TABLE OF CONTENTS The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
What you ll find in this chapter is an introduction to what it means to be green or sustainable in the architectural profession and why this has become such an important topic both in the design and construction industry and global culture.
We, the authors, started our professional careers near the beginning of what Bob Berkebile, FAIA, a founding principal of BNIM Architects, refers to as one of the greatest changes in the profession of architecture in his professional lifetime. The year was 1995 and architects were starting to use terms like green and environmentally friendly to describe their projects and project approaches. Dialogue, experience, and marketplace transition have allowed the people not only in the profession of architecture but also other professions involved in the design, construction, and operation of the built environment to garner a better understanding of what green means. Generally speaking, however, today we think in terms of sustainability.
The practice of sustainable thinking is in many ways ancient. If we look at the buildings from some of the North American indigenous cultures, we can see that they were highly skilled at adapting the location and materials of their structures to climate and place. For example, igloos constructed in Greenland s Thule area and by the people of Canada s Central Arctic, which were made of materials found on site, were built in a...
