Criticized for being unwilling to participate in an integrated design approach, and berated for emphasizing importance of 'design' or 'concept' over 'sustainable' criteria, architects took a beating at the LEED class tonight.

To discuss the issue of 'integrating disciplines,' a comic pyramid was shown with the client and project co-coordinator at the top, engineer and (?) on the second tier, architect and contractor on the third tier, and sub-contractor and (?) on the bottom tier (question marks indicate forgotten elements). The point was that these usually separate disciplines need to work together, possibly through the aid of an un-biased (is there such thing as 'un-biased' - subject for another topic perhaps) third party. I suppose the pyramid would be arranged differently depending on which discipline representative you talk to, but for me, architecture doesn't belong in a hierarchy, rather it is a critical cog in an interconnected web of conceptually separate camps: engineering, building systems services, politics, business, etc in one camp, and philosophy, psychology, environmental psychology, cultural studies, history, sociology, etc in another.

LEED accredited projects (at least the ones shown in class) contribute little or nothing to addressing the second camp of disciplines. They are more akin to tenement housing of the cold-war era! The philosophy for LEED is that if a material, or design feature is not 'needed,' it should not be included, in order to reduce consumption and waste. I think this is a failure on the part of the LEED writers: where is the section against experiential pollution, or the one that describes the role of aesthetics in personal well-being (closely related to identity, and in turn culture, and even productivity)? The section on 'lighting' briefly quantifies how lighting design is related to productivity; why are qualitative elements absent? Why do we 'need' numbers to 'prove' the value of Architecture and design experiments? Why are historical lessons, experiences, and intuitive senses (that tell us a building is stark, cold, sad, lonely, and unlivable) missing from discussions? Despite the stern demands for integrated design by LEED professionals, LEED projects are lacking (or limited) in just that!

Complementary to physical well-being, emotional well-being is an important basis of any collective living. I call for a 'sustainability' that not only aims to sustain a physically livable planet through quantifiable data, but also aims to sustain the well-being of societies through qualitative elements!

Should 'sustainability' be described through words, packaged in a book and taught to classes of eager idealists? Is it the responsibility of the architect to provide physical evidence of holistically sustainable projects? Should such an endeavor be taken on by a third party? My view is that the architect has the potential for developing, promoting and propagating such a manifesto, but not the time. Perhaps it is a matter of education, beginning at the elementary school level.... let's discuss.