Abstract
As the United States adjusts to the necessity of ecological sustainability, buildings play an important role because of their use of resources—and because they are potent nonverbal symbols of new societal values. The David Brower Center in Berkeley, California, strives to be a model for sustainability. Environmental impact is often the focus of those concerned with sustainability, but here, additionally, the designers aim to raise public awareness of sustainability through the building. For this reason, this building became the site for a postoccupancy evaluation class exercise; architecture students analyzed the building and what it communicates about sustainability from the perspective of its users. Findings indicate that many people did not adequately read the building’s green design characteristics: Social and symbolic communication could be improved by increasing signage and evolving clearer symbolism for “green.”
Keywords
Introduction: Communicating Sustainability
Buildings are often used as tools to reflect the ideas and ideologies of their times and societies; simplicity, dictatorship, discipline, and egalitarianism are examples of ideologies that can, either explicitly or implicitly, be embedded in architectural design (for various perspectives on the values contained in the built environment; see Bourdieu, 1984; Elias, 2000; Franck, 2000; Gieryn, 2002; Gutman & Glazer, 2009; A. D. King, 1984; Kostof, 1985; Low, 1999). In our era, builders compete to have the “greenest,” that is, most energy-efficient and sustainably designed, buildings in their respective regions. Not only are these buildings solving technical problems, they are also participating in a larger project of integrating a new value of sustainability into American culture. Whether the message of the importance of sustainability is received by users remains, however, unclear.
Rapoport (1977) and Becker (1977) helped make it axiomatic that buildings are a medium of nonverbal communication. Rapoport explains that nonverbal communication is “not only an expression of culture but also . . . a link with its unwritten rules” (p. 326). Buildings embody values. In his words, “if design is a form of encoding, and assuming the information is appropriate, the question is, then, whether users can read, i.e., decode the cues” (p. 326, italics added). In the case of green design, we do not yet know whether the information is either appropriate or decoded by the user.
In light of these uncertainties, designers need to take pains to identify the cues, cultural stereotypes, schemata, and images that allow people to define places and act accordingly. We presume that this is exactly what our culture in general and architectural culture in particular should be grappling with now as we seek to sustain ecological balance. The etymological root of “communication” comes from “common.” We do not yet have a common understanding of sustainable buildings. In recent years, new sustainable, green buildings with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certificates have been springing up all over the country. These buildings are proving to save energy. But, are they integrating a new value of sustainability into American culture by communicating their achievements?
Sustainability is a broad term, which for the United Nations’ Agenda 21 principles includes increasing the quality of life for current and future generations by protecting the biological ecosystem, through various means including politics, education, and international collaboration (United Nations, 1993). Green design, as a strategy of minimizing environmental impact of buildings and creating healthy environments for users, is one of the ways to achieve sustainability. However, sustainability and sustainable architecture need to be understood as a broader concept than just designing green. Education and increasing awareness about environmental stewardship is an integral part of achieving sustainability.
We suggest that green buildings are an important and often untapped resource that can be utilized to increase awareness about how to minimize resource use and environmental impact. Buildings can function as tools to model and inspire the environmentally sensitive behavior that takes place in built environments.
Throughout history, buildings have been used by designers to communicate values, such as with churches embedding stories from the Bible and attitudes about God directly into the architecture. More recently, public baths were placed in parks to teach the importance of cleanliness to the working class, museums were designed not only to house art but also to shape the behavior of lower and middle classes, and library designs instructed citizens about the virtue of literacy (Bennett, 1995; Cranz, 1982; Van Slyck, 1989). We want to include green/sustainable buildings in this list of buildings that teach: Such buildings are already fulfilling their function of reducing impact on the physical environment—but to what extend do existing green buildings contribute to an understanding of sustainability and green technologies? Researchers have argued that buildings can and even should be used as educational tools to increase environmental awareness and social responsibility (Guy & Farmer, 2001; Kua, 2002; Morhayim, 2004; Solin & Walters, 2006).
