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 Protecting the grape vine
By 2020 the old 2005 Building Act will have been repealed and replaced with a new Act.
Many people assume that carbon-neutrality should be led by the government and that it should be achieved through legislation. Recent experience suggests otherwise. It is useful to consider performance rather than promises.
The Select Committee process and the Parliamentary process are excellent, but they are not well suited to the complexities of the environmental questions being asked. The Select Committee considering the Building Bill failed to take carbon-neutrality into account, relying instead on the submissions of those holding power in a building industry which was responsible for the leaky homes syndrome. This group, with their vested interest, sought to protect themselves. The only owner-builder who made submissions on the Bill was given five minutes to explain the complexities of a carbon-neutral built-environment. The result was that those who caused the leaky building syndrome were rewarded and those who had nothing to do with it were penalised.
The 2004 Building Act may at first seem to be a secular document but it is in fact a deeply religious document. It is committed to fundamentalist materialism. The Act sees architecture as nothing more than a consumer object. The Act envisages a consumer society in which the built environment has an enormous carbon footprint. The Act manages to get almost everything wrong.
Yet it was passed at a time when the issues of carbon-neutrality, climate change and sustainability were well understood. The Act makes it clear legislation will be a totally ineffective tool in achieving carbon-neutrality.
The Building Act is concerned only with consumer protection and is negative and restrictive. A consumer society consumes, and consumer architecture consumes the life of the planet.
The Act denies that buildings have a soul and a spirit. It denies that human life has any meaning.
The Act is also a vote of no-confidence in democracy. In pretending to protect consumers from leaky buildings it supports the builders who demonstrated their incompetence and restricts the possibility of anyone else building. The Act is a democracy-sham.
Architects who have only asked, like business people, how they can make money out of climate change, will by 2020 have recognised that any professional person must have a commitment to sustaining the life of the planet which is more compelling than any commitment to an individual client. By 2020 the ethical crisis facing architects will have been resolved.
By 2020 a new Building Act will have been introduced which will recognise that building is a creative exploration of the meaning of life. The new Act will be positive rather than negative. It will recognise the joy of having a healthy planet. It will empower everyone to build.
The new Act will establish a truly democratic framework for carbon-neutral architecture.
By 2020 everyone involved with building will have taken an oath to sustain the life of the planet and to do no harm.
The lack of any ethical standards has led to a great deal of irresponsible building. There has been no fundamental measure against which building could be evaluated.
Many architectural awards are currently given to buildings which are completely irresponsible. By 2020 only buildings which sustain the life of the planet and do no harm will be even be considered for an award.
For many years doctors have taken an oath to protect life. This is the very basis for the doctor-patient relationship. Any patient can assume that the doctor is protecting their life. Sadly a client currently cannot assume the same for their architect, and the architect also cannot assume the same for their clients.
As there is more debate about the meaning of "carbon-neutral" everyone will begin wondering why buildings need to be violent to the earth. Why do they need to be so destructive of place, stories, traditions, heritage and culture?
By 2020 everyone will have recognised that "development" is nothing more than a euphemism for "destruction". If you wish to see your child develop you do not kill them and replace them with another child.
By 2020 buildings will not be perfect, but they will at least set out save the life of the planet.
By 2020 "Sustainable development" will be clearly understood to mean taking our inheritance and our whakapapa, enriching and enhancing them, and then passing them on to future generations.
The "Sustain life and do no harm" oath will provide an ethical basis for carbon-neutral architecture.
By 2020 building will no longer be done by developers.
When building is seen as an exploration of the meaning of life it becomes clear that no one else can do that for you. You need to be directly involved in the process.
The idea of allowing developers, who are driven only by profit, to be the built-form-givers of our society is ridiculous. When the wrong people are doing all the building for all the wrong reasons the result is the mediocrity we see all around us.
By 2020 architects will no longer need to go to Italian hill towns for their holidays so that they can experience a decent urban environment. They will be able to stay home and celebrate local achievements.
The problem with developers is that they are only interested in producing a consumer object, and they in fact do this very inefficiently. When profit is your only motive you have no incentive to build carbon-neutral buildings.
Throughout history love has produced the greatest buildings. In a carbon-neutral New Zealand love rather than profit will be our reason for building.
