Changing negative energy environments into positive energy environments is the primary way of reducing energy demands.
The energy needed to act in a negative environment is many times greater than the energy needed to act in a positive environment. Passive low energy urban design is not possible without the metamorphosis of conflict-generated and conflict-sustaining negative energy into creative positive energy. The negative relationship between the built environment and the natural environment is the primary source of energy wastage.THE ENERGY REQUIREMENTS DEMANDED BY A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THOSE DEMANDED BY A NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENT.
Teaching students who do not want to learn demands at least ten times the energy needed to teach students who are strongly motivated.
Communicating with someone who does not want to understand demands at least ten times the energy required to communicate with the sympathetic listener.
Living in a competitive, destructive, constantly changing, unpredictable, manipulative, stressful atmosphere demands at least ten times the emotional, intellectual and personal energy needed to live in a co-operative, supportive, stable, predictable, non-manipulative, stressfree atmosphere.
I suspect that there are very few people who have not dreamt of escaping from a negative environment into a positive environment, and a good many people must have seriously considered restructuring their lives to avoid wasting their energy on negative people and negative situations.
Restricted as our minds are by almost two thousand years of negative Western thinking, almost no one seems to have asked the three obvious questions.
Are negative environments really necessary?
Are they of our own making?
(in part if not as a whole)
Can we eliminate negative environments?
(or at least significantly reduce them.)
CHANGING NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTS INTO POSITIVE ENVIRONMENTS IS THE PRIMARY WAY OF REDUCING ENERGY USE.
Seeking to reduce energy use through more efficient teaching techniques, through more efficient communication techniques, or through more efficient building techniques can never be as fruitful as seeking to eliminate the energy wasted in overcoming conflict.
The energy needed to avoid problems is only a fraction of the energy needed to deal with them.
It takes much less energy to avoid pollution than it does to deal with it.
It takes much less energy to avoid waste than it does to deal with waste.
Anyone seriously interested in sustainability or low-energy design must ask the obvious question "Where do problems come from?"
SUSTAINABILITY IS ONLY POSSIBLE IN A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT
Only the frictionless motor has the potential of eternal motion.
Only the frictionless city has the potential of sustainability.
It seems self evident that anyone seeking to design a low-energy motor should address the question of friction before addressing the questions of fuel, weight or materials.
It seems self evident that anyone seeking low-energy urban design should address the question of friction before addressing questions of transportation, services, or even passive solar design.
In practice almost no one has addressed the questions of architectural stress, architectural violence, and architectural aggression.
The Gulf War demonstrated that military confrontation is not a very satisfactory technique for addressing questions of resource allocation.
The move to sustainability is no less difficult for an architectural imagination than the move to a world without war is for the imagination of the common man or the common woman.
The simple fact that we have grown until we have filled the ecological space which is available has however left no alternative other than making progress towards the elimination of war, the elimination of architectural aggression, and the introduction of sustainable urban design.
I first raised the question of architectural violence in "The Tokyo Charter" and explored it further in"Architectural Violence".
I explained some sources of architectural stress and developed some strategies for overcoming architectural stress in "Epidural Architecture"
NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTS ARE OFTEN CREATED BY CHOICE
The New Zealand Government is actively persuing the myth that a society which is torn by stress, conflict, and competition will be both "efficient" and "internationally competitive".
There is a belief in contemporary management that without wars there are no heros. War brings out the best in people because it sharpens minds and taps sublimated survival instincts. Nothing encourages people to win quite as much as dying if you lose. It is simply unfortunate that in a war there will inevitably be casualties, but the war myth is sustained by the belief that it is the other person who will be the casualty.
The New Zealand Government seems to be confused about what exactly we are going to win. A cursory knowlege of history supports the myth that in a war everyone loses.
There was a time when the first casualty was truth. Today it seems that the first casualty is the environment. We now have the potential for global self destruction.
Lawyers seriously believe that bi-polar legal confrontation is a process by which the truth is revealed.
The negative energy generated by the legal process makes the legal profession ill suited to dealing with resource, built form and energy issues.
Academics seriously believe that critical analysis is a path to understanding and development.
Some would even suggest that critical analysis is a path to creative thinking.
Urban designers seriously believe that they must overcome the problems of the city.
A negative attitude to the city will inevitably result in the escalation of conflict.
Architects seriously believe that they must "shelter" people from the environment.
A negative attitude to the natural environment will inevitably result in architectural aggression.
Planners seriously believe that creating negative constraints will produce a quality environment.
A District Plan is almost entirely devoted to eithernegative constraints or problem generated action.
Managers seriously believe that stress generates high performance.
They believe that competition is the foundation of improvement
Western society has an enormous professional commitment to being negative.
NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTS ARE OFTEN ACCEPTED AS INEVITABLE
Suggesting to most people that positive environments are possible seems rather like suggesting that a world without war is possible. Everyone wants to believe, but almost everyone considers that the there is something so fundamental about the bottom line of power and conflict that finally change is not possible.
There can even be a feeling of guilt about refusing to accept negativity as a given. The teacher who decides to teach only those who want to learn is seen as neglecting a commitment to education for all.
A motivational shift on the part of students to a positive attitude to education might make further formal education unneccessary.
By habit and by custom we have come to rather enjoy the pain of negativity, and to feel good about overcoming it. Negativity can be a very cozy way of life because it never involves actually doing anything creative.
Until Western civilization overcomes the acceptance of negative environments as inevitable the commitment to positive environments will never be made.
PROBLEM SOLVING IS TO BE AVOIDED, NOT ENCOURAGED
Professionals who get a thrill out of solving problems are rather like children playing video games.
The children get a thrill out of zapping enemies and winning the game by adding up the body count. The professionals get a thrill out of hitting the problems and adding up their fees.
The assumption that people will only pay to have problems solved is not correct.
People will pay for a health system which will be available if their health fails. They hope however that they will never need it. They would pay even more gladly for a health system where the hospitals remained empty
People pay very gladly to move from a negative situation, such as injury, to a positive situation, such as good health, but moving people into a negative postion so that we will be able to rescue them is absurd.
We need to develop preventative architecture.
Low energy design does not solve problems. It avoids them.
Dealing with problems is energy intensive.
Avoiding problems is energy efficient.
TIME INDEXING CLARIFIES WHY PROBLEM-GENERATED DESIGN ALWAYS FAILS
Problems are always short term. The environmental impacts of solutions to problems are always long term.
Nuclear power presents an extreme case. A person is cold. They warm themselves up with a nuclear generator. The sun comes out and the problem has gone. The waste from the nuclear generator will go on creating a much more complex problem for another million years.
A person has ego problems and they need architectural support. Covering their building with million year old granite makes them feel good about themselves. The company fails and they end up in jail anyway. It will take the world another million years to recreate the resource.
A car park is needed, and to build it the topsoil is removed and the water table is destroyed. At worst the parking problem will have disappeared in twenty five years. It will be another ten thousand years before there is topsoil again, and probably longer before the water table has a chance to recover.
Problem initiated political decisions and problem initiated economic decisions will always be environmental disasters. The process itself is flawed and it will do nothing to improve the quality of the management.
Positive environments are founded on the harmony of fully integrated time indexed design.
Sustainablity is by definition always concerned with the long haul.
Low energy architecture and urban design are always concerned with the whole picture.
Holistic design which takes account of time indexing relegates problem solving to insignificance.
NEGATIVE PLANNING AND URBAN DESIGN GENERATES CONFLICT THROUGH SEEKING TO CONTROL CONFLICT
A management structure which establishes traffic engineers trying to solve traffic problems, drainage engineers trying to solve drainage problems, architects trying to solve building problems, and so called "urban designers" trying to solve visual problems results in an enormous wastage of energy with no result. Every conclusion will be overthrown by the next report or the next shift in political power.
The process itself is flawed. Even a democracy which assumes that 49% of the people is an unstable political concept.
The real role of planning should be to create a positive environment within which people are able to solve for themselves what they perceive to be problems, or to avoid problems if they choose to lead a creative life.
DEVOTING ENERGY TO NEGATIVE URBAN DESIGN ACTUALLY CREATES A DEMAND FOR MORE ENERGY
Helping negative people can be a futile waste of energy.
Solving the first problem is little more than an invitation for them to come back with the next problem and then the problem after that. The long term prospect is little more than a dependency relationship. This may be satisfactory for generating fees, but in every other respect is not sustainable.
Giving money to negative people so often does little more than open up the possibility of demands for more money.
Helping positive people can clear away a temporary blockage. They are able to go on and solve other problems themselves, generating energy which they in turn will be able to give to others. Giving money to positive people makes it possible for them to buy seed poatoes which will produce an abundant crop, so that they will be able to share.
Nature always produces a surplus, and a wise civilisation would always live on that ecological surplus rather than the ecological capital.
THE SURPLUSES OF NATURE ARISE FROM POSITIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Plants grow in appropriate locations.
Plants are appropriate to their locations.
The diversity of flora is as complex as the diversity of environment.
Plant species are sustainable because they all, in their own unique ways, produce a surplus of fruit and seeds.
Human beings have always been predators, taking from the surplus. The move to eating the seed potatoes only occured when the relationship of people and place was fractured.
Moving beyond the peak of the curve of counterproductivity is moving into a negative environment which will be both energy intensive and unsustainable.
It is possible to ignore the principle of counterproductivity and to assume that using less energy means being less alive.
