Barun Roy: Gen-Next architecture?

There are some excellent alternative architecture ideas at the Shanghai Expo that should engage town planners

Could this be the beginning of a new era in architecture? A migration to the next generation of ideas? A call to governments, planners, designers, scientists and technologists everywhere to prepare and be ready for the brave new world of green living that seems just round the corner? These questions come to mind as the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai continues to draw millions to what undoubtedly is the biggest show on earth of our alternative future.

The Expo leaves us in no doubt that progress towards a greener world depends as much on solar panels and wind turbines as on how well can architects get out of traditional notions and build green ideas into their designs. A few solar panels mounted on conventional buildings may give us hot water during bath but won’t make us energy-efficient in any meaningful way. Energy-efficiency is something that must be integrated in the buildings themselves — buildings that will keep out heat, keep in the coolness, capture maximum possible daylight, and suck in and circulate natural air with little use of energy-consuming mechanical aids — and not something to be added on as an afterthought.

There are some excellent alternative architecture ideas at the Expo, like the UK’s “Seed Cathedral.” It’s a six-level structure that looks from the outside like one huge cube, pierced by 10,000 fibre optic rods. Each rod, 7.5-metres-long, contains a seed in its head from the Millennium Seed Bank in the UK. But that’s not the main point. More important from an architectural point of view is the fact that, during the day, the rods act as conduits of daylight to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each of them make the whole structure glow.

The Swiss pavilion features an “intelligent” facade made of light-emitting diodes that capture energy during the day and let it out at night. The French pavilion is clad in a trellis-like structure and features a garden inside with plants growing on walls. The German pavilion, christened “Balancity,” is like a walk-through sculpture having no defined interiors or exteriors.

Denmark presents a pavilion where interconnected, gently rising loops of ramps make climbing a painless affair and mingle exteriors and interiors in a way that cuts artificial climate control to the minimum. The Polish pavilion has a facade made of traditional folk-art paper cut-outs that should inspire ideas of how facades of buildings could be layered to let in air and light.

Since buildings make up towns and cities, town planning is an important element of greening, too. An ill-planned town or an unthinking expansion of cities is a big waster of energy in terms of choked or slowed traffic, longer distances to cover, and unsound concentrations of populations and activities.

There are some very innovative ideas at the Expo that should engage town planners. The Netherlands, for example, calls its pavilion Happy Street and presents the vision of an ideal city where all aspects of life flourish together, not in separate, well-defined zones.

The Japanese showcase, spread over 6,000 sq m and called Breathing Organism, presents the concept of a futuristic city, which highlights recent ecological advances and latest technological discoveries.

Many of these ideas are being tested in Songdo, near Incheon in South Korea, where an entire green city is being built from scratch. Forty per cent of its space will be open in the form of parks, gardens, walking/hiking corridors, and public gathering areas, arranged in such a way as to optimise people’s access to sunlight, views, and the sky. A centralised pneumatic system of airtight pipes will collect waste directly from homes and move it to processing facilities, eliminating the need for waste removal vehicles.

But the best part of New Songdo Town, with a likely population of 1 million or so, is going to be its use of interactive communication technology, meant to minimise people’s need to go out and, thus, reduce road traffic and urban pollution. Every building is going to be wired and every home will have “telepresence” installed as a basic amenity. Thus, one can sit at home and “visit” one’s friends, family, banker, lawyer, doctor, or accountant, or a government official, to converse, transact business, order groceries, lodge a complaint, or request a service, all on a giant screen in the living room.

The idea may sound too sci-fi, but it certainly makes excellent green sense. If we can cut down on citizens’ daily travels for mundane reasons, we’ll not only reduce the traffic on the road and save up on gas, but also lessen tensions that inevitably arise every time one goes out, either from being caught in traffic jams or, say, from looking for a parking spot. And, surely, the best green city is one where the tensions of living are the least.

rbarun@gmail.com