Beauty, as one the twelve values for Design For One Earth is defined as “an intrinsic part of nature and humanity. It is a basic human need and not a luxury or elitist concept. Promote beauty in the built environment and provide for a connection to nature and natural beauty.”
There is no arguing that the focus world over has made a significant shift towards Sustainability in the built environment. At this point it becomes all the more imperative that softer values such as Beauty be intrinsic to the dialogue of Sustainability.
Our Design for One Earth Roundtable during RNL’s 2009 Green Week focused on Beauty. The goal of the roundtable was to explore the meaning and purpose of beauty; its manifestation in the built environment; why and how is it an important part of sustainability. Each of the participants was asked to pick from six famous quotes on Beauty and bring an object or an image that best represents beauty within the framework of the quote. While we kept going back to the idea that “Beauty is subjective” and essentially lies in the eyes of the beholder, a few key observations were made:
- It doesn’t matter how one interprets it – beauty is still core to each individual’s goals. If this premise were to be applied to a project it would be as simple as stating: Every stakeholder in a building project may have a different interpretation of what beauty means to them – but each wants the building to be beautiful.
- Beauty transcends beyond the visual – and is often expressed as a feeling, an emotion that is spurred – again translating this to the built environment it could be interpreted as a dramatic space that generates a strong emotion or a daylight built space that connects one seamlessly to the outdoors, generating a feeling of beauty.
It is imperative that as we are rapidly progressing into the systems thinking approach to design that we bring along with us all the values associated with aesthetics and beauty as strongly as of energy and resources. A few days ago, prior to the launch of Design for One Earth, I was asked the question, “Beauty and sustainability – how are they related?” To me, the question really is, “how can they be separated?”
Sustainability and Beauty are both an integral part of design and problem solving. We may look to nature to create a beautiful sustainable solution or strive to create a solution that brings us closer to nature!
Just to play Devil's advocate and to see if we can get an e-conversation going, I tend to think that we, I'll say typically just to be safe, don't discount beauty, but rather exalt visual beauty to a much higher level than it should belong, while simultaneously ignoring the vast range of human emotion (and perhaps "ignore" isn't the right word). These "peripheral" architectural emotions are discomfort, anger, isolation and claustrophobia, hot and cold, and a myriad of other emotions. Not to say that we should design a space to be uncomfortable necessarily, but we always tend to the idea that getting to the beautiful means getting back to nature, and vice versa. Our landscape, our nature, contains a wide range of emotion, most prevalent of all is fear and mistrust, I would argue. We are still ever fearful about flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, the dark of a forest, or the stark isolation of a desert; these are scary ideas, but we design "happy" or "beautiful" gardens and parks to make the environment seem more palatable. Moreover, we choose awe inspiring pictures of nature in it's most docile form to inspire our designs.
Our world may reveal beauty to us in glimpses, but that beauty, I believe, can only exist because of relativity. We need juxtaposition; if we are fearful of the roaring waves of a gulf-coast, it makes the sunset more beautiful. Why should a building, or a landscape for that matter, have the pre-requisite of being beautiful through and through? Can we design a building or a landscape that represents a combination of fear and comfort? Just a thought exercise, but an interesting one, at least that's what I think anyways.
sja
Posted by: Scott Anderson | 04/21/2009 at 02:21 PM
There is someone that is coming or passing away in your life around the clock, so you may lose sight of those seen, and forget those remembered. There is gain and loss in your life, so you may catch sight of those unseen, and remember those forgotten. Nevertheless, doesn‘t the unseen exist for sure? Will the remembered remain for ever?
Posted by: Tiffany & Co Outlet Jewellery | 05/19/2011 at 01:03 AM