Sustainability can be fun too, Realty seminar hears

Architects and urban planners often see sustainable development as a necessary though worthy evil. It has to hurt to be good and a sustainable life means doing less than in normal everyday living. Kai-Uwe Bergmann, partner at Danish architectural and design company Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), thinks otherwise and BIG has been putting these thoughts into practise, he told the ‘CityBoom: Booming cities - Blooming Cities’ seminar organised by the Belgian Building Confederation (BVS-UPSI) at the Realty real estate trade fair in Brussels recently.

‘Sustainability is generally seen as being part of a strong moral and rather Protestant code,' Bergmann said. 'It seems that only by sacrificing much of our existing quality of life can we be sustainable and live in a way that is good for the environment. At BIG we don’t believe this and have been looking at how sustainable buildings and cities can actually increase the quality of life, so that a sustainable life becomes more fun that normal life.’

BIG’s philosophy is that architects need to rediscover ‘vernacular architecture’ - the form of architecture that evolved, without architects, down through the centuries as people found ways to build houses and cities to optimise their living conditions in a given climate. When architects came into the picture they began to add machines to deliver the different qualities that were missing from buildings: electric lights, mechanical ventilation, central heating and air conditioning. These were all perceived as freedom from the elements, but they resulted in an explosion in energy consumption.

‘Architecture became an empty box, void of qualities and plugged to machines,’ Bergmann continued. ‘Our aim is to unplug the machines and get back to a situation where the qualities come from architecture itself.’

Using modern design to eliminate superfluous machinery and adapting and integrating buildings into their natural environment, BIG is able to increase the sustainability of the buildings it designs. But it doesn’t stop there. The designers are very conscious of the need to make buildings fun, to make the users want to use them, so reinforcing the environmental and social benefits of their designs.

Two of BIG’s recent projects illustrate the combination of sustainability and fun:

The ‘8 House’ apartment complex near Copenhagen includes ramps that allow residents to cycle to the top floors of the 10-story block, a feature that not only encourages them to bike more often, but also triggers far more spontaneous social interactions than in other apartment complexes. Rainwater run-off from the building is collected in ponds at its base, giving residents much sought-after water views from their homes.

Currently under development is the ‘Amagerforbraending’ incinerator in central Copenhagen. A plant that will turn waste into energy, reducing fossil fuel consumption and eliminating the need for landfills, scores highly on any sustainability index, but could have been a hard sell, especially as it will be the tallest structure in the middle of a large city. However, by incorporating 1,500m of ski-slopes on top of the plant and generating laser-illuminated water vapour smoke rings that are emitted for a given volume of waste incinerated, the fun element has not been forgotten and Copenhagen’s population has a new local landmark and leisure facility that will be completed by 2016.