Share Economy and Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century

Introduction: Sustainability and the Architectural Profession

One of the most pressing challenges facing architects in the 21st century is the issue of sustainability. Not only is there no consensus on how to approach sustainability in academic circles, but there is also no formula for integrating it into architectural curricula (Wright, 2003). This deficiency underscores an even deeper problem: as Edwards and Hyett (2010) note, "the techniques and technologies of green design are now generally understood — what is still lacking is an architecture profession which gives priority to ecological issues" (p. 5). In other words, there is no meaningful connection between the myriad academic approaches and professional architectural practice. Wheeler (2015) asserts that this disconnect is due to an inadequate definition of sustainable architecture. In the capitalistic, consumerist global environment of the 20th century, the concept of preservation and connectivity to nature was largely overshadowed by corporate demand and higher profit margins.

Yet the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century has witnessed a revolution in thinking about community-based standards, thanks in large part to the impact of the Internet and its ability to connect individuals around the world and share information at essentially no cost. This sharing and connectivity has given rise to today's share economy and the concept of collaborative consumption, seen in enterprises from AirBnB to ZipCar. These new enterprises correspond to Wheeler's (2015) assertion that what is needed is "a philosophical reconsideration of relationality" in terms of generating a "sustainable built environment." Relationality is understood as the way in which two or more persons or things interact and relate. Understanding the gap between what is theorized about sustainable architecture and what is practicable in the dynamic and changing world of the 21st century is therefore essential to overcoming the challenges of depleted resources, shrinking economies, and failing community infrastructures (Escobar, 2014).

Sustainability, Form, and Function: Historical Trends in Theory

American architect Louis Sullivan wrote in 1896 that "form ever follows function" (p. 403). Sullivan noted that this was "the law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman" — in short, that "life is recognizable in its expression." This architectural manifesto gave birth to America's first real burst of architectural creativity and design.

The 20th century gave way, however, to Marcel Breuer's Brutalism, which can be viewed in one sense as a result of the loss of a sense of function. Tenement dwellings were not conceived as housing people of inexpressible worth and value, but rather as serving a bureaucratic purpose — packing as many bodies into as many meters as possible in a city block and then forgetting all about it. Surfaceless, oblique, anti-aesthetic, cold, and unattractive, these dwellings became the soul of modern architecture as various architects attempted to utilize this conceit and twist it or add to it their own peculiar sensibilities. The results ranged in expression from the Guggenheim Museum to the Whitney Museum of Art (Johnson, 2003). In the absence of function, form fell apart, and minimalism and abstraction filled the void.

In the 21st century, function is again becoming important. This shift has come about as a result of a new socio-cultural trend rooted in both economics and environmental studies. Sustainability is now a growing concern among developers and designers: how to create a building that is efficient and sustainable, leaves as small an environmental footprint as possible, yet maintains a diversity of life. This was not an issue for the Brutalists of the 20th century. For Sullivan at the end of the 19th century, the issue centered more on how to create an aesthetically pleasing skyscraper that did not crush the human spirit (Morrison, 2001). Having lost sight of this manifesto over the course of a century, architects can now return to it with renewed focus as they seek to solve the problem of sustainability while addressing both the needs of the environment and the people who will use their structures.

In collaboration with the economic ideas of "collaborative consumption," sustainability in architecture can be viewed in terms of resource efficiency. Imagine an architectural system that can accommodate various functions and programs regardless of the day, time, year, or season — then ask: what resources will need to be consumed in order to sustain this system efficiently? Consuming less and utilizing more — in terms of space, energy, and other finite resources — is essentially at the heart of the unique problem facing architects in the 21st century, whether they are "green," eco-friendly, constrained by urban limitations, or simply energy-conscious. The function is the same: preserve the natural as much as possible and make maximum use of what is built. The dynamic is admittedly less concerned with aesthetics than Sullivan was in 1896, but the essence of the problem is more nature-driven, in terms of respect for the environment, than the architecture of the 20th century.

The notions of share economy and collaborative consumption serve as the foundation for this study in sustainability in architecture. From AirBnB to ZipCar, the share economy is revolutionizing the way in which the modern world comes to terms with the changing needs of society. The concept of utilizing more while requiring fewer resources is what this notion is all about. A share economy framework is relevant to this thesis because, like HBNY (Parenthetical Space) and co-housing projects, there is an architectural basis for addressing this need. The architectural design proposition of this study is that a share economy sensibility can be and should be incorporated into architecture in order to advance the aims of the 21st century in terms of preserving energy, space, time, and utility, while maximizing function, potential, affordability, and scale.

