Jeffrey Sipprell

Energy is something that as a responsible architect, I'm becoming more aware of. As Chicago and countless other cities around the country push towards more and more LEED certified buildings, we as architects are being asked to do something we should have been doing all along - namely to understand how much of our resources is being poured into the design, construction and life cycle of a building. Certainly the work of architects like Cook + Fox is inspiring to see in its relatively complex execution, but as I toured the exhibit I wasn't really struck by what my responsibility as an architect is in this mess we've created for ourselves, but rather what my responsibility as a person is. The one fact that I've been able to recite to many since I've been is that if every household in Canada replaced one 100 watt light bulb with a 20 watt compact flourescent, they'd be able to close 6 of their 15 coal fired power plants. That's almost half! Upon my return to LA I have begun a process of changing all of the incandescents in the apartment to compact flourescents. They've got excellent prices at this site - even on ones that match the warm color temperature that we're used to.

And of course there's this statement: "In one hour the sun gives the earth more energy than is used annually by our global population." I mean I know this stuff but to see it in 10" sanserif lettering on a gallery wall really makes you stop and take stock of what it is we're doing.

The second gallery I enjoyed on the tour was the space dedicated to urbanization. The urban room is designed to be an immersive visual and audio experience - a six-screen, five minute video is continuously projected onto a 56 ft. long cityscape sculpture while a voiceover encourages a different view of the city and our increasingly urbanizing world. As you go through the room five questions are presented on transparent globes.

Is urbanization our unspoken belief system?
How can we provide shelter for the entire world?
How can cities be sustainable?
Does density offer hope?
Where does the reach of the city end?

The last four are pretty standard boiler plate in any contemporary critique about our position to the urban environment. But that first one was something I never really thought of before - that urbanization was perhaps some sort of unconscious shared view by all of humanity - that our desire to be around other human beings and to be a part of a community would be fostered in the mind of all six billion of us in some manner or form. It's a powerful thought when you look across all of the diverse cultures and experiences this planet has to offer - that maybe the one thing linking us all, despite all our differences, is our desire for community and therefore urbanization.

The last gallery is quite a bit less touchy feely and quite a bit more pragmatic to the world we live in today. It was no surprise that Cradle to Cradle was featured so prominently, but it was fascinating to see how many companies were starting to take up their mantra and doubly fascinating to actually see the products in their physical form. There were the shoes by Nike, the SUV by Ford, and countless others I'm doing a disservice to by not remembering them adequately.

It's a shame that the exhibit is over, but if it is to tour again in your area, I would highly recommend a visit.