Staying Cool Is a Breeze

By Belinda Luscombe

Nature is a messy place. It's always changing, often inhospitable and frequently excessive. For buildings and homes, we crave stability, consistency, moderation: in a word, shelter. So while on paper environmental architecture makes perfect sense--buildings should be in tune with their environment--in reality, it's not practical. Each dwelling, it seems, must have its own mini-environment, with its own temperature, air flow and water and lighting systems.

But what if homes could adjust to the ever changing environment, as humans do? People take off or put on clothes according to the weather or their activity; why shouldn't their homes? This is one of the design tenets of Glenn Murcutt, 66, this year's Pritzker prizewinner for architecture. His work is very specific: he builds modest structures; he builds only in his home country of Australia; and he refuses, despite its searing summer temperatures, to use air conditioning.

The reason Murcutt, whose family moved from Papua New Guinea to Australia when he was 5, sticks so close to home is that his houses are very site-specific. The architect doesn't know the site just by sight; he studies the prevailing breezes, the water drainage and the flora and fauna of each proposed building spot. Then he uses what nature offers to create a comfortable home, albeit one the homeowner has to adjust periodically. For example, Murcutt's houses usually have a long, multilayered side facing north. Adjustable louvers, insect screens, moving glass panels and even thermal blinds can be opened to catch light and breezes or closed to retain warmth.

Does it work? In southeastern Australia, temperatures can reach 105[degrees]F in summer, but inside the house Murcutt designed in the Adelaide Hills for his brother, it's more like 75[degrees]F. In winter, when it is 32[degrees]F outside, the house is 62[degrees]F. The energy savings from not using electricity to heat or cool the house are considerable.

Murcutt's work mirrors the environment in other ways too. His use of corrugated iron--a material blessed with no glamorous associations--to catch and reflect light and create shadows according to the time or type of day creates an echo of the sharp shadings of the Australian bush.

Murcutt is one of the greatest avatars of the "think globally, act locally" approach. He has been offered many commissions outside Australia but has declined them all, preferring to teach his principles at universities around the world (next semester he will be at Yale and Cornell) while enacting them as close as possible to his home in Sydney. "It's great arrogance in an architect to think one can build anywhere appropriately," says Murcutt. "One can put a building anywhere, but for me it is the nuances in the culture that are important." In his lectures, he goes so far as to quote the energy consumption required to manufacture specific building materials.

There is a hint of proselytizing within the houses Murcutt designs. They require the people in them to remain very aware of their wider environment. Murcutt's homes protect but don't alienate inhabitants from their surroundings. "There are psychological benefits in feeling sun in winter, shade in summer--knowing seasons and feeling real air," he says. In adjusting their shelter to the season or day or weather, people are coaxed into understanding and working with nature. It's a relationship crucial to preservation of all species. --By Belinda Luscombe