Charismatic Fauna

Actar, Energy and sustainability, Essay, No Density, Sanford Kwinter, SOUPERgreen!, Territory and mobility, Urban Paradigms

Amplification, Architectural boundary, Charismatic fauna, Charismatic megafauna, Cognitive approach, Crisis, Critique, Ecological researches, Emergent geographies, Essay, Evolutionary ecology, Global Awareness, Interdisciplinary design, Metabolism, Multiscale approach, Natural metaphor, New Statements on Nature, Organic life, Planetary urbanizations, Social impact, System Metabolism

Published in SOUPERgreen! Souped Up Green Architecture, 2017 -- https://lccn.loc.gov/2015934501

SOUPERgreen! features projects and essays that offer a long overdue critique of the current approach to “green” architecture and, in turn, demonstrate a more appropriate way for architects to address the challenges posed by the environmental crisis. In sharp contrast to contemporary examples of “green” or “sustainable” architecture —which primarily rely upon the invisible agency of unremarkable technologies and materials to reduce resource consumption, but which do so without producing a necessary shift in the public’s perception of the environment or behavior towards it —SOUPERgreen! demonstrates how green technology can not only perform from a measurable standpoint, but can also produce engaging experiences that profoundly alter, enhance, and transform the public’s understanding of the environment. By leveraging the inherently expressive nature of technology in order to dramatize the constantly negotiated relationship between humanity and the natural world, the “souped-up” green architecture featured in SOUPERgreen! transforms “greenness” from a mere measurement of environmental performance into an actively engaged and highly conscious lived reality —resulting in a new way of experiencing and understanding the environment that is inherently more ecological.