Holding the Reigns on an Eco-Friendly Future

People in chic glasses filled Wood Auditorium in Avery Hall. Of course they all had stylish eyewear: this was an event associated with Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.

Put on by the students of the E3 New York design studio, “What if our Next President Were an Urban Designer?” was a forum on achieving “zero state” in urban design. The event was an opportunity to see those students at Columbia who may play the biggest roles in creating environmentally friendly towns and cities—communities that can (forgive the pun) weather climate change. The evening began by expressing the political relevance of the profession, but ultimately proved that design and politics do not always work well together.

The “E3” in E3 New York stands for energy, economy, and ecology, and achieving zero state is apparently the creation of a space that attains a sustainable balance between energy usage, economic cost, and ecological impact. I am fairly sure this definition of zero state is valid, although the only official explanation of the term that was given during the event was the projection of a series of images meant to “evoke” ideas of zero state. The images included a mathematical null sign, the recycling symbol, and a picture of a bottle of Coke Zero—confusing, to say the least.

Ambiguous cooler-than-thou phrases and abbreviations were not, though, the most intriguing elements of the forum—challenging them was. One of the event’s three guest speakers, urban designer Jerry van Eyck, explained to the audience, “The three E’s are modern and hip, but we should not be misled. Professional designers have to sacrifice on one of those E’s somewhere.” The diverse group of guest speakers—van Eyck, Leslie Koch, head of the New York City initiative to develop Governor’s Island, and Paolo Pietrogrande, an experienced manager in the energy sector—effectively illustrated this point. Van Eyck in many ways represented the creative voice, while Koch and Pietrogrande had an economically-determined (and arguably more pragmatic) view of urban design.

The manager of an energy utility, a bureaucrat, and a designer are major players in any given urban design project, but they sometimes play antagonistic roles during the process. To be honest, it seems like the designer is often opposed to the demands of all the non-designers involved in a project. Moderator and designer Marc Brossa, GSAPP ’03, semi-jokingly described holding a public roundtable discussion with a government official and an energy manager as being in the company of “the dark side.”
Van Eyck insisted that people like Koch (a government representative) both create opportunities for design and place limitations on them. However, Brossa’s somewhat demonizing view of those who manage the political impetus or the purse for urban design seemed to be a popular one.

Displaying a surprising level of inflexibility and detachment from reality, many of the design students in the audience seemed offended by the very mention of any limitations that come from government or economic demands. One questioner declared that he would rather do an urban design project for an “intelligent dictator” than for a democratic government, because democracy is too demanding, limiting, and “messy.” It was comments like this that illuminated that most important role of the forum: making urban designers understand the practicalities of creating real-world projects. Whether it was intentional or not, this event showed that for better or worse, creative designs that aim for lofty theoretical goals of “zero state” must be tempered by reality. However, an event like “What if our Next President Were an Urban Designer?” proves, despite its largely irrelevant title, that compromise with the powers-that-be will ultimately do more for urban design than categorizing people like Koch and Pietrogrande as “the dark side.”

Diana Greenwald is a sophomore in Columbia College majoring in art history. EarthWorks of Art runs alternate Fridays.