The central question this study poses is: How can the notion of share economy be facilitated architecturally?

Problems of Consumerism and Capitalism

The consumer culture that exists as a result of our current global economic system has resulted in environmental destruction on a substantial scale. As Calvo and Mendoza (2000) note, the crisis in developed and developing worlds is coming to a head, with economic collapse a real possibility. One of the economic reasons for this collapse — at least in the West — is that the means of extracting and processing fuels needed by industry have become too expensive relative to profit margins (Hadley and Rennell, 2015, p. 29). Other corporate entities are destroying the environment by attempting to "modify" nature's organisms, such as wheat, which as a GMO has been shown to be toxic to both people and land (Engdahl, 2007). Meanwhile, the consumerist culture that for so long kept industry intact is now shrinking as the financial world continues its unchecked global pillage and the purchasing power of the middle class continues to decline (Lewis, 2011). That the demise of the middle class is coinciding with the demise of the environment is only ironic given that it is primarily the excessive waste and materialism of the former that has brought about the latter (Kasser, 2002). As Calvo and Mendoza (2000) suggest, the factors of modern collapse have been forming for decades.

Share economy is thus an important aspect of the 21st century and is relevant to the field of architecture because architects are the ones who will be providing the space for the people of tomorrow — the projects, businesses, and dwelling places of tomorrow. In a share economy, such as has arisen in recent decades, architects should understand the implications of their designs and how they both impact and are impacted by the environment in which they create.

Any number of examples illustrate the point that global-scale consumerism leads to environmental devastation. The demand for oil and for ever-greater profits has led to the implementation of environmentally harmful methods of extracting energy from the earth — namely, fracking and off-shore drilling, both of which are only profitable when the cost of oil per barrel is high (Hadley and Rennell, 2015, p. 29). With the recent decline in oil prices as part of the energy conflicts being waged in the Middle East (Escobar, 2014), more and more extraction facilities are shutting down. Ironically, the consumerist culture that spawned the fracking industry is now responsible for its collapse: consumer demand does not match the oversupply of oil, and with the impending global economic pressures foreseen by many analysts, it is a further sign that consumerism (Kasser, 2002) — which led to an overexpansion of extraction facilities (Hadley and Rennell, 2015) — will be the same force that ultimately kills the industry, but not before that industry helps to damage the planet.

Another example lies in the demand for automobiles. Rather than favoring carpooling or public transportation, individuals feel compelled to own a personal vehicle as soon as they obtain a driving license. This is not only impractical in the long run, as the current surplus of cars on lots indicates, but also wasteful in terms of fuel consumption and harmful in terms of emissions. The consumer culture, however, can only last as long as there is a significant middle class willing to spend. When that class shrinks or disposable income constricts, the consumer culture comes to an end.

One reason that consumers have been slow to wake up to this reality is that they have divorced themselves from the natural world. Industry has created artificial environments where air conditioning and electricity keep everyone comfortable. This is what the tenets of agrarianism suggest: the root cause of human alienation from nature is urban life and the rise of industry, as seen in the mass migrations of citizens from the land to the cities during the Industrial Revolution. The technological advances of the past 200 years have dehumanized people, removed them from their natural surroundings, placed them in ever more sterile and unnatural environments, and depleted their sense of community. People have become increasingly dependent on materialism, as though all of human fulfillment could be satisfied by the accumulation of physical goods. What is lost is an idea of the soul, of mental health, spiritual well-being, and an appreciation of the environment (Kasser, 2002; Lewis, 2011). Americans in particular must feel disconnected from their past and heritage, as their own country "began as a nation of farmers" (Hagenstein, 2011, p. 9). What followed the war for Independence was a communal shift away from an agrarian way of life toward a new way that would secure a "commercial economy" (Hagenstein, 2011, p. 11). Having its own independent government brought new pressures, and the people of America adopted a "Hamiltonian worldview," putting profit and capital gains ahead of spiritual and natural nourishment (Hagenstein, 2011, p. 14). The Hamiltonian worldview was essentially a capitalistic, materialistic one in which all power was centralized and profits privatized — not shared. It was the antithesis of today's share economy, and it fueled a malnourished system that came crashing down in the first decade of the 21st century with the onset of the global economic recession.

This lack of nourishment is evident in the architectural designs of the 20th century, which moved away from Sullivan's "form ever follows function" manifesto and adopted a substanceless, functionless attitude that served only the capitalistic, consumerist empires — which are now in recession and outright decay (Escobar, 2014).