Love will provide the positive motivation for carbon-neutral architecture.
By 2020 building will no longer being controlled by local government.
When you give someone a uniform and a little power there is a tendency to assume competence and to lord it over others with petty controls. By 2020 the whole power structure in our society will have been called into question. Local government will by that time look after libraries, museums, art galleries, zoos and drains.
Private environments in New Zealand are of a high standard and rising all the time. Public environments in contrast are dismal failures. By 2020 people will have realised that councils are actually incompetent in what they do themselves while at the same time perceiving themselves to be competent to run the lives of other people.
Councils at present normally work in collusion with developers and often see themselves as being developers. Councils have a very large carbon footprint.
Councils hold many meetings at which they talk about vision, but in fact they have none. Councils spend their time forcing their own tired, limited view of the world onto everyone else. They achieve only boring, dull mediocrity. With endless regulations they really believe they are building a better world by making it not quite as bad. They think they can force people to reduce their carbon footprints while developing plans which make it necessary for everyone to endlessly drive their cars around. Councils fail to recognise their own inconsistencies.
Elected representatives have become ineffective in wielding power over council bureaucrats. The bureaucrats now bury the elected representatives beneath reports and agendas.
Because councils are terrified of taking responsibility for their actions they keep asking for more reports and more second opinions. Ordinary people find that the cost of permits is too often more than the cost of their buildings. Anger and frustration are rife. The council system seems unable to embrace positive action. By 2020 all this will have changed.
While wars are being waged all over the world to force democracy onto people who are not particularly interested councils have managed to achieve a democracy sham.
By 2020 the unexpected community desire for a carbon-neutral New Zealand will have led to a demand for real built-environment democracy.
By 2020 most councils will be significantly smaller in size, and perhaps have even gone bankrupt as a result of their encouragement of leaky buildings. Everyone else will have agreed that the systemic failure indicated that there had to be a better way of building.
A democratic distribution of power is essential for carbon-neutral architecture.
People in 2020, when they begin building for themselves, will discover just how easy it really is.
Making your own car is an extremely difficult task. It is something which is best left to the efficiencies of an assembly line construction. In contrast building a house remains a craft activity.
Houses all end up looking the same only because of the development process and council controls. People however really think that cars all look different, even though they are mass produced. The difference is that everyone knows a lot more about their car than their house. People have a love affair with cars, and lovers tend to notice the twinkle of an eye or a misplaced hair. Individuals have been disempowered.
When people begin building their own homes they will discover that there is no mystery at all. People will fall in love with their houses and very soon will know as much about their houses as their cars.
By 2020 it will be a great relief to people to realise that being carbon-neutral means having more love in their lives rather than less.
Owner-building is a necessary part of carbon-neutral architecture.
By 2020 no building will be permitted to be completed in less than two years.
The current Building Act requires all buildings to be completed in less than two years. This results in enormous carbon footprints. Buildings are demolished and taken to landfills because no one has time to save them. The building process produces enormous amounts of waste because everyone is in too big a rush to do anything properly.
People who want to be healthy avoid fast-food and fast-architecture.
Slowing down the building process will give everyone time to think and time to observe what was around them. It will give people time to do the job properly. New Zealand trees grow slowly. They are stronger and more beautiful because it takes time to do things well. A Medieval cathedral took hundreds of years to complete. Architects never finish their own houses.
When fast profits become slow profits developers will quietly go out of business and devote themselves to golf and the adrenalin rush of bungy jumping.
Carbon-neutral architecture will focus on quality rather than quantity.
By 2020 the old rating system will have been completely replaced.
The 2007 Rating Inquiry will hopefully recommend replacing rates, which are based on a mythical value, with a simple 40% cash contribution of the actual value realised by a sale.
It would be a simple move to cool down the overheated housing market.
In fact it would overcome the market altogether as the enormous profits to be made from instability and taxation benefits would simply dry up.
Before 2020 everything will have changed, almost overnight, as people realise that they might not be able to sell up and move to Takapuna Beach after all. People will begin to look at their houses quite differently. Faithfulness to site will become a new idea.
The collapse of the property market will make a significant contribution to a carbon-neutral New Zealand.
