Thoughts From Chicago

I haven't yet posted from Greenbuild, mostly because this was my first time at the conference, and it took most of my mental energy just to sort through the experience of 22,000 people and all of the information I was taking in.

Not posting, however, has given me some space to start thinking about some of the big-picture themes of the conference. The most striking is the influence of social justice and social movements on green building, and vice versa.

Social justice is, of course, the third leg of the triple-bottom-line stool. Without it, even the greenest and most economically successful buildings have failed to live up to their full potential. Buildings can be powerful tools for social change: mixed-income housing, high-performance schools, and even office buildings can change the way people interact with their environment and with one another.

It felt at Greenbuild like the architecture community was being challenged (often by younger conference attendees) to think beyond the energy performance of the building, beyond its implications for stormwater runoff, and beyond indoor air quality to something much bigger. Several sessions I attended tackled the idea that buildings can be catalysts for social change. In one session, for example, the group was talking about how cohousing and intentional communities such as eco-villages can change behaviors in their residents, making it easier for them to make green choices, and often making those choices more affordable.

Paul Hawken, too, spoke about the connection between the social and environmental movements. I was a little too enthralled to take good notes, but to paraphrase, he was talking about how we can no longer think about buildings as doing less harm to the environment and to society, but we must think about buildings as regenerative. The Living Buildings Challenge is leading us in this direction, and many of the projects I've seen designed to achieve certification through that program have strong social elements, extending the vision of what a building can do to include social equality, food production, community creation, and other aspects of social justice.

Buildings do not exist solely to be energy efficient or water efficient or even beautiful. Buildings exist primarily to serve human needs. Those needs extend beyond daylighting or good indoor air quality. Human needs are often less tangible and impossible to capture in even the best codes, standards, and rating systems. But there are examples for us to follow: Folsom/Dore Apartments in San Francisco, Oleson Woods housing in Portland, Oregon, and many others.

We all want to create buildings that save the planet. It seems like it's time to think about buildings that save the world, too.