Ellen van Loon on Architecture and Sustainability

The problem with the discussion about sustainability is that in some discussions you feel that sustainability is the most important thing in building but actually sustainability is only one of the twenty parameters which are important. It doesn’t make any sense to design a building which is very sustainable but nobody wants to live it. That is the top of not being sustainable. It is very important to find the balance between sustainability ant architecture qualities of your environment.

We need to improve our profession by becoming much more knowledgeable and much more intelligent. An architect can’t continue in the profession in the traditional way by getting a program from the clients, design a building and that’s it. You have to really way all kinds of factors in there; environmental, economic, cultural factors and also of course the health of human beings. It is quite clear that human beings cannot live without lights and if human beings don’t get any daylight they basically die. There is a lot of balance to be looking and if architects are not able in the future to deal with all these questions, the architects won’t be. It will be the person that has a lot of jobs in the future.Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?

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