‘How green are you?’ debate at the NAi
On the occasion of the publication of Green Dream - How Future Cities can Outsmart Nature, the NAI (Netherlands Architecture Institute) organized a debate with three Netherlands based architects, Duzan Doepel (Doepel Strijkers Architects), Nanne de Ru (Powerhouse) and Andre Kempe (Atelier Kempe Till) around the question ‘How green are you?’.
Following short presentations, Winy Maas, principal of MVRDV, and Professor at the Why Factory/TU Delft, discussed with the participants the different aspect of green in architecture.
What does green mean for the architectural practice? Where do you focus? How can or should an architect incorporate these larger contexts into her or his design? What is the information she or he needs to make valid assessments? And speaking of information, what can we learn from passed projects or experiments. What knowledge do we have, and what are the gaps?
The participants agreed that they don’t particularly want to think of themselves as green architects, but rather try to achieve a good building and the green qualities are part of it. Whether to focus on improving what you know and perfect it, or whether to experiment with new things was also discussed at length.
The debate will be followed by a second event at The Why Factory, TU Delft 17 of June
Green Dream is the second book of the Future Cities series after Visionary Cities and is published by NAi Publishers.