CAN AMERICA CATCH UP WITH EUROPE'S "GREEN" REVOLUTION?

Eco-friendly architecture is all the rage in Europe--especially Germany and the Netherlands--but it doesn't look like you'd expect.

After years of tightening government regulations, European architects are designing some of the most sustainable buildings in the world while at the same time moving past the "self-conscious," blatantly eco-friendly look of solar panels and sod roofs.

"Green" technology has become so common place in Europe that it no longer needs to be expressed by the architecture itself. Architects such as Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk of the Netherlands do not equate 'industrial' with "ugly." Technology has advanced in Europe in such a way that the design of a building can express, say, the history of the shipping docks of Rotterdam, or the feel of speed that's appropriate for the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, while employing the latest in sustainability techniques.

This brave new design is possible, of course, because of Europe's strict nationwide standards for sustainability. Unfortunately, the United States finds itself far behind in this area. In fact, the eco-friendly regulations set up by the U.S. government (the LEED guidelines) are totally voluntary and more than a decade old.

Mark Wigley, of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, claims that a new generation of architects in the United States is coming that assumes the importance of sustainability and is ready to take an "ecologically radical point of view."

This issue for the U.S. seems to be the consumer. Many clients do not want to pay for sustainable design, despite existing government regulations or the concerns of the architect or builder. Wigley believes things are changing, though, and that we will see the architectural world change at the hands of willing clients.


To read this article in its entirety, go to Why Are They Greener Than We Are?