Maf Smith - Greening the Built Environment

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsycker

First published by Earthscan in the UK and USA in 1998

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Copyright Maf Smith, John Whitelegg and Nick Williams, 1998
Published by Taylor & Francis.

Published in association with WWF-UK

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Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 13: 978-1-85383-403-5 (pbk)
978-1-85383-404-2 (hbk)

Typesetting by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants

Cover design by Andrew Corbett

WWF-UK is a Registered Charity. No 201707. In the US and Canada, WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature) is known as World Wildlife Fund.

Note: the authors would like to thank Martin Rowson and Anne King of The Building Service Research and Information Association (BSRIA) for permission to reproduce Figure 3.3 and Nick White of the Hockerton Housing Project for permission to reproduce Figure 3.5.They would also like to thank Emma Heathcote for illustrating Figure 4.1.

Aldo van Eyck

At Manchester University, England, the University authorities built a new block of student residences known as Whitworth Park, which amongst resident students, members of the University and local people, rapidly became known as The Toblerones. This nickname comes from their peculiar shape; they are triangular in profile, and the roof extends from the apex almost to the ground. The windows of the flats jut out from this roof as if the whole building were a planners nightmare of loft extensions. Yet the main reasons for this design were allegedly not aesthetic but financial. According to University folklore, the design stems from an agreement between the University and the City Council over funding of the residences, for which the Council had agreed to pay roofing costs. The result: buildings with little wall area, and large roofs. It makes an amusing story, but also defies our intuitive grasp of logic and good design. Cost is undoubtedly a factor, but whose cost; the Universitys, the Councils? And surely allowing cost to literally shape all other factors shouldnt be encouraged. Yet The Toblerones are symptomatic of the way we treat our built environment.

The built environment, consisting of our homes, places of work and leisure, is what makes up the fabric of our cities, towns and villages. The buildings which surround us provide shelter and retreat, yet can also foster within us feelings of well-being, of awe, of the special associations which come from place, and of belonging. They can also fail to do these things, and indeed work against such positive associations, fostering within us feelings of alienation, fear and dissociation. They are also the backdrop for our communities, a term now back in vogue, as we begin to wake up to what we have lost or given away.