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186. Aesthetics and Sustainability   october 19, 2011

  

“I want to talk about green.” Carol Ross Barney begins her session talking about how the sustainable movement has thoroughly permeated our current social consciousness. ‘Sustainism is the new modernism.” Sustainability now has its own ‘ism’. Carol spoke of the dangers of green washing within architecture.

Carol is a modernist; she believes buildings can be beautiful. Carol has had clients ask her to produce work that looks ‘green’. “Well if we paint it green it will be green.” Carol has a certain humor about her which is quite pleasant to share.

Tikkun Olam is a saying which Carol encountered on a project for a Jewish Congregation. It means repairing the world. Prior to beginning design Carol felt she needed to fully understand this statement. She translated this understanding into a stunning solution for the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois. Built on a small site the program required over 30,000sf, but by combining programmatic elements and incorporating “space you didn’t have to build” she found the ‘greenest solution of all’. Multi-function, rethinking traditional programmatic layouts, and carefully considered processions through the building produced a solution that both fulfilled the program and reduced construction material. Eventually the project won a COTE top ten award and received a LEED Platinum rating.

Material solutions are important to Carol’s work, but she is not a slave to any one idea. When her suggestion to use onsite rubble to fill gabion walls was met with “all that rubble makes us think of the holocaust” Carol did not hesitate to rethink her approach. “Obviously that statement is a non-starter for a Jewish community.” She rethought material use, construction waste, and aesthetic meanings.

“We work hard to find a solution that is holistic.” To Carol all things must be considered together. Sustainability goes beyond material sensibility in her work and includes more complex strategies such as displacement ventilation, integrated acoustics, and day lighting. For Carol’s work integrated design solutions offer sustainable solutions, economic sensibility, and aesthetic rigor.

Next she spoke of a building built on the university of Minnesota. The sloping campus has views of Lake Michigan and is a complex composition of various buildings and architectural styles. The program was a new home for the Civil engineering department. Duluth is the capitol of the iron range, and Carol wanted to fully speak to that context, that history. Clad extensively with core ten panels, the aesthetic seems appropriate but as with all of Carol’s work, it goes far beyond that. The building also combines a hydrology studies program and this multi-function is also expressed in the building through the use of monumental scuppers that control rainwater runoff and become a notable aesthetic solution for the project. “Sometimes when looking for efficient solutions you can find beauty.”

The last project she shared was a current project that is under construction. Located on the Ohio State University campus, the program is a ten story building that is highly visible to the surrounding context. Her first step was to extensively research the site to gain an intimate understanding of the area, of the context. The project solution is a highly innovative aesthetic, a building that embraces the context while simultaneously challenging the traditional thoughts of style, material, and program. This project is really a story about the skin. Numerous investigations produced various schemes that bring a new thought process to the campus. Given the low budget ($76/sf!) the most effective solution proved to be concrete with a highly articulated series of voids; balancing opacity, transparency and view. The solution both expressed the use of the building (a chiller plant) and pushes the aesthetic into a new realm.

Carol’s session was full of innovation, enthusiasm and wisdom. Thank you, Carol, for sharing your work and thoughts with us!

Adam Hillhouse, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Hillhouse Architects, Inc.
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AIA Colorado Practice and Design Conference 2011

 

 

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