Green school buildings exhibit some of the best design practices for promoting environmental awareness. Regarding such school buildings, Orr (1993) argued that “buildings have their own hidden curriculum that teaches as effectively as any course taught in them” (p. 226). Certifications such as LEED for Schools and Collaborative for High Performance Schools encourage using the building as a pedagogical tool by including special credit, such as Schools as a Teaching Tool in the certification. The architectural and engineering firm NAC Architecture used signage and labels to demonstrate green-building strategies and green characteristics of the materials used in the design of Riverview Elementary school in Snohomish, Washington (Shiever & Boettcher, 2011). They placed schematic drawings of the high-insulation wall construction, daylight design, green roof engineering, and the geothermal heat exchange system on those parts of buildings where these strategies are most visible. NAC Architecture put a large window into the mechanical room, so that students can directly observe the heating system, alongside the schematic explanations of how the systems work. Similarly, architects of Bacon Elementary in Fort Collins, Colorado, used what they called “Truth walls” to reveal layers of building materials that comprise a well-insulating wall (Dunbar, n.d.).
Other green building types are also intended to teach through experience. Architect Sim Van der Ryn purposefully designed Real Goods Solar Living Center, a green commercial building, in Hopland, California, to make its green design features visible and interactive. The building demonstrates climate-adapted green building techniques, such as solar design and evaporative cooling. All construction materials, from insulation to wood and finishes, are nontoxic and recycled or sustainably harvested. They were selected for their educational value and were left exposed where possible (Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery [CalRecycle], 2010). Another feature demonstrates interactively how solar energy is generated to water the landscape: A solar-powered pump provides a water source that can be channeled through sandy topography, but visitors can block the sun reaching the solar panel and stop the flow of water (Real Goods Solar Living Center, n.d).
Architects should take advantage of the fact that green buildings are popular to advance ecological values. Even though prior research shows that user reaction to specific features of green buildings is negative or mixed (lighting and thermal comfort varies across green buildings, and acoustics are negatively rated in most cases), overall building satisfaction is high (Abbaszadeh, Zagreus, Lehrer, & Huizenga, 2006; Bradley & Wang, 2001; Brager & Baker, 2009; Fowler & Rauch, 2008; Heerwagen & Zagreus, 2005; Leaman & Bordass, 2007; Siebein, Lilkendey, & Skorski, 2005; U.S. Green Building Council, 2009). This is probably because of the buildings’ green label: It seems that people feel good about being affiliated with a green building.
In addition, architects have enormous potential influence on public opinion, stemming from the fact that aesthetics are important to users. In a metastudy of research into user satisfaction in buildings, scholars identified creativity, productivity, and health outcomes as possibly influenced by aesthetic qualities (Preiser & Nasar, 2008). The appearance of a building is thus important to human outcomes in addition to being important for communication. The authors did not include understanding sustainability in that list, but precedent suggests that aesthetic representation of this relatively new cultural value will be important to its assimilation. A caveat may be in order, however, because architects and nonarchitects do not necessarily share aesthetic sensibilities—and architects often misjudge the opinions of the public (Amdur & Epstein-Pliouchtch, 2009; Brown & Gifford, 2001; Ghomesh & Jusan, 2012; Nasar, 1989; Nasar & Kang, 1989; Stamps, 1999). This means that architects might not always fully understand what users are decoding from a building’s appearance. Research suggests that this may be because architects use different sets of building features on which to base emotional assessments of buildings (Gifford, Hine, Muller-Clemm, Reynolds, & Shaw, 2000). Our study intends to contribute understanding of how well green buildings, including their aesthetic qualities, communicate their sustainable values.
The best expression of a green or sustainable building is still unresolved in the design and green-building community. Sometimes, clients desire a building that specifically communicates “green design,” as when the Vancouver’s Olympic Village project rejected Robert A. M. Stern’s original design because it did not express sustainability well enough (Capps, 2009). Similarly, acknowledged green architect Ken Yeang seems to argue for a new language of sustainability: He says, it should not “look like a modernist building; it should be something new” (Pasternack, 2009).
