IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

Architecture Foundation (www.smartarch.nl), this book contains examples involving
climate control, supplemented with new ideas on planning, building and construction,
and the application of intelligent systems, all contributing to sustainability.
10. ‘‘MEMS/Smart Matter Research at PARC.’’
Notes to Pages 192–193 271
11. The key book on the subject is by Luis Fernández-Galiano, Fire and Memory: On
Architecture and Energy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000). Setting out to compensate
for the ‘‘scandalous absence of energy considerations in architectural analysis
and criticism,’’ Galiano distinguishes between the energy of construction and the
energy of maintenance. In North America, where buildings account for 65 percent
of electricity consumption, 26 percent of total energy use, and 30 percent of
greenhouse-gas emissions, the economic arguments do now seem to be generating
change. Rebecca Flora of the Green Building Alliance, a group that promotes sustainable
architecture, says, ‘‘Going green saves money by reducing long-term energy
costs. On average green buildings in the US use 30 percent less energy than conventional
buildings. The 2 percent increase in construction costs typically pays for itself
in lower running costs within two years.’’ ‘‘The Rise of the Green Building’’ (Report),
The Economist Technology Quarterly, December 4, 2004, 12–17.
12. For a useful review of intelligent buildings, design, and building management
systems, see Gary Mills, ‘‘Intelligent Buildings Design and Building Management
Systems: Overview of ‘Intelligent Buildings’ and ‘Intelligent Homes’
Technologies,’’ available on the BusinessBalls website at http://www.businessballs
.com/intelligentbuildingsdesign.htm. An online magazine called Automated Buildings
also provides links to extensive resources on the subject (http://www
.automatedbuildings.com/resources/linksys.htm). The use of daylight in shopping
complexes also appears to increase sales. The Heschong Mahone group, a Californiabased
consultancy that specializes in energy-efficient building technologies, found
that sales were as much as 40 percent higher in stores lit with skylights. Quoted in
The Economist Technology Quarterly, December 4, 2004.
13. For more information about these projects, see the NOX Architects website
(http://www.noxarch.com/flash_content/flash_content.html). See also Julien Devereux
and Martin C. Pedersen, ‘‘How Buildings Breathe,’’ Metropolis (March 2004),
available at http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0304/bre/.
14. For a lighter look at some other lessons to be learned from penguins and polar
bears, see ‘‘P~Animals,’’ available on the Pathys Place website at http://groups.msn
.com/PathysPlace/panimals.msnw. See also Julian F. V. Vincent and Darrell L.
Mann, ‘‘Systematic Technology Transfer from Biology to Engineering,’’ Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 360, 159–174 (published online January
11, 2002), available at http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/biomimetics/TRIZ.pdf.
15. An example I know well was the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam,
where I worked as director from 1993 to 1999. This beautiful canal-side building