Sara Caples, Architect

I thought that Sara Caples, of Caples Jefferson Architects, had many interesting things to say about sustainable design when she came to speak at our research seminar. She talked about how it relates to both residences as well as institutions like museums and other cultural spaces. I took four main points away from her talk:

Having more goals results in a “richer product.” The more stated goals that a particular project has will undoubtedly produce a building that is “richer” in the sense that each stated goal brings with it a set of standards which must be met in order to foster a particular end result. The marriage of multiple goals, especially when they encompass things like building community-based initiatives into projects or utilizing modern fabrication techniques to consume less energy, leads directly to a finished project which benefits from a wealth of positive intentions.

The forgotten dimension of time. Designers are often too focused on the three dimensions of space, where length, width and depth exist in a state of relative stasis without the interaction of time, the fourth dimension. One way to include time into projects is to maximize daylight, which allows the inhabitants of a given space to experience the passage of time through the movement of sunlight. Bringing sunlight down into the bowels of an otherwise windowless office allows the occupants to connect to the outside environment and enjoy the benefits that this connection fosters.

Marrying sustainable design objectives to spiritual and social aspects. Emotions are also an important factor in successful design, and incorporating spiritual, social and cultural aspects into a project allows the end users of a space to connect to it on a deeper level. It is when a building can effectively “speak” to its inhabitants that something above and beyond design has occurred, and this is an effective way to incorporate sustainability by making the space indispensable and meaningful to its occupants.

Local climates are important in sustainable design. Without specifically saying so, many points that Ms. Caples made about local connections to climate and culture seem to fall under the concept of “bioregionalism,” a theory which states that humans inevitably interact with and are affected by the specific location which they inhabit. It’s this complex relationship between human culture, governmental bodies and the natural world which can be seen to impact local architecture and design to the extent that historical practices are often “best practices” and an area’s specific ecology can almost always suggest solutions that are both practical as well as sustainable.