Hello all,
Please respond to the following prompt via the comment section by Sunday at 8pm.
BLOG EXERCISE 2
Post 1: After reading in-class and from the those assigned this week,
comment on the each way the authors choose to index the systems described. How do their motives/audiences vary? 2-3 paragraphs.
Mason takes the macro to micro approach when discussing productive serfaces. He revisists historical and global contexts
ReplyDeleteand eventually relates the broader thought to a smaller scale, giving credibily to his findings. Although Mason White seems to
direct his readings toward an audience of architects or related designers/intellectuals, the one apects that separates
Mason White from the other 'Green Authors' is his realist approach. He paraphrases from the book, "Sustainability: Fuzzy Systems
and Wicked Problems," bringin green design back down to Earth by talking of the ambiguity of sustainable design. According to
White's findings, architectural surfaces are becoming more about "production" and less about "function"; participating in a sort
of "giving-back" connotation.
Mir's approach and the Sheffield reading are more of a textbook style and seemingly directed toward anyone interest in the subject,
not just architects and/or designers. The diagrams, photos, list of viable plants and comparisons between green wall types were
very clear. His introduction, similar to Mason White's, give historical context and describes how green walls and garden style living
are nothing new.
The Green Roof Construction and Maintenance Reading, although it was focused on horizontal green surfaces, went into much
more depth as far as methods and maintenance. The more scientific and mathmatical approach seemed to target architects
and contractors, serving as more of a manual. The in depth nature of the reading demostrates that although vertical green surfaces
are more space efficient and can potentially blur the lines between architecture and living organism, horizontal green surfaces,
thus far, have many more techniques and precedents to learn from. That being said, the Mir reading demostrated some useful and
successful vertical green sufraces.
In the article “Hanging Planters”, the author is trying to index the vertical garden into two categories: the use of rigid, modular system and the use of flexible fabric. He generally explains how each of these systems works in terms of its functionality, proficiency and adaptability to the walls. To me, he wrote this article for future customers who may interest in installing for one of these systems.
ReplyDeleteThe author, from the “Green Facades and Building Structures” article, categorizes vertical green into green facades, wall vegetation and living wall system. It is obvious that he wrote the article from the perspective of an engineering profession as it is very informative and has detailed records of scientific data related to each vertical green. He also pointed out advantages and disadvantages of vertical greening through lens of science.
In “Green Roof Construction and Maintenance”, Kelly Luckett focuses on realistic aspects such as Structural, Waterproofing, Maintenance, Environment and Return on Investment, etc. This article shows the author’s interest in technical and financial aspects of green roof which is why I conclude that it is written for AEC professions and future clients.
Lastly, the authors’ approach in “Green Roof: Habitat Action Plan” is the best of interest in the ecosystem of green roofs. In the article, it was clearly stated that their aim is to increase the biodiversity value of all new green roofs in Sheffield with emphasis for local priority habitats and species. They want to promote good green practice through creating policies and taking action. Therefore, through this article, they want to promote their ideas to general audience by giving specific goals and targeted timeline.
One of my favorite readings was Green Facades and Building Structures written by Mir. This text is written for a general audience. For person who doesn't know anything about green facades, wall vegetation nor living wall system that reading would be ideal. Mir provide a definition about different system techniques at the beginning of the reading. After readers familiar with the subject he steps back to ancient history to introduce start of green surfaces. To keep readers attention Mir uses different techniques, first technique that he use is using a question (he does that to introduce different section). Second one is comparing all three systems to each other and pointing out differences and similarities. Third important element in his index is color diagrams which help readers to visualize what is written by separating three different categories into three different colors. Mir also keeps reader's interest by adding photos, details and section diagrams where he describes a structure or list name of different plants. Mir explains all systems in full depth, structure, maintenance, materials used for structure, categories and specie of plants, dimensions, budget are provided, it looks like he covered everything.
ReplyDeleteNext reading by Luckett is similar on Mir's. Luckett provides all information starting from design, to structural support and construction, benefits and maintenance. However, this reading is more for a designer, for someone who made the choose from all green systems towards green roof. Inside of the reading can find a good flow between images and the reading. All photographs have a figure number which ties back to the text as a supporting element. Carrot City is written like a magazine, it will be for someone who is looking for general information about hanging planters. The reading provides good amount of photos to describe the technique in couple of pages for a brief reading, and a small diagram to describe the system. "Green Roof HAP" is a manual that focuses on habitats and gives points of things to do and how to improve your green roof, it written for someone who is planning to make a green roof. "The productive Surface" targeting advance audience with some knowledge in agriculture or landscape architecture. In these readings we do not see definitions of words in compare with "Green Facades and Building Structures". Author makes reading flow through arguments provides real life examples.
Hanging Planters by Gorgolewski, Komisar, and Nasr describes a narrow band of food production technologies. Written more for the "Do It Yourself" gardening audience, the text indexes these technologies by their underlying structural systems - Rigid Modular Systems and Flexible Fabrics. The authors never define these two types of technologies, but rather describe several proprietary products that fall into each category.
ReplyDeleteBased on those descriptions, rigid systems are those that possess a free-standing and/or self-supporting frame. Flexible fabrics by contrast appear to be systems where a fabric serves as the critical structural element for the growing media, but reliant on an external system such as a wall or a rack for additional support.
M.A. Mir's piece on green facades and building structures was clearly an academic written for researchers. The piece possesses the basic question - are these "green" systems beneficial or detrimental to the moisture transmission through an exterior wall system. Such a question is valuable relative to the long term performance of the wall, but also represents a very narrow slice of possible performance criteria. To focus the research presented in the piece, Mir identifies three categories of system based on the level of human intervention required: green facades, wall vegetation, and living wall systems. The real value of this piece is the detailed descriptions of each of the systems studied.
Luckett's piece on green roof construction and maintenance appeared to be aimed at architect's and contractors. Luckett makes no effort to describe a variety of systems, but rather takes a process approach - first discussing design considerations, then structural materials and methods, on through growth media, etc. It's valuable for the relative depth of the content at each stage in the design and construction process.
The habitat action plan was unique among the readings as it is clearly intended as a usable tool and policy statement. The piece describes two indices - the first based on the user experience - the second based on the level of bio-diversity supported. The value of this selection is that it exposes how non-architects, non-designers are viewing green technologies.
Mason White's piece on the productive surface chronicles three evolutionary stages of green technologies. In terms of an index, one might describe it chronological. He makes a case that "green" thinking has been around potentially as long as buildings have been around, but at least as long as the industrial revolution. He describes a level of green thinking with at the city scale with planned open spaces and intentional zoning of use groups. He describes Buckminster Fuller's attempts to index all of the natural resources in an effort to more efficiently produce and utilize them. Finally he describes the shift to micro-level interventions with harvesting of sunlight and other green systems. This piece is more for the lay person and make a loose argument for the continued evolution of green thinking.
As I mentioned in week one, I hope to incorporate some green strategies into my Master's thesis. Based on the readings for this week, I am interested farming two things: on the philosophical end of the farming spectrum, I hope to farm minds, on the pragmatic end of the spectrum, I hope to farm produce and herbs.
ReplyDeleteThe thesis is about co-locating a liberal arts high schools with business start-up spaces. The hope is that this synergy allows intellectual farming in both directions: business entities to students as more experienced resources and students to business entities as fresh ideas and inspiration.
On the pragmatic end, I intend to use south-facing roof areas as science learning farms capable of supporting a wide variety of produce. The micro climate 80 feet above the street may be best suited to lettuce, herbs, and strawberries among others.