Is green building enough? Not if it focuses solely on growth, according to a South African architect who examines new construction materials and methods based on an advanced construction technology platform.

A keynote speaker at the Green Building Focus regional conference and expo held in Birmingham, Ala. this summer, Llewellyn van Wyk said the focus has to be on smart growth that is economically sound, environmentally friendly, socially acceptable, and makes a real difference in the lives of poor people.

“We have to radically improve the way buildings are designed,” said van Wyk, who has designed more than 300 buildings over 20 years. “We have to transform the way buildings are designed to improve quality of life for all people.”

In an address entitled “Green Buildings as an Instrument of Transformation,” van Wyk said he was interested in more than just individual buildings, that building design should be comprised of urban design, land use, transportation systems, and the patterns of human activity.

The profound challenge of the 21st century, he said, relates to patterns of human activity. “The issue facing us this century is the relationship between people and the planet. How do we reconcile people to the planet?” He said there is nothing unusual about the warming and cooling of the earth, which is cyclical. “We do not know what our influence will be, though we are beginning to see signs of human activity.”

With 6.3 billion people on the planet, and 73 million more each year, van Wyk said to reasonably accommodate this growth rate would require the development of a metro area the size of Birmingham every two weeks. The consequences of not doing so include infrastructure collapse, ecological collapse, growing inequalities between rich and poor, a lack of social cohesion, and finally, social collapse.

“If the U.S., with the world’s largest economy, can’t maintain its infrastructure, what chance do developing nations have of doing so?” van Wyk asked.

He said transformative buildings should embody the following seven canons:
· Have ecological considerations with inherent flexibility, offering a natural synthesis with the environment;
· Display an architecture of experience that values a reference to the user’s past, present and future, and focuses on the emerging experience as a totality. A building with a dreadful past, such as Germany’s Reichstag, which van Wyk said may be the most transformed building in the world, shows how a building can affect the world around it;
· Offers opportunities to exercise human interaction with the natural environment;
· Is an expression of own culture in worship, taking note of aspirations and having regard for the encouragement of openness to novelty;
· Is an expression of own culture in art and all forms of creativity and openness to enrichment;
· Features ergonomics of shelter, including the respect for privacy of individuals and facilitation of gathering;
· Includes ergonomics of social interaction within the community, facilitating multi-cultural expression and social interaction;

In this post-modern society, the 21st century will be a turning point for man. Sustainability has to seek a balance between people and the planet.

How do you and your building affect that balance? It’s worth thinking about.

Thanks and good luck.