A vow of stability will make carbon-neutral architecture possible.
By 2020 land agents everywhere will close their doors as people decide not to sell.
The role of the land agent is to inflate values and expectations.
They contribute nothing to society other than disappointment and unhappiness. They sell a dream, knowing that the dream will never be realised.
For them disappointment leads to another sale and another commission.
As a profession land agents give all the wrong signals. "The house has tons of potential to stamp your footprint or alternatively start again - your choice!" said Bayleys encouraging the demolition of a perfectly good house in Riddell Road.
The artificial inflation of values finally leads to the destruction of cultures and communities. Land agents create an enormous carbon footprint of an entirely negative kind.
In a carbon-neutral New Zealand there will be no land agents.
Carbon-neutral architecture is not an object to be bought and sold like a slave.
By 2020 the new stability of the built environment will have introduced an architecture capable of transcending the transience of life.
Because people know they are going to be living in their houses for a much longer period they will think much more carefully about each decision. It will no longer possible to simply pass your mistakes on to someone else.
This long-life approach to design will change everything. The old concept of houses designed to reflect a fixed moment in time will be forgotten. Every house will be designed so that it can be adapted over many years to constantly changing circumstances, without the need for constant rebuilding.
This is of course not a new idea. Medieval villages have adapted for hundreds of years to constant social change.
Carbon-neutral architecture is timeless.
By 2020 the new architecture will improve with age in contrast with the old consumer architecture which began deteriorating from the moment it was built.
Homes are about memories and traditions as much as they are about a physical fabric. A home is not a home until it has seen birth and death, celebrations and birthdays, reunions and weddings.
As houses become homes whole suburbs will begin to change as they too will want to keep their stories and rituals.
In a carbon-neutral New Zealand everyone will find that their lives are richer and more fulfilling.
By 2020 the whole briefing process for buildings will have changed. The design of building will by then be sourced in site.
Today buildings are built for immediate needs, and they are quickly out of date. The land and the trees, in contrast, have lived through the cyclones as well as the hot summers.
The new architecture will give form to place and will be sourced in the history of the land. Rather than sheltering people from the natural environment the new architecture will make it possible for people to embrace the natural world in all its wonderful complexity.
Just as every place in the land is both unique and beautiful so every carbon-neutral building will be unique and at one with the beauty of place.
By 2020 urban design and the design of new buildings will begin making carbon-neutral relationships possible.
It will take a long time for the built environment to change, but by 2020 incremental change will already be taking place, and the tragedies of Albany or Flat Bush will never be repeated.
The new assumption will be, for example, that much work could be done from home. Homes will thus include office spaces as well as ample workshop space. It will be recognised that when you are working at home you need to be protected from interruptions, and that a distinction needs to be made between work life and home life.
With so many people working from home it will be a delight to be able to make infrequent trips on almost deserted motorways.
The potential conflict of closer relationships will be mediated by "Peaceful Cities" principles.
By 2020 a new architectural curriculum will have been introduced into secondary schools.
The democracy sham can only be overcome by a much greater level of understanding and commitment on the part of everyone. You cannot leave everything to someone else and also have a democracy. Democracy means taking personal responsibility rather than blaming the government.
Knowing how to build is just as important as knowing how to write or how to cook. By 2020 every student will be acquiring not only skills but also a much better appreciation of architectural values.
Not everyone will build, but everyone will know how to build.
By 2020 everyone will be having a lot more fun while doing a lot less building.
Building has become, for most people, a nightmare. Everyone is worried about mortgages and interest rates. Those with leaky homes are spending their time either talking to lawyers or wondering how they are going to pay them.
Building should be fun, just like cooking a meal. When we cook a meal we visit other cultures and other countries without leaving home. We respond to the seasons and the produce of the day. We grow through the experience of cooking.
In a carbon-neutral New Zealand building will be rather like cooking. Through building we will tune in to the universe without leaving home, and we will grow through discovering the harmony and wonder of nature. Through building we will discover again what it means to be a New Zealander, and what it means to live in New Zealand. Our buildings will belong in place, and so will the inhabitants.
Building could be fun and everyone could be involved.
Carbon-neutral architecture is very challenging, but also great fun.
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