Will Alsop on keeping green design simple

Normally people don’t think of us at SMC Alsop as green architects. On one level we try to be as environmental as possible in everything we do. I am more for the strong, simple approach, I am not in the high-tech camp.

We have just designed a state-of-the-art archive building in Hamburg. The Germans have a very different attitude to achieving environmental improvement. In the UK, service engineers start fiddling with bits and end up with a very high-tech solution. In Germany they go for a simple approach.

Our Hamburg archive building has 1.2m thick concrete walls. There is no heating and no cooling and a limit of 20 human hours in there a day. In the UK we would be measuring temperature, humidity and various fuss.

Architects don’t need to know the calculations, just the principles so they can play with them. In our office, consideration of environmental issues feeds into the wider practice by osmosis.

And we work with good environmental engineers. There are not enough good ones around. When architects meet up and are chatting, one of the questions is always ‘Do you know any good service engineers?’

For future practice engineers are better being absorbed into architects’ offices. This way their work is integral to the design, rather than first getting a client excited by a design, then adding science. Architectural practice should move on.

The biggest thing we can do to save energy is to consider building orientation. That can lead to a 60% energy reduction. Then you can go on adding things.

In Shanghai we are designing seven office buildings, a hotel and a shopping centre. The offices are designed with a double skin, a buffer zone to hold in heat in winter and keep out the solar rays in the summer.

The shopping centre is half in the ground, half out. It is always a bit breezy there by the river, so we are drawing air through the centre, although we can’t eliminate air-conditioning altogether.

Engineers here start fiddling with bits and end up with a high-tech solution. In Germany they go for a simple approach

In fact, of course we and our clients very often have a commercial edge to work – to give us money and make the most of the money available. The biggest threat to making a better world in reality is cost. But sometimes that is a mask for the real reason.

It is perfectly possible to have naturally ventilated offices. But in London, if you drive around the City and Canary Wharf you won’t find any, even though people like to be able to open their windows.

Agents say that they won’t be able to let naturally ventilated offices, but need them air-conditioned with lots of glass. They are always 15-20 years behind the times. Those selling and renting offices are just not up to speed on I hate these words “best practice”.

In my view, being green is not an aesthetic. If you are not bound by style, you can get a building to perform environmentally and then play around with all sorts of other fun things. There is no relationship between form and sustainability. I don’t want to be driven by look.

If the world was genuinely concerned with global warming the entire population would live a mile from the sea around the Mediterranean it would reduce energy consumption and give access to the countryside and the sea as well as a variety of food from the immediate hinterland.

Serious innovation happens in lifestyles. The London mayor’s demands for higher density and attempts to reduce journeys to work show the importance of bigger moves, rather than smaller technical ones (which would happen anyway). We could still lead very enjoyable lives but use less energy. Make the walls thicker.

I say, keep it simple, use common sense.

This article is based on an interview with Will Alsop by Eleanor Young.