A Critical Piece by STAR Strategies + Architecture

A little while ago, I wrote about the issues of modern green-washing in architecture, and further about the disingenous nature of the "sustainable" UTS Business Building. Part of this is due to the difficulties in measuring and evaluating sustainability, leading to systems that can be easily manipulated to provide results that are higher than deserved. 

Recently, the Rotterdam based design team "STAR Strategies + Architecture" has published a criticism of green-washing, and the modern view of sustainability as a whole. Titled "O'Mighty Green", the publication compares the modern obsession with sustainability with an almost religious worship, suggesting that sustainability has become a "Green God". 

It asserts that the colour green has become representative of all sustainability, pushed to a ridiculous level where "Green proves to work as the quickest and easiest representation of sustainability" - regardless of what may lie underneath. Referring to belief that "an iconic building simply needs to be iconic", they assert that "Green buildings simply need to be green", suggesting that "Sustainability is a Photoshop filter." 

They continue by ridiculing modern urban designers, coining the phrase "Sustainabilism", suggesting the that "Green" is a point on which everyone - client, designer, developer, and politician, agree upon. They further note the irony that "Sustainabilism" is the first true "International Style", referring to the late 20th century pursuit of a universal form of design. 

Illustrating the great hypocrisy of "Green", they published a number of photoshopped images, of famous buildings clad in greenery. Some examples include a coal power plant, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoy, and more controversially, the Berlin Wall and the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. While obviously hyperbolic, the images serve to convey the irony of greenwashing, commenting on how bad design is often obscured by false "sustainable" green elements.