Hawthorne (2011) made a compelling case for a high-design green aesthetic, moving beyond “yurts and straw houses” while still celebrating the green in green building. Instead of going in a similar direction as Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), where the technical requirements are fulfilled without any aesthetic interventions so that the technical changes become invisible, Hawthorn advocates “creating dazzling structural forms and galvanizing popular support.” He says, given that the vast majority of people who are influenced by an important building these days never set foot inside of it—are seduced only by two-dimensional images of its architecture—you begin to realize how powerful a green symbolism could be. (Hawthorne, 2011)
Buildings communicate to far more people than just inhabitants, because they are not only spaces for direct use but also works of art visible to many people through a variety of media.
Unfortunately, there is a narrative in the architectural press that “green” is also “ugly,” yet ugliness, or conversely, “aesthetics,” is not easily defined. The green-building industry seems to be trying to overcome the “yurts and straw houses” aesthetic of some older eco designs (Alter, 2009; Kim-Carberry, 2011). In some cases, aesthetics and green building seem to be two different conversations, not dependent on each other. For instance, regarding a new development in New York City, a critic says, “though still nascent enough that there’s not much to report about its planned green-building aspects—although the LEED Gold bit certainly promises good things, there—the design itself is plenty to get excited about” (Roth, 2011).
Moreover, some architects actively resist the idea of proscriptions for how green buildings should look; for example, architect Mayne (n.d.) has said, Whether a building looks green is irrelevant. What matters is the amount of BTUs per square meter and CO2 per capita or per square meter. . . . Personally, I think it’s irrelevant if it’s apparent or not, with the exception of schools or other cases when we’ve wanted to be didactic about the relationship of a building and its environment . . . we shouldn’t have to add bike racks or compost bins to achieve recognition and certification.
Obviously, architects themselves are not united on the way to express the greenness of buildings.
We are not advocating all green architecture to have prescriptions or proscriptions about its appearance; instead, we are calling on architects to engage creatively with research findings about the potential pedagogical value of green buildings. In this way, green buildings can be part of the larger cultural project of sustainability, above and beyond technical innovations to keep the carbon footprint down. To this end, we examine how a single building’s interior and exterior sustainability design features are communicated to and read by users and passersby.
Method: The David Brower Center (DBC) As Case Study
Here we offer a case study of the DBC, a building intended to be “an inspiring home for environmental and social action, combining both offices and program facilities in a 50,000 square-foot space” in Berkeley, California (DBC, 2012). Opened in May 2009, the DBC strives to be a model for sustainable building design, not only by using environmentally responsible technologies throughout the building but also by housing a collection of organizations concerned with sustainability and exhibition spaces for engaging the public with the topic of sustainability through art and education. The building has received LEED Platinum rating, the highest possible rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program.
The DBC was designed by Dan Soloman and developed by Resources for Community Development (RCD), on land owned by the City of Berkeley. The developer of the building, John Clawson, stated in a personal telephonic interview (November 14, 2011) that their goal for the building was both to be and to look like a sustainable building. Clawson said, “No one said, ‘oh, we have to advertise the fact that this is a sustainable building with gimmicks’ because this form is the natural consequence of the techniques.” He claimed that three sustainability features (a rack that holds the solar panels on the roof, sun screens on the south to provide shade and reflect light, and large glass windows) are “quite apparent” (Figure 1). Green technology is often the focus of those concerned with sustainability, but here the designers aimed for building itself, through its program and design, to operate as a technology to increase collaboration between organizations that work for sustainability, as well as to raise awareness regarding sustainability issues. This article explores how well the DBC fulfills its goal of inspiring about sustainability through the use of its building as a social technology.
The David Brower Center with solar panels on top and tall windows in the first floor.
The research presented here was gathered as part of a larger postoccupancy evaluation study conducted in an upper division undergraduate architecture class, “Social and Cultural Processes in Architecture and Urban Design” at the University of California, Berkeley. In this assignment, we asked students to analyze the building from the perspective of its users, including tenants, visitors, and administrators. Working in groups of four to five, students used different data collection techniques to answer key questions about the use of the building. Questions were formulated based on the published goals of the DBC and issues identified by the Center’s administrators, especially Director Amy Tobin. The director described three main goals of the Brower Center: to engage and inspire the public about sustainability, to stabilize and support the tenants, and to connect to downtown Berkeley. The class studied how effectively the building helped the Center fulfill these goals. For the purposes of this article, we are focusing on two aspects of the first goal: how the buildings’ appearance is received and how well the building communicates its green design, engaging the public about sustainability.
