The Hannover Principles

One of the roots of sustainability certainly came from this article by William McDonough. The Hannover Principles were announced at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992. The way it is described might be a bit different than what we encounter today with 'energy-saving' or 'sustainable architecture' stuff but the list is something for all architects to use in their design method.

1. Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse, and sustainable condition.
2. Recognizable interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry, and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to co-exist.
5. Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes, or standards.
6. Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
7. Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
8. Understand the limitation of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor; not an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
9. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers, and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.

The Hannover principle should be adopted by all designers in order to maintain the earth. Or otherwise, our children's children might not be able to see Doubtful Sound fjord in New Zealand, the picture on the top of this article.

I am so inspired by New Zealand right now. Perhaps I am just anticipating the anxiety for a trip far east to Christchurch this winter!

References + further readings:

1. The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (New York, William McDonough Architects, 1992)

Picture credit:
1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DoubtfulSound-Fjord.jpg

The official closure of my old blog

Writing is not a passion- especially to me. Writing is supposed to be a part of us to be able to express ourselves in words, but I have yet to master this skill. Blogs to me came in handy as it is a non-formal way to publish an honest, spontaneous thought. So I used to have an old blog which has more Malaysian-related issues. As I grow up I see more prospect in making a blog worldly known and worldly sensitive.
Globalization has make the world a small place and to make everything matters, everything has to be known to the world population.

So you readers from my old blog, a big welcome accompanies you. And for those who are my usual visitors, keep reading, as there will be more articles coming!

Bye

Responsibilities of an Architect

It is Sunday today and yet it is not a good lazy one. I am struggling to understand the order of the world, in architectural views. I was reading an article from Dianne Y. Ghirardo, titled From the Margins to the Maintsream, and a few questions arises from the 42-page Introduction.
To sum up the things I am going to say, I'd concentrate on the Responsibilities of an Architect, related to the progression of time and style in architecture. Many styles have developed since the first house of Catal Huyuk and the monumental Pyramid of Giza, but yet architects seemed to detach themselves from the ideal reality of the world we live in. Architects market their style through 'taste culture', what is generally accepted is right, and anything other than that is rather...strange. Not wrong but strange.
Modernism jumpstart the world into production and new civilization, from the war times and demands for buildings has made architects went for 'practical' and 'functional' buildings. This movement made me contemplate; Does architecture has to simplify the complexity of the life of its inhabitants OR Does architecture has to adhere to the complexity of life? The statement above was mostly obvious in the west, due to the fact that culture or traditions doesn't interfere with technology. But in the East, Traditions had been preferred over Western Modernism, resulting in a lot of fusion-style buildings and technology during the high time. New technology has always been the reason to kill the traditional ways of making building, thus claiming it to be more 'efficient' and 'modern' just because it has been produced by the machine.
Another point that pulled my interest in this essay is the actual responsibility of the architect. While big time corporations has CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility, I reckon architects should go for Historical Social/Public Responsibility, in short, HSR. The importance of knowing and studying the background of a project is so vital that the failure to do so might result in low 'human energy', something similar to 'chi' in Chinese in order to make a building 'alive'. Remember when we are doing Masterplanning of a city of even figuring out our building programme for a urban site, we will always look for 'human flow'. History makes it easy. History ranges from anthropology to even psychology for current mindset of a certain population. People's needs changes from time to time, from a dynasty to another. HSR is important so that every architect would not lose its ground and forget their existence. Having lived in an era where money has the veto to everything, we -as a profession- have succumbed to what they called the entrepreneurial capitalism. Yes to money, Yes to power, Yes to opportunity to oppress. But we forgot the real objective why architects are here; or there is no objective for us at all in the first place.
People like Sam Mockbee made little contributions to society that sometimes big-time architects found hilarious to even have time 'helping others'. I am not targeting anyone, I am just concerned with the way our society is turning into. In some places in the world where bribery and corruption is rampant, 'charity' has lost its glory. Charity is always seen as a cheap way to gain sympathy thus making a real cause not real anymore.
My most deepest condolescences go to the people in the profession who forgot that helping people is also our obligation, making things better is not just a marketing term and architect is not a job to selfishly fill up our bank account. Good things are for everyone to share and with this I will spread the good essay, please read this:

Ghirardo, Dianne Yvonne, 'Introduction:From the Margins to the Mainstream', Architecture after Modernism, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1996, pp. 7-42.