Yeah its expensive and upscale but I love this project for two reasons, oddly, both involving anarchists. First off the visibility of the engineering. The guts of the building, what makes it work are exposed to those who use it. This helps the users appreciate the impact of what they are doing (from using appliances and computers to going the bathroom!) and helps them to change their behavior to be more responsible. But it also helps to call attention in a more general sense to the numerous ways we interact with buildings and the variety of systems involved. The great anarchist social ecologist Murray Bookchin calls for such an architecture in a few of his works and essays. And this is certainly the view of bioregionalists as well who go beyond sustainability advocates by calling for a closer understanding and identification with place—not just conservation and recycling etc.
The second thing I love about this and it reminds me of the anarchist geographer Peter Kropotkin is that the building’s systems are not only visible to its users and inhabitants but to the public. The guts are exposed so as to promote accountability and inspire.
"If the building is still the highest-performing one of its kind 10 years from now, said Denis Hayes, president and chief executive of the Bullitt Foundation, the experiment will have failed."
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