To conduct this research, the teaching team uses a productive teaching method for dividing up work among students in a large architecture theory and research methods class. The class studied the shared office spaces, courtyard, gallery, and rentable spaces in the DBC in the fall of 2009, 5 months after the building opened. We phrased each goal as a question, which was asked in two different areas within the building. Thus, for example, how well the building engages and inspires the public about sustainability (the first goal) was studied by two sections of 25 students each, one that looked at the gallery and lobby spaces and another that looked at the rentable spaces in the building, particularly the theater and meeting rooms.
Once the questions were established and assigned to each section, the section of 25 was divided into five groups, one per each of the following data collection techniques: interviews, photo elicitation interviews, questionnaires, observation, and archival analysis. In this way, each question was addressed by every data collection technique, and each research technique was used to address every question, creating a 6 × 5 matrix of questions and methods. Thus, this article recounts a mixed-methods research design, sometimes also called triangulation. Using simultaneous triangulation, distinguished by Morse (1991) from sequential triangulation by the limited interaction the different methods have with each other, with this study, we have three of Denzin’s (1978) four types of triangulation: data, investigator, and method triangulation. The use of mixed methods incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods; in research, such a mix increases understanding, corroborates findings, and adds nuance and detail to information from an array of sources (Groat & Wang, 2002; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007). For the student project, we use triangulation as a pedagogical tool: Although each student works on only one data collection technique, through classroom presentations and group interaction, they hear about and learn about other techniques. We also use it to mitigate the limitation of having students collect data: By using many different methods to answer each question, we hope to overcome possible errors in judgment made by beginning researchers.
Each data collection technique comes with its own requirements and limitations; within the constraints of each data collection technique, students were encouraged to adapt its basic requirements to suit the particular question they were answering. Each group was given free rein to interpret these things, and some were more creative than others in how they operationalized the question. Because each question was answered by different groups, the N changes within each section and across each question. Each section had a different user group: tenants of the DBC (the staff of the organizations who had offices there), renters (members of outside organizations who used the space for a meeting or special event), and the public (people who come into the DBC briefly, or who pass by, or who work nearby).
Table 1 summarizes the methods of each group, so we do not go into detail for each method-question square in the matrix here, beyond one example of how students operationalized their question, using observation. 1 In this example, five students observed passersby to answer the question about attractiveness of the building. Students made a list of measures to observe and conducted a pilot study on-site to finalize their list. They observed the following regarding pedestrians and bicyclists who passed by the building: slowing down, looking up the building, talking about the building, stopping by the building, and body language including reading the display or peeking inside the building. They came up with graphic symbols that corresponded with each of the above actions, and each student recorded their observations on a map of the area. They observed the site on both weekdays and weekends and on different hours of the day: before 11 a.m., after 12 p.m., and after 6 p.m.
Methods in the Issue-Data Collection Matrix.
Note: DBC = David Brower center.
Results
Table 2 summarizes the relevant findings, categorized by each method and each section. Here, we combine the methods and areas of the building to answer the overriding question of how well the building communicates about sustainability to the public, organized in terms of the themes that emerged: general appearance and legibility of green features.
Findings in the Issue-Data Collection Matrix.
