Parallel (hi)stories: A subjective approach to energy-efficient design

Abstract

Nicolae Iorga (Romanian historian and politician) once said that “who forgets doesn’t deserve.” This aphorism can be extended to the history of any field of human activity, including the history of building materials, technologies, and styles. Periodically they are “reinvented” from new perspectives, with nuanced or new uses, but with the same defining elements. Throughout history, buildings have been the “mirror” of their time: they preserve the ideas, values, beliefs, and culture of the era in which they were conceived and elevated, as well as customer values, achieved by economy and technology levels. Going to the essence (and ignoring fashion and style), the principles of construction have not changed, and they can be identified in all the built heritage that we have inherited, from traditional homes to contemporary trends: high-tech, bioclimatic, eco-buildings, green, etc. As we build on planet Earth, we need to consider the agents that are acting on buildings, both natural and anthropic. Nature’s laws must be respected: physics, chemistry, and biology are fundamentals, and as Oren Lyons said, (O. Lyons, The Ice is Melting (2004), in https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/the-ice-is-melting/. Accessed 31 July 2019) “You can’t negotiate with a beetle. You are now dealing with natural law. And if you don’t understand natural law, you will soon.” It therefore seems reasonable to use the forces of nature in the act of architectural creation and not defy them. The building components, technologies, and products (because we only refer to them) have a periodic comeback to the present, each time with new contributions given by the technical progress, regarding new construction materials or new performances, while the principles of the whole constructive approach are (always) the same. This work concerns – in parallel – several technological systems for construction from a geographical, spatial, and temporal perspective.