The lecture this week was conducted regarding the various facets that sustainability entails within our world. The main focus was on the fact that sustainability is not necessarily about making things green.
It was said that simply making things green or green-washing an urban landscape is a fairly naive and simplistic approach to making an environment more sustainable. It was noted that within these ideas, a number of factors such as embodied energy and transportation are neglected, therefore failing to create a holistically sustainable intention.
The lecture went on to define the normal linear approach to buildings, which includes a cradle to grave system. In first year I remember being told that a building should expect to last 50 years. However, it wasn't outlined what should then happen to the building afterwards, however presumably it would be knocked down.
These days, the intention behind buildings has shifted. It is expected that a building can be renovated, or redeveloped to continue its lifespan. Even if a building should be knocked down, the main principal should be to salvage and reuse fittings, furniture, and even building materials within the next project. In this case the idea of sustainbility is to continue to increase and adapt to changing contexts and ideas rather than to simply start again.
This will hopefully be reiterated within my design. Providing a building which can be adapted to suit changing idealogies and leave existing infrastructure in place without needing to demolish and change anything.
This building should simply insert itself into the context, improving quality of life and adding to it, not ideally altering it.
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