Note: DBC = David Brower center; LEED = Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
User Response to the Building’s Appearance
Eleven of the 18 interviewed knew the Brower Center building was considered sustainable, while 7 did not. Yet the majority (12 of the 18) interviewed did not like the looks of the building; only 6 did. Of those who did not like it, some changed their answer to liking it once they learned it was a sustainable building. Again, the favorable advantage of being seen as green is something that should be noted by planners and architects. Some of the passersby did not even notice the building, because it was so close to the street that it escaped their attention. Interviewees consistently expressed negative feelings about the building’s overall aesthetic, such as, overwhelming, boring, busy, incarcerated. Some informants said that the building is intimidating because of the columns and steel braces. Another felt that the building was not very inviting and too “business” like; others said it looks plain, colorless, and not inviting. Those who filled out questionnaires ranked it 2.9 on average in terms of its attractiveness, on a scale of 1 (least attractive) to 5 (most attractive). This means that the building only hovered around the midway point, not a delightful building that everyone loved. We note that architecture critic John King had similar disappointments, calling the building, somber, not stirring. The monumental scale of the Brower is no accident: Solomon took cues from the stark grandeur of 1932’s Edwards Stadium, on the other side of Fulton Street. But there’s a ponderous force to the march of gray concrete columns backed by panels of corrugated gray zinc and shaded glass. As for the trellised cornice, it is braced by square steel tubes that turn the top into a heavy lid rather than a light finale. (J. King, 2009)
The large windows on the ground floor were an important factor in inviting and involving passersby, with people looking into the building to see what is going on. According to student observers, 158 of 620 people passing by noticed the building. Observers (who worked in pairs in 30-min intervals) determined this by paying attention to the passersby’s behavior such as slowing down, looking up, stopping, peeking inside, and reading signs. Of those 158 people who noticed the building, about one third of them acted curious about what was going on inside, more than being interested in the building itself. Although the ratio between number of passersby and number of people who noticed the building is not high (approximately 4:1), one third of those people showed signs of being curious about the building, which shows that building form and aesthetics has the potential to attract visitors. Yet the entrance itself was not easily recognized by passersby. One informant stated, “Everything looks like a window.” When shown photographs and asked which entrance is the main one, nearly 2/3 of the interviewees missed the main entrance (Figure 2).
Entranceway as seen from the street.
When asked why they came to the building, 13 respondents said they came because of a meeting or event, 8 came to view the art gallery, and 4 had just wandered in, curious about the space (6 cited “other” as their reason). We do not know what percentage of visitors to other buildings have wandered in just to have a look, but suspect that nearly 10% is a relatively high figure, and if so, this would be evidence that the building will succeed in engaging the public. At this point, more than one third (9 of 24) of people in local businesses and nonprofits who responded to the questionnaire had never heard of the Brower Center, a year after opening. Yet more than one quarter (27% of 24) had not only heard of it, but also visited it, indicating that in time the connection could grow stronger.
Recognizing “Green” Features
Even though overall design of the DBC was recognized as sustainable (by about 2/3), not all specific features were always obvious to users. While out of 35, two thirds of respondents recognized the large windows as a green feature, only one third correctly identified the solar panels.
Other green features were also overlooked by visitors. Only 1 visitor (of 23 observed) touched the energy usage dashboard (Figure 3) and that too only after the receptionist told him it was okay to do so. The rentable spaces do not have signage that highlights or even describes the green features. People usually come to the Brower Center for a specific function in a rentable space and then wait in that office, instead of wandering through the building, and they do not read the pamphlets and dashboard about the sustainable features in the lobby intended for the public.
Energy usage dashboard in the lobby.
Of the 35 visitors who responded to the questionnaires, over half (18) said that the building was inspiring in regard to sustainability, citing the entry lobby (Figure 4) as the most inspiring area. Two said the building was not inspiring at all. When asked to rate the building on how well it engages and inspires the public, on scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most sustainable, the building averaged a 6.4 from respondents. When asked the same question in yes/no/neutral form, 45% said yes, the building is sustainable, 38% said neutral, and 17% said no.
The lobby as seen from the entrance.
When showed photographic images from the Brower Center and asked to rank them for sustainability from most sustainable feature to least, respondents tended to rank signs and other symbols of sustainability higher than the sustainable building technologies themselves, for example, choosing the sign for the low-flush toilet rather than the actual low-flush toilet. The rank order of photos was, from top to bottom, a sign explaining the recycled rainwater and dual-flush system of the toilets, the recycle bins, bikes on a bike rack outside, the second-floor lobby space looking across couches toward the balcony, and the high-tech air hand dryer.
