Out of sight, out of mind – not a good strategy to encourage conscious consumerism of natural resources and energy! In the developed world, people take for granted resources they use on a daily basis; in a world of diminishing resources, that perception needs to change. What if buildings were constructed so that basic systems such as water and heating, were built on the outside of the buildings? Would we all be more conscious consumers if resources were exposed in a more obvious way?
That was the theory behind “Ecoschool,” the recently announced winner of the Flux Emerging Architect’s Design Competition. Ecoschool won the top prize of Most Innovative and the People’s Choice Award for their project. Ecoschool exposed all the basic systems of a housing complex on the outside of the building so that the systems were no longer just functional, but also expressive of the connectivity between people living near each other, and to each individual’s dependence on those resources on a daily basis. More information can be found at https://flux.io/compete/
The contest was sponsored by Flux (www.flux.io), a technology company born out of Google’s Moonshot factory to find ways for technology to prepare the AEC industry for the rapid urbanization and coinciding resource challenges we are facing.