangement: how many dwellings, how they’re arranged, how much gathering space located where, how much work space located where, and so on. Bear in mind our goal is to create a community that will powerfully attract people who would otherwise choose a single-family detached sprawl house in suburbia:

2. The requirements of good, durable, efficient construction. Foremost is avoiding water leaks, both visible and concealed. Anyone in the building trades can tell you how determined water is to get into buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are notorious for leaks. The Hancock tower in Boston leaked due to water driven upwards by wind pressure. Concealed leaks cause—usually rapid—deterioration of the structure. That’s not sustainable.

OK, let’s get started. To keep it simple at this stage, let’s omit the common spaces. Here is my essential list of requirements for the dwellings:

• Provide a minimum of about 30 dwellings. There are two reasons. First, the cohousing movement has determined through trial and error that at any given time some members of the community will not be on speaking terms with some other members, or some will be in the mood for a period of privacy, and so on. At such times having fewer than 30 households will lower the number of people who do want to hang out together to below the critical mass for a vibrant gathering.

Second, consider the physics of heat loss. A single-family detached house loses heat through its four walls (often walls having multiple angles, bays, projections, etc.), its roof, and its floor. If that house were the center unit of a triplex, it would have zero heat loss through its two common walls. If it also had connected dwellings above and below, it would have zero heat loss in those directions. Then its only heat loss would be its front and rear walls. If those walls are insulated to R75 and made airtight, suddenly heating the house with solar energy becomes easy and economical. The same is true of heat gain in summer conditions when cooling may be desired.

 • Let every dwelling face south, and place the majority of glazing to the south for passive solar gain. If you’re not familiar with the PassivHaus movement, Wikipedia has a good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house.

 • Provide outdoor space at the main level of every dwelling. We need to spiritually reconnect with Earth. There needs to be just enough space for four people to sit in the sun, under the sky, or under an awning and enjoy the outdoors. And enough space to grow some tomatoes, other vegetables, herbs, and flowers. This space needs to feel as if it is a continuation of the adjacent indoor space. Frank Lloyd Wright used two deceptively simple devices to accomplish this: he made the floor level and material the same as the interior floor, and he extended the interior ceiling out over the exterior space in some manner. Such an arrangement gives a person on the interior the physical perception that the interior not only continues outward to the terrace, but also is continuous with the entire Universe. This terrace needs to face south. Of course there will be larger outdoor spaces beyond the building-yards, gardens, orchards and so on.

• Use a design process that results in each dwelling being unique, and gives the complex an organic identity. The design method I learned in a school of architecture is to design one dwelling, then replicate that design over and over. Or design three or four variations of a basic layout, and replicate those. This process produces very boring results. You’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of such buildings. Here’s a typical one in Hull, MA:

The architect tried to take off the boring curse by curving the building, introducing recesses and projections, but it fails. It’s boring.

Here’s an example in Cohasset, MA where the architect attempted to make each part of the building unique:

This architect tried way too hard. The result is tortured with so-called “features” like some kind of rampant architectural skin disease. This building, under construction in 2010, is attempting to look old fashioned. Old fashioned sells here in New England. But this building doesn’t feel old fashioned, it only feels fake. There are two difficulties. First, true architecture must reflect the time in which it is created. Reproducing historical genres always results in fakes. We can’t advance by staring into the rear view mirror. Given that old fashioned architecture possesses qualities lacking in most modern architecture, let’s realize we cannot reproduce that quality by mimicking old buildings. That quality did not result in the old buildings by their architects trying to do old-timey fakes. Second, this entire design was produced at once, probably by one person. It can’t avoid having a sense of uninspired sameness. Compare it with this example from Berne, Switzerland:

What a difference! No striving to “make a statement”, as so many contemporary architects do. As they learned in architecture schools they must do. Here in Berne a different design process was used, one my mentor Chris Alexander espouses. Each segment of this row of buildings was built at a different time, by a different person. Each succeeding segment responded to the one that came before, respecting the design vocabulary that had been established, yet introducing subtle differences in windows, masonry joints, dormers, street-level arches, storefronts, and cornices. Notice the wonderful gift to the community of a covered arcade protecting pedestrians from rain and snow, providing natural places for friends and acquaintances to stop and chat.

 How can this design process be adapted to designing a zero emissions community? The urgency of climate disruption will not allow years or decades of gradual growth. Models of truly sustainable buildings are urgently needed. A design process described by Chris Alexander’s A New Theory of Urban Design would have each unit designed by a different person. Given the Berne model of calm order and led by an experienced architect, I believe it is possible for such a group to design a beautiful zero emissions community.

One design problem I’m struggling with concerns the outdoor space. I believe a terrace must be immediately adjacent to every dwelling. Assuming a 3-story building, the terrace must not project out from the structure, for it would block solar gain from spaces below. Therefore in one of my initial designs I stepped each story back:

drawing by Jim Sandell

What worries me about this is the afore-mentioned water leaks. Each terrace is positioned above interior living space below. The current method of construction would use “rubber” roofing below the terrace. However, this material has a limited lifespan, and replacing it would be disruptive and expensive. Both the Hull and Berne buildings can last hundreds of years with no worry of terrace leakage.


But they have no terraces. I’d love to find a way to have terraces without depending on limited lifespan waterproofing materials. Here’s where I’m asking for your design creativity. Surely there are numerous ways of accomplishing this. Send me your ideas, in words or sketches. Design a community building that you’d like to live in! Use paper, CAD, SketchUp, clay, cardboard, photography, whatever inspires you.