Architecture 2030 Challenge

This lecture focused on creating more sustainable buildings under the Architecture 2030 challenge. The goal is to cut carbon emissions by 50% immediately, and gradually reducing our carbon footprint to zero by 2030. Some goals to reduce our carbon footprint would be 100 solar panels for 4,000 square feet of rooftop that would heat 60% or more of the water, constructing buildings with 22.4% recyclable materials, or circulate 60 cubic feet per minute of clean air indoors. The AIA company has over 200 pages of AIA50>>50: 50 ways to reduce carbon to 50%.
The impact of sustainability was compared to a storm, which Linn defined as "a constructive/destructive dynamic event, agent of transformation, not a place or thing but a process." LEED (Leadership in Energy & Design) certification is an important step towards sustainability, but right now companies do not have very much incentive to become certified unless they are genuinely interested in sustainability. Linn also stressed buildings needed to have a "long life, loose fit." If the building is not going to be useful generations upon generations, it is not sustainable. He firmly believes that the most sustainable building is one that is already built, and is very pro restoring useless historical buildings into new, modern, LEED certified buildings. A major message of the lecture was to think holistically, "the whole world is greater than the sum of its parts."