It was a full house at AUT last night, with a crowd of over 80 ranging from architects to economists packing into the small lecture theatre to listen to Dr Janis Birkeland's talk on positive development and sustainable architecture.
It was a full house at AUT last night, with a crowd of over 80 ranging from architects to economists packing into the small lecture theatre to listen to Dr Janis Birkeland's talk on positive development and sustainable architecture.
The mixture of disciplines in the audience was a good sign of how sustainable planning is beginning to be taken seriously - a stark contrast to the stories Dr Birkeland told of starting out only to be met with indifference from both planners and environmentalists.
Despite the provocative subtitle of the talk, Dr Birkeland's talk was more about solutions than scaremongering. (Not that there weren't disturbing facts: for example, making all new buildings green is not enough as they make up a mere 2-4% of available housing.) While she challenged architects to aim for net positive rather than neutral through designing for nature and community, she more importantly examined pragmatic tools with which to achieve it. (Biomimicry? Too slow and expensive). Easiest to action? Plant trees outside your house: apparently tree-lined streets have 10-15% of the dust that treeless ones do. Which may not sound like much, until you realise how far dust can travel, and its effects on people's health....
All up, it was an illuminating and engaging discussion that was worth seeing. Dr Birkeland's work has been lauded by many including Michael Braungart, and her talk shows why, not only creating a vision for sustainable urban planning but also some means by which to do it. She has one more presentation in Wellington on the 19th of February. For those that can't make it, Radio NZ have also posted the audio from their Nine to Noon interview with her.
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