The two authors, Sebestian Marot and Don Willis, attempt to relate energy with our built environment. While the article by Marot, ‘Hearthbreaking’ provides a condensed history of the evolution of energy and how it continues to be a key ingredient to architectural expression, the article ‘Less is Less’ by Willis suggests that our approaches toward sustainable architecture, efficient energy usage and distribution, has been very isolated and narrow-minded.
In the article on “Hearthbreaking” in Fireplace, Sebestien Marot attempts to reference ‘fire’ with the notion of energy for construction and combustion. He draws on four other articles by various scholars, representing the evolution of energy in buildings, physically and theoretically. The
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This is due to our heavy emphasis on individually efficient and ‘optimised’ objects and buildings, each with their own separate building power souce. In addition, numerous pro-sprawl/anti-urban incentives contribute to the stand-alone buildings on isolated sites. Willis argues that there is insufficient attention to the social, cultural, economic and technological contexts in which architecture objects operate. Willis further relates our current predicament to our lack of attention to the ‘connectedness’ of things, one that has rebound effects, which he expounds through ‘Jevons’ Paradox’. While we talk about increasing energy efficiency, we are actually talking about increasing the productivity of energy. Based on the law of supply and demand; as we increase productivity of anything, it reduces the implicit price, thus resulting in an increase in demand and consumption. The effect of increased demand due to increased efficiency is the rebound effect. The existance of the rebound effect suggests that there’s a need to complement our pursuit of technical solutions with parallel strategies for social, cultural, and economic solutions to our energy
For a last time in paragraph five, he personifies creations of humans, in this case the flames brought about by the burning materials used to build the city. To some extent, this emphasized
Michael Green is an architect with a passion for designing skyscrapers globally. However, Michael possesses a unique interest in this industry which separates his work from the rest; Michael’s buildings are constructed with wood. Green’s thesis seems to be that wood is mother nature’s fingerprint, no two pieces are the same, and if you build it up properly it can create something so inspiring and beneficial. His talk is directed towards architects around the world, possibly even environmentalists who are exploring more sustainable ways of industrializing. In his TED talk Green successfully backs his thesis up by incorporating his family, examples, statistics, and counterarguments through the use of rhetorical appeals.
To begin, the exploitation and dismemberment of ancient architecture is seen as an insult to the historic civilization, which is evident due to Hichens’ use of historical references in
Marriages in Puritan society were based on the biblical scripture; ‘wives submit to your husbands’ , with the sincere belief that women were to subject to the husbands and support their needs before their own. ‘My Dear and Loving Husband’ captures Bradstreet’s relationship with her husband as it is plain and simple. Typical of a Puritan marriage, Bradstreet submits to her husband and shows her duty in loving him. ‘If ever man were loved by wife’ then wife is never loved by man but endures to find happiness in submitting to her husband. Bradstreet is setting her own desires aside and replaces them with her responsibilities to her husband; that ‘man were loved by wife’.
The Broken Hearth is a book that discusses; some might say debate one of the biggest charges in America, which is the structure of the American Family today. American families today are more unstructured than in the past. American family is under difficulty as never before. Although the nuclear family is the most common and yes we should go back to our roots and have an understanding of what America was intended to be. But our society is now accepting and embracing same sex marriage and one parent homes. Marriages are less central, divorce rate are high, and children being born out of wedlock and non-married couples living together today is more common. The conventional nuclear circle of relatives is being extensively challenged
For instance, highly populous and famous cities such as Oslo, New York, Alexandria, and San Francisco hold some of the important architecture projects that have shaped individuals’ lives. Reporter David Owen, in his New Yorker article “Psychology of Space”, argues how the architecture firm Snøhetta utilizes their magic through their projects to build people’s moods, shape their relationships with cities, buildings and other individuals, and create illusions with exhilarating effects. The author’s argument is rhetorically compelling because his arrangement of ideas, selection of words, and supporting evidence maintain his public engaged in the magic of architecture and persuade anyone reading his article that architecture plays a critical role in their lives in numerous
In this regard, city authorities all over the world are increasingly adopting energy efficiency measures in a quest to become sustainable into the future. Consequently, this has led to the emergence of the term ‘green cities’ (Aulisi & Hanson, 2004). New York City, viewed by many as an urban, concrete jungle, was recently named the “greenest city" in the United States. This is mainly because most of its residents live in energy-efficient buildings, and use public transport, bicycl...