I first discussed the concept of counterproductivity in "Counterproductivity".
The collapse of cultural immune systems caused by a fracturing of the relationship between people and place was first developed in "The Tokyo Charter".
THE CONCEPT OF ARCHITECTURAL SURPLUS CAN AT FIRST SEEM IMPOSSIBLE
"Low-energy architecture" seems at first to be a negative concept rather than a positive concept. It seems as though something is being taken away.
"Low-energy architecture" is the most positive possible form of building, precisely because it must interact to release the energy potential of both people and place.
Sustainability assumes the possibility of buildings becoming energy generators rather than energy absorbers.
SOMETIMES ONLY THE RULES NEED TO BE CHANGED
Theatre sports is a theatrical entertainment in which an idea is developed and acted out in a group and team situation. There are two simple rules. No blocking and no wimping. An idea can only be supplanted by a better idea, never by a negative response to the first idea. An idea can only be addressed by saying what is right about it, never by saying what is wrong about it. The result is an astonishingly creative and highly amusing burst of creativity.
Imagine going to get a building consent under the new Building Act if these simple constraints were incorporated into the legislation. The building inspector would not be permitted to say what was wrong with the proposed plans. A better proposal would need to be put forward. The person seeking consent would not be able to say what was wrong with the building inspector's idea, but rather what was right with it. The implications are astonishing. Instead of approaching the Council with fear and defensive aggression it would be necessary to come up with an idea which you genuinely believed could not be improved or you would lose control of the proposal. It could be argued that people lack the skills to act creatively, but this is only because we have trained people such as building inspectors in negativity, and we accept it as inevitable. No cost would be involved in making the change.
Imagine a planning profession where negative comment was not permitted. Instead of hiding behind negative criticism it would be necessary to creatively interact with the ideas of others. This is very different from concepts of "utopia" which are little more than a negative refusal to engage the real world.
SOMETIMES ONLY THE OBJECTIVES NEED TO BE CHANGED
The Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand publish a report on all accidents which take place in the mountains. They are concerned with safety and analyse in an objective way the cause of the accidents. Only a foolish climber would fail to read the reports as they present a very hard won body of knowledge about safety in the mountains.
Land Transport in New Zealand publish no such report on accidents which take place on the roads. No lessons are learned. No driver who is interested can find out anything about where accidents occur and why they occur. Any investigations are concerned only with the negative processes of allocating blame or punishment. It is impossible not to conclude that no one in Land Transport is seriously interested in road safety. Safety is seen as being negative, when safety in fact is positive. Every advertisement for safety, every newspaper comment, and every legal hearing are entirely negative.
The mountains are no place for aggression, competition, and macho-manic behaviour. In the mountains you find co-operation, friendship and the open sharing of ideas. On the roads there is carnage.
A positive approach by the whole community to safety on the roads could instantly reduce the road toll. A change of attitude is needed, not money.
A CHANGE OF LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT
When a nation begins to speak about a "health industry" rather than "health" the nation is sick.
When a nation speaks only about the "building industry" and not about "building" the resulting visual squalor is all to predictable.
When architecture is seen as "shelter" the resulting negative attitude to the environment will be insurmountable by any degree of design skill.
The primary purpose of the built environment is not to "shelter" us from a hostile and unfriendly natural world, but rather to enable us to relate more closely to a natural environment which wants to give us life.
The significance of the use of the word "shelter" as a negative term was first raised by me in "The Brazil Charter".
Submissions on the issue were made to the United Nations in my comments on Agenda 21 in "Response to Agenda 21 Document Submitted to Preparatory Committee Four".
I have dealt with the matter in more detail in "Farewell to 'Shelter'".
A CHANGE TO PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT IS CRITICAL
At first it can be startling in day surgery to be asked to remove your own bandages.
The lesson however is one that needs to be quickly learned.
A doctor can create a positive environment within which healing can place, but the doctor is not responsible for the healing.
We must also create a positive environment within which healing can take place. If we create a negative environment there is very little which the doctor can do.
We must become responsible for our own health, and that begins with taking off our own bandages.
Nursing staff who insist that hospital patients shower themselves even when it is extremely difficult for them to do so recognise that a person who develops hospital dependency will be never be able to actively promote their own health.
A sustainable city will only be possible when each person takes personal responsibility for their impact on the environment.
Creating the ability to transfer blame moves relationships into a negative cycle. A person who is able to blame a builder or an architect has little incentive to take personal creative action.
Low energy architecture will always be an architecture of involvement. A low energy input by many people will always be more effective that a high energy input by elitist professionals.
The significance of the fact that a doctor can only create an environment within which healing can take place was first raised by me in "The Place of Healing".
