When news broke earlier this month about Paris’ carbon zero office block, it wasn’t the first project of its kind that architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill had undertaken. It was, rather, part of a trend they had emphasized in their advertising and marketing: sustainable design.
Among their 25 explicitly “sustainable” projects will be the new 7 World Trade Center, and SOM is also responsible for the Freedom Tower design that will (eventually) occupy New York’s skyline. That makes the block particularly interesting - the offices in Paris, for SOM, are part publicity move, part high-profile challenge, and part opportunity.
And this is the case over and over with high-profile, solar-integrated architectural projects. Solar is a means towards headlines throughout the process - just look at Google and its own solar example for confirmation. It’s a way to lend some spice to architectural decisions, to position the building on the side of the “new” and the “modern,” and to add some civic benefit to help clear the horrors of city building negotiations. Increasingly, it’s hard for solar not to seem like an easy win for companies that want to add renown and attention to their city projects.
Where this trend will really start to get interesting is if using solar for press and credibility becomes more and more normal in new architectural developments. If the media stops paying attention to projects on the basis of their solar innovations, what will happen? Architectural companies are always going to tailor their projects to public reaction on some level, and some of them could decide that “solar” and “green” labels are a ready to be tossed away. Or they could become an ingrained part of the landscape, requiring companies to go further to get the headlines - whether in going more green, or in some other direction entirely.
For now, kudos to SOM. Looks like a wonderful project, and I can’t wait untill it’s a part of the Paris suburbs.
Cool stuff, Eric–thanks for posting. It will be interesting to see where solar goes this year. On the investing side of things at least, it seems a lot of people (http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/08/news/companies/where_renewable_moneyis/) are lowering their forecasts for solar companies. But, as you suggest, I think there’s something durable about the upward trend in solar (and other forms of renewable energy). More than just good PR and flashy sales, solar technologies produce clean, reliable electricity. As per-kWh costs continue to come down vis-a-vis “traditional” forms of energy, we’ll likely see more companies joining the ranks of SOM and others.