Buildings and the appliances alone account for 40 percent of America 's energy use and a third of our global warming emissions (NRDC). New buildings will need to meet new energy-efficiency standards that maximize energy savings and existing homes and commercial spaces can be improved to save energy through weatherizing and installing energy efficient heating, cooling and lighting systems. Ultimately, this will not only be energy efficient but also cost effective as well. In the bigger picture, retrofitting just 1 out of every 5 homes would avoid the need to build 13 mid-sized power plants every year. Retrofitting every house in the country would cut as much global warming pollution as taking a half a million cars off the road – and would save more oil and gas than we could extract from drilling in our coastal waters (NRDC). In the long run, creating more efficient communities through homes and buildings, we could cut back on the global warming issues we are dealing
Buildings reflect the values and ideas of society within periods. The role of architecture in shaping society and vice versa largely depends on the period in question and who or what affects first. The Enlightenment, and the subsequent period the Post-Enlightenment, reflect the biggest change for current ideas regarding architecture and society and current theories. At the same time, individual identities and understanding of society, progress and truth all follow a similar evolving path. It is during this dramatic shift in thinking that the role of architecture to society and the idea of progress and truth becomes a more complex relationship. How this relationship works and its implications is based on the theory that there is a direct link between the two. One cannot develop without the other. Who leads whom and to what extent they influence each other is evident in architectural trends and pioneering works by architects such as Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry amongst others.
This Sustainable Architecture began long ago with scientists brainstorming and designing a new design for an eco-home that’s liable on decreasing massive numbers of en...
... architectures would led to a more organic organization beneficial to the people that choose to make their lives in this city. Although this model of a sustainable city is not a perfectly closed loop, it lays the foundation for one that is. Over time, with constantly evolving and improving technology and new methods of design from the scale of products to buildings, the gaps in the loop could be closed, and a “true” sustainable city could be fully realized.
Yan, J. & Plainiotis, S. (2006): Design for Sustainability. Beijing, China: Architecture and Building Press.
In our days Architecture is undergoing from a systematic change, driven from the continuously discoveries and the other needs from science, industry and commerce, that are rapidly eroding the former boundaries between the natural and artificial. Architects and architecture schools, for long years before, have attempted to capture the logic of living systems, as design inspiration, and to give to the architecture multiplying environmental yields. Technological tools, however, that the architects had available in the past, did their work quite difficult and time consuming. In our days the digital tools, that the architects they have available, are much more specialty.
Architects increasingly have a role to play in order to combat the changing climate caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Rapid and significant reductions in global carbon emissions are necessary to reduce climate change, a minimum of an 80% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050. This is laid out in RIBA's Climate Change Policy that adopts the philosophy of Contraction and Convergence. This means reducing (contracting) emissions from industrialised nations and converging (joining) emissions from all nations to ...
Constructing ‘green cities’ using the appropriate off-the-grid techniques would be a solution between human-environmental interactions. Off-the-grid methods uses little or without reliance on services but instead, uses schemes and technologies of alternative energy systems that uses renewable energy such as solar panels and wind turbines. Off-the-grid constructions tend to be costly mainly due to its upfront cost, nevertheless, in most cases, it would be cost-effective in spite of the minor maintenance cost and would also be a solution to some of the ecological concerns. Through understanding the environment, architects could ideally use the concept of eco-cities to minimise the carbon emissions and also consider self-sufficiency to resolve the issues between the production and the zero-emissions requirement.