Eco-brutalism: when angular concrete meets the wonder of nature
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Even in wikipedia, the general definition is there but obscured. Despite nearly every pictorial example in wikipedia featuring exposed concrete (as well as reddit's r/brutalist), any material can be found in a brutalist design. It must merely be exposed and accepted for what it is. e.g. wood shown to be wood and allowed to warp, decay, or even grow, as opposed to being overlaid with drywall. Stones not just in a foundation or a garden, but in a living room. This honesty and connection to materials is in contrast to the "dominating" sense of "brutalism," of which cheap government buildings are often twisted up in.
Though the pictures on wikipedia are misleading, certain quotes from the page are worth reading. Specifically when brutalism is described as "an ethic, not an aesthetic".
And also: "Peter Smithson believed that the core of brutalism was a reverence for materials, expressed honestly, stating "Brutalism is not concerned with the material as such but rather the quality of material",[33] and "the seeing of materials for what they were: the woodness of the wood; the sandiness of sand."
Source: wikipedia and have lots of architect friends.
I live in a cool old concrete factory in Brooklyn that was haphazardly converted into lofts back in the nineties, and more recently purchased by developers to convert into "luxury" lofts. The conversion consists mostly of throwing a cheap wood veneer over the floors, carpeting in the hallways, newly painted drywall over various surfaces… I had never thought of the building as particularly "brutalist" before, but I lamented the covering of the worn concrete.
"If people didn't want to live in an old factory… why would they move into an old factory?" I keep asking myself.
Fortunately — believing these changes are upgrades — they haven't changed much for the residents that they didn't manage to evict, so my unit is still honest. And since it has an east-facing-window, it's even covered mostly with plants, like these photos :D
There is an example of a "brutalist" brick house in the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_G%C3%B6th
There's a truth though in this idea of honesty about materials that transcends a particular architectural fad, and I think brutalism ought to be an element that any design considers: can a structure be inherently beautiful without additional adornment?
I wish for more examples I could point to as brutalism that aren't just exposed concrete. The only one that springs to mind is this[0] redesign of some post-war brutalist (of the exposed concrete variety) playground equipment. It isn't a big step forward, but it's something. I also think that things allowing like good cable management to be seen is a form of brutalism. Actually, given this post's theme of "eco-brutalism", I think something like the earthship[1] might be a better example of brutalism.
[0]: https://www.assemblestudio.co.uk/projects/the-brutalist-play... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
It makes me feel like I'm in some kind of 1960s futuristic space arcology. Looking through the windows it's disappointing to see not the strange, alien landscape of another planet on the other side, but instead the strange alien landscape of central London.
So in theory, nature could help, because humans feel that they fit in natural environments. But in practice, at least in the photos in the article, it doesn't work, because the nature doesn't look like it belongs there either. It looks either like weeds growing through cracks, or "tacked on", ineffectively trying to make you ignore the ugliness.
What this slideshow does perfectly is picture them from a POV perspective, nowadays you mostly see drone shots.
[0] - https://www.som.com/projects/weyerhaeuser-corporate-headquar...
Which is to say tearing down and building new to the latest standards is a good thing.
Destroying an entire building to fix the wiring or insulation would be insanely wasteful.
Concrete is one of the most CO2 emissive technology, and it also consumes way more sand than what natural erosion produces, and thinking that all of this will be rotten in a century is heartbreaking.
You mean decay ?
As long as you keep a roof on top of them, you'll have mostly local/superficial degradation, but with reinforced concrete you'll eventually end up with concrete cancer everywhere which is harder and harder to fight. See:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Qew_brue...
Paris, which is mostly made out of stone buildings and is among the densest city on earth, disagrees.
There aren't being constructed anymore. But that's the point I'm making actually: Paris is mostly made of buildings built in the 19th century, and that's only possible because the said buildings where made out of stone. With reinforced concrete, concrete cancer would be overwhelming.
> However it looks very unaffordable for 99% of people
In a planet where the population is converging, the ability to keep using the same building for more than a century is in fact the most economical way, focusing on short term costs of disposable buildings is already becoming unsustainable (that's exactly what we're talking about when the topic of “high infrastructure costs” is being discussed).
> Plus I would hate to think how our planet would look if cities were made of stone instead of concrete (cities would look nice but the hills around them?).
Where do you think the concrete comes from? You need to have stone quarries as well to make the cement (which is made of ground cooked rocks) as well as sand quarries to take the sand. But you need much more material because the process needs to be repeated every century (if you are using reinforced concrete: the problem always come from the rebar).
So these buildings were built during the peak of France's imperialist plunder. That's not a very good example then
> In a planet where the population is converging,
Is it?
> the ability to keep using the same building for more than a century is in fact the most economical way,
But so is recyclable materials. Constructing everything in stone actually means you think of your design choices as rather timeless.
> Where do you think the concrete comes from?
