is green architecture really good to look at?
Natalia, the question brings about an interesting debate. Is green architecture a methodology, or it is a style? Do green buildings really have to look “green” or is sustainability merely a group of ideas and methods and perspectives that all buildings should incorporate on its own? The former would say that green includes and endorses the use of growy vines, tree stands and winter gardens as a way to display a building’s “greenness” even though that most often, the most green things about a truly sustainable building are not visable to the layman. Energy efficient lighting, underfloor air handling, advanced air filtering… these things are part of the guts of a building and not something that flowers and sprouts. One Bryant Park, in New York City will incorporate an on-site, natural gas fired, cogeneration plant that will produce the bulk of the building’s power and raising the efficiceny of that energy over three fold from taking it off the grid. Of course, the plant is hidden, not
