What is a truly sustainable building? Is it about how much dirty energy it avoids? The clean energy it produces? What about the building materials themselves and the “embodied carbon” they represent?
What if those materials also were able to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester it from the environment? This is the subject of sustainable buildings leader Bruce King’s coming lecture at San Antonio College.
It’s a question of special value in San Antonio today, as the City pursues the development of its first climate action plan.
So far, the staff and volunteers working on San Antonio’s Climate Action & Adaptation Plan have discussed changing building codes, promoting “green” roofs and passive solar. But when considering the potentials of carbon sequestration the CAAP’s “Community Measures” focus primarily on the landscape: “increasing plant material, restoring the soil landscape, and all high-tech solutions.”
A typical oversight?
Yes.
“People haven’t woken up too much both to the challenge and opportunity that buildings are. Even the green building phenomena that has arisen in the last 20 years and become a bit of an odd juggernaut is pretty much all about operating energy, what we call operating energy,” King said, “versus … embodied carbon emissions.”
This Deceleration conversation is offered in advance of King’s October 11 talk at San Antonio College, where he will present on the findings of his collaborative work, “The New Carbon Architecture: Building to Cool the Climate.”
King’s previous books include, “Buildings of Earth and Straw,” “Making Better Concrete,” “Design of Straw Bale Buildings.”
Bruce King Lecture
William R. Sinkin Eco Centro at San Antonio College, in conjunction with several partners, hosts Bruce King, an international architect and author of The New Carbon Architecture.
Time: 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday, October 11
5:30 p.m. – Earth Block Machine Demonstration
6 p.m. – Doors Open
6:30 p.m. – Lecture
A book signing will follow the lecture.
Location: McCreless Theatre at San Antonio College (map)
Pricing: $10 students I $15 Emerging Professionals I $25 Members I $35 Future Members