The direct relationship between the ability of people to accept and the level of personal responsibility for change was first discussed by me in "Journey along the way".
The strong emphasis in Agenda 21 on individual involvement in the building process resulted at least in part from the submissions of the NZIA Auckland Environment Group.
A CHANGE TO DESIGN THINKING IS ESSENTIAL
Design is a multi-polar process of bringing complex networks into harmony.
Design is the process of creating positive space.
DESIGN THINKING RESULTS IN DIVERSITY AND CONSEQUENTIAL SUSTAINABILITY AND ENERGY CONSERVATION
Design thinking begins with an idea such as music and expands the concept until it becomes the wonderful diversity of bongo drums, flutes, violins and Steinway pianos.
Problem solving reduces alternatives until they become the single solution. Even then a nagging doubt remains. The astronaut when asked what he was thinking as he was blasted into space astonished the armchair idealists by saying he was only thinking that the rocket was the culmination of 50,000 contracts, and that every one of those contracts had been let to the lowest bidder.
Diversity is essential for sustainability.
Diversity creates a positive atmosphere within which growth and change are always possible.
Single solution management processes are inappropriate for low-energy sustainable architecture,
I first developed the notion of the difference between single minded management, which eliminates alternatives to arrive at the single solution, and management for human fulfillment, which begins with a single objective and expands to encompass a vast array of possible alternatives, in "The planning triangle".
A CHANGE TO CREATIVE OPTIMISM IS ESSENTIAL
The frictionless motor, the sustainable city, and the positive environment are all elegant, exciting, alive and challenging possibilities.
They are driven by what might be, rather than the dreary prospect of a problem which must be overcome.
Once upon a time there was no architectural stress,no architectural conflict and no architectural aggression.
Once upon a time there was no global environmental crisis.
It is possible to feel depressed that we have used so much energy and so many resources to achieve such a pitiful and inadequate built environment.
It is possible on the other hand to feel cheerful about the fact that if we have made the mess then it must possible for us to clean it up. We are in control. There is no one else to blame.
Moving from a negative to a positive environment seems such a self-evident step to take.
LOW ENERGY DESIGN BEGINS WITH LOW ENERGY ACTION
It is possible to make urban design so grandiose that it becomes an excuse for inaction.
It would take no energy to make a cheerful remark to the next stranger you meet in a lift. It might not change the architectural stress of being hurled around in space in a totally enclosed and disconnected way, but it would open up the possibility for that other person that travelling in a lift can be a positive experience.
It would take no energy to smile at the next person you walk by in the street, but the result could be a considerable energy saving.
These are exciting times. If the USSR and Communism can disappeaar in the twinkling of an eye it is surely not too much to believe that the intellectual move to a positive urban design environment is possible.
REFERENCES
Edward de Bono (1992). Serious creativity. Harper Collins, London.
Watkins, Tony (1992). Farewell to "Shelter" NZIA Environmental Policy Position Paper. NZIA Wellington.
Watkins, Tony (1992). Response to Agenda 21 document on "Promoting Sustainable Human Settlements Development" submitted to Preparatory Committee Four. NZIA Environment Group.
Watkins, Tony (1991). The Brazil Charter. Arc-Peace, International Architects Planners Designers for Social Responsibility, Stockholm.
Watkins, Tony (1992). The place of healing. In "Thinking it Through" Home and Building, February/March 1992.
Watkins, Tony (1991) Architectural Violence. In "Thinking it Through" Home and Building, April/May 1991.
PLEA ABSTRACT
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF CONFLICT- GENERATED NEGATIVE ENERGY INTO CREATIVE POSITIVE ENERGY HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR TO PASSIVE LOW ENERGY URBAN DESIGN.
Teaching students who do not want to learn demands at least ten times the energy needed to teach students who are strongly motivated.
Communicating with someone who does not want to understand demands at least ten times the energy required to communicate with the sympathetic listener.
Cities which seek to provide shelter from nature demand at least ten times the energy of cities which seek to enhance relationships with nature.
Seeking to reduce energy use through more efficient teaching techniques, through more efficient communication techniques, or through more efficient shelter techniques can never be as fruitful as seeking to eliminate the energy wasted in overcoming conflict.
Only the frictionless motor has the potential of eternal motion.
Only the frictionless city has the potential of sustainability.
The frictionless motor, or the sustainable city, is an elegant, exciting, alive and challenging possibility, driven by a vision of what might be rather than the dreary prospect of a problem which must be overcome.
The most significant conflict in urban design is intellectual, and therefore capable of resolution without resources.
If we could free our cities from the global conflict generated by the search for shelter from a natural environment which is seeking to bring us life we could immediately bring about a radical reduction in energy use.
A paper presented at PLEA (Passive Low energy Architecture) Conference 1992.
Voted the second best paper at the International Conference.