Where I live I can actually see the environmental damage of stone quarries every day
We're likely past peek US imperial dominance as well or at least close to it, and thinking about 150 years in the future is a good comparison. And there won't be much left because reinforced concrete is not a good material over a long period.
> But so is recyclable materials.
Why not, but concrete isn't recyclable either. It's even less recyclable than stone. So why bring that here?
> Where I live I can actually see the environmental damage of stone quarries every day
But concrete comes from quarries too!
US imperialism is built on capitalist pragmatism.
> but concrete isn't recyclable either
It is
> But concrete comes from quarries too!
Its basic economics. Stone just seems far more costly and unaffordable. I just dont see it as an alternative. Your suggestions seem little more than utopic. I am happy to be proven wrong
I'm fascinated by this sentence, sounds like it comes straight from the propaganda machine. It's like meeting a North Korean praising the supreme leader…
> > but concrete isn't recyclable either
> It is
If you know how to recycle concrete to make new cement, you hold a billion-dollar patent idea, because it's not recyclable under existing technology.
> Its basic economics. Stone just seems far more costly and unaffordable.
That doesn't change anything to the fact that talking about the environmental impact of stone makes no sense, since concrete impact is the same when it comes to extraction.
> I just dont see it as an alternative. Your suggestions seem little more than utopic.
I'm not even suggesting anything (and even less that we built every building in stone) I'm just pointing about the fact that reinforced concrete is disposable material on the longer term, and we should stop using it for everything. The main reason we use reinforced concrete isn't economical anyway, as it's much more expensive than plain concrete, for most use-cases it's because it gives freedom to architects to make buildings that look more appealing: it's a fashion driven disaster.
I'm talking about concrete being recyclable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_recycling
> I'm not even suggesting anything (and even less that we built every building in stone) I'm just pointing about the fact that reinforced concrete is disposable material on the longer term, and we should stop using it for everythin
You suggested that stone can replace reinforced concrete for dense urban housing. I was truly fascinated by that since I love the use of raw materials in architecture. However to me you just seem to be out of touch. Raw stone quarries will be much bigger for the same amount of concrete and that would result in an environmental disaster
> for most use-cases it's because it gives freedom to architects to make buildings that look more appealing: it's a fashion driven disaster.
No. Where I live we use reinforced concrete because we had several earthquake disasters. Vast majority of buildings are quite boring and unimaginative.
The same way plastics somehow being called recyclable, despite being very different from actually recyclable materials like glass or steel. It's greenwashing PR bullshit. Yes you can “recycle” concrete in other use, but you cannot make new cement nor sand from your concrete, which means you still need quarries to make new concrete. With this definition stone would be “recyclable” too, since you can use it to make concrete later on. That's just not what recycling means to most people except the people designing the greenwashing campaigns.
> You suggested that stone can replace reinforced concrete for dense urban housing.
No I did not suggest to replace anything, and I even called you for moving the goalpost when you said so for the first time. My entire argument is that reinforces concrete sucks, stone is just one example because how were I live is built, but mud brick would have worked too in my argumentation, really. The problem lies in the status quo, which implies using reinforced concrete nilly-willy, I'm not suggesting one particular way around this situation, but stop acting as if it was not a garbage building material.
> No. Where I live we use reinforced concrete because we had several earthquake disasters.
Tell that to the Turkish that died in the earthquake this winter, most buildings where reinforced concrete ones, it doesn't solve the earthquake problem in its own. And most places where we use reinforced concrete are not places prone to earthquakes anyway.
> Vast majority of buildings are quite boring and unimaginative.
That's very typical from fashion though so it's not a counterpoint at all, quite the opposite.
Much of the damage in Turkey occurred in nonductile concrete buildings constructed under a pre-1998 Turkish building code. Ductile concrete building elements, required by newer building codes, are more flexible, thanks to steel reinforcing bars at critical locations.
You on the other hand are saying that we should not reinforce
Nobody is talking about forbidding anything, and you can't be serious when arguing that living in a seismic area would be an unfair advantage, I mean for real?
> Also I immagine that unnecessary use of reinforced concrete makes up well under 1% of its global use
That's the problem I think, you are giving way to much credit to your imagination.
> for most use-cases [reinforced concrete is used] because it gives freedom to architects to make buildings that look more appealing: it's a fashion driven disaster.
and yet you say I am giving too much credit to my imagination
> Nobody is talking about forbidding anything, and you can't be serious when arguing that living in a seismic area would be an unfair advantage, I mean for real?
Well then you seem to be saying nothing. You suggested alternative materials for reinforced concrete that really would not work in the real world. Even stone buildings use reinforcement to be able to better withstand earthquakes. Read about the Lisbon earthquake to get a feel for the sort of things "concrete cancer" can prevent.
I'm ending this exchange with a simple Quora question on this topic:
https://www.quora.com/Do-stones-and-bricks-help-protect-hous...
Just because you don't like them aesthetically doesn't mean no-one does.