Discussion
We began this study thinking we were doing an assessment of how well a building functioned as a tool for the people who used the building, both tenants and public. In the process, we learned that some of the most important findings had to do with the effectiveness of what the building communicated to the general public. Buildings have always been communicating ideas and ideologies and reflecting where society stands in the processes of civilization. The DBC is an example of a building that intends to take the idea of sustainability further than energy-efficient design. This is appropriate because its main function is to host organizations that work for sustainability. The building’s design program includes spaces for educating about sustainability, for showing off the green materials and technologies used in the building, and for showing actual energy consumption through electronic panels and signage.
We learned that for users, the building met some of these goals and fell short of others. Some elements, such as tall windows and solar panels, communicated the building being green. However, other components of the building program, such as gallery space (Figure 5) and rentable areas, that were intended to inspire public about sustainability were not visible and attractive enough, and therefore did not serve well in communicating to the visitors the building’s effort to be green.
Art gallery.
The building having been LEED certified is not necessarily obvious to the public; the building itself could do better to communicate its sustainable standards to outsiders who not know about LEED certification. Right now, the DBC relies on their website to communicate their sustainable features, especially highlighting their LEED standing. But our research suggests that this is not enough. Consequently, student researchers recommended that clear signs be added to the Brower Center. These signs could be done artistically to match the building aesthetically, and should be both inside the building, highlighting specific features, and outside the building, letting passersby know what is going on in the building and what kinds of organizations are housed there. The architecture itself cannot be easily changed, but signs are a relatively easy retrofit.
Based on the findings about street visibility, students recommended that making visual and performing arts spaces more noticeable from outside would better serve the DBC’s goals. They thought that window displays would help to inform people about what is going on inside the building. Clear signage at the entrance, indicating where to enter the building is an obvious reinforcement of the same point, made elsewhere for different reasons.
The Center for the Built Environment, a research organization at Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, has reported that the Brower Center’s energy performance is well above average (Center for the Built Environment, 2010). However, our findings show that only a few people can recognize the building’s green features when looking into the exterior or when visiting the building. Successful communicators were photovoltaic panels, tall windows, recycling signs, and water fixture signs. The dashboard did not draw attention; it does not stand out visually because of its small size, low key graphics, the frame that constrains it rather than connects it to the public, and its discreet location.
The developer, Clawson, was thinking about the symbolism of the building, in addition to the function, when he said that extending the small roof line to create more direct symbolism might have been possible by using the rack of photovoltaic panels that wrap around the building: “Maybe could have done more with this rack.” When the interviewer noted that the initial surveys indicated that the public did not perceive all of these features, Clawson said that it was a cornice element, so maybe not noticeable as sustainable design. Solar panels would be easier to read or notice on the south, because south faces the street, unlike the north-side panels that faces other buildings and thus are not as visible.
Conclusion
In this research, we learned that some building features communicate the public ambitions of green buildings, as long as they are legible. Bike racks are an example of legible features. Other, less obvious, nonlegible green design features require signage to communicate that a building has many sustainable features, for example, signage for energy use, for low-embodied energy material selection, and for the building educational tour. At this stage in the evolution of cultural attitudes toward sustainability, such easily recognizable features are important. These types of things might be seen as gimmicks or absurd by developers and designers, but this research indicates that these signals and symbolic features might be the best way to promote an ethos of sustainability in the general public.
Much research focuses on building technologies; here we have focused on using a green building itself as tool to foster community and action around issues of sustainability. This was a pilot study, and we encourage further study along these lines, with larger samples and a variety of building types and green features. A comparative study with the next building that claims to address the culture of sustainability would be ideal while we collectively seek ways to make sustainability a fundamental cultural value. The green buildings going up around the country present an opportunity not only to reduce energy consumption but also to inspire and educate the general public about sustainability. Such awareness has the potential to promote environmentally friendly behavior generally and to increase demand for more green buildings. We encourage all designers to help invent solutions to the problem of communicating to the public about sustainability and these new building types; if only people who know that photovoltaic (PV), sun shades, and tall windows are energy-efficient technologies can recognize the building as green, sustainable architecture is not making its way into the mental imagery of the culture as a whole. We do not want to miss the opportunity for pride, affection, and symbolism that speaks to us nonverbally, especially when it comes to incorporating sustainability into architectural design.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.