Upon entering my freshman year, I had grand intentions of following the pre-medical path. However, the appeal of a career in medicine (combined with the usual parental encouragement) couldn’t overturn my affinity for design, specifically in architecture. I struggled to validate architecture in the eyes of the other liberal arts (surely there must have been a good reason it wasn’t offered as a major), to see past my stereotype of the architect as design diva, and to place architecture in that wonderful melting pot of socially responsible and humanitarian careers in the company of medicine, law, and academia.

When I first cracked open the ORC, overwhelmed at the array of course offerings, the only mention I found of architecture was in three sequential studio art courses, and in the Engineering Sciences department, which promoted an Engineering major modified with studio art for “students interested in architecture or product design.” Since my freshman year, however, I’ve realized that architecture is more than a marriage of art and technology, and if the college did choose to develop an architecture major, it should incorporate equally courses from art history, environmental science, and sociology. In essence, I view architecture as the quintessential li beral art.

One of my first courses freshman fall was Art History 59, “Modern Architecture,” taught by Professor Marlene Heck. I never looked at a building the same way again. I learned about the history of Dartmouth’s architecture, the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier’s principles of modernism, and the development of vernacular architecture in America.

My interest in Green or Sustainable Design, however, came from the studio arts. Architecture that revered the natural environment as much as the built environment, while addressing current and future social issues - that was the validation I needed for architecture. In Architecture I, our class watched a video on Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio, which is based in Alabama and composed of students from Auburn University. Sam Mockbee, before his death, worked closely with students to construct affordable/free housing for low-income communities in rural Alabama, using local and sustainable materials. While I had learned of modern sustainability in the language of Le Corbusier and his notion of the house as “a machine for living in,” I hadn’t previously considered architecture’s larger role as a natural machine for living in, a regenerative and efficient system inspired and developed from natural materials and processes. Rural Studio utilized locally abundant materials to create beautiful, poetic architecture whose construction had minimal impact on the environment, satisfied a real human need beyond surface element, and was completely sustainable.

The Studio’s choice In materials involved old tires, hay bales, and car windshields common materials whose natural qualities served multiple purposes, all united in a language of design by the architects who manipulated them into built form. The elements of this “junkyard” architecture represent sustainable design that exists under our very noses. Tires not only lend a sculptural elegance to a project for a community building but also create a stable retaining wall. Walls made of hay bales are not only extremely effective insulators, but are also cost-effective and completely renewable resources.

I realized that there was more to architecture than what I could learn at Dartmouth in my courses in art history and studio art. Half of the fun is going to lectures, learning the language of practicing architects, and most importantly, experiencing and interacting with the built environment from an informed mindset. This combination of academic, practical, and physical study of the field of architecture seemed to me to be the most comprehensive form of study, and I felt that it shouldn’t be so difficult to pursue at Dartmouth. In the fall of my junior year I started an organization called Arc@D, or Architecture at Dartmouth, with the goal of making architectural dialogue and exploration more accessible to students and providing a network of resources to students interested either in pursuing a career or simply with an appreciation for architecture in general.

However, the initial goals of the organization catered to somewhat of a niche audience; although numbers of architecture-oriented students have increased in recent years, those interested in the club were in the minority of the general student body. I realize now that Arc@D needs to branch out, to interact with other academic fields beyond studio art and art history, both to utilize extended resources and also explore the many branches of the field of architecture.

A wonderful example of a cross-disciplinary topic is Green Building, where architecture, engineering, and environmental science converge. Regarding Green Building from the perspective of a Dartmouth student, it has a quiet place in the architectural fabric of campus, and unlike the creations of the Rural Studio, is not overtly pronounced at Dartmouth. While not always physically obvious, green building on this campus exists under our very noses.

Increased natural lighting helps mitigate the sorry onslaught of seasonal affective disorder so many of us suffer during the long winter months, creating a positive ambience every month of the year in the Collis Center, the Hop art studios, and Rauner library. Those copper roofs that top our brick buildings aren’t purely decorative - with a life span three to four times that of asphalt roofs, they are also less susceptible to the negative heating and cooling effects of seasonal changes.

The copper roof, according to Jack Wilson AlA, the college architect, is a prime example of “performativity,” his alternative term for sustainability, one that focuses not only on a building’s efficient survival, but “on all things buildings need to do to be good places to work, live, and learn on campus.”

“Durability is especially important at an institution where buildings are going to be for long periods of time,” he says, prioritizing pragmatism foremost where thousands of dollars are invested in construction of new facilities. This is not to say that Green Building can’t be beautiful - this is part of the reason the current construction projects on campus take so long to build - because the college incorporates sustainable principles of design from the initial planning stages to the final product, sustainability, function, and aesthetics are inextricably bound to ensure the strongest product possible.

The college’s commitment to environmental responsibility lies in the adoption of LEED standards for future buildings. LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, “emphasizes state of the art strategies for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. The new engineering sciences building, the planned Kemeny Hall Math building, and the new dorms on the North Maynard development site will all be LEED certified buildings . Much of the motivation behind the college’s affiliation with LEED is economic: from Wilson’s experience, “enlightened clients” such as large institutions or universities are catching on as they realize the long-term economic benefit of creating sustainable environments, and “it all comes down to dollars and cents.” The reason Green Design hasn’t caught the homeowner market like wildfire is because developers seeking a profit have short-term goals in mind, but local agencies like Efficiency Vermont help educate architects and contractors about environmentally responsible building materials and utilities.

President Wright, in a 2002 letter addressing Dartmouth’s outlook, declared the college’s commitment to sustainability in emphasizing the adoption of LEED standards for future buildings, and cited that the college “must continue to make environmental concerns a significant priority in our decision making, to lead in the implementation of environmentally sustainable practices, and to place Dartmouth at the forefront in the exploration of issues related to the preservation of a healthy biosphere.’

If all this exciting Green Building does exist on campus, then why don’t more students know about it? According to Wilson, “our time is better spent doing it than talking about it,” and to an extent I agree that architecture should speak for itself. However, informing students further about their relationship to sustainable environments for learning, working, and living can only contribute positively to the myriad perspectives attained at a liberal arts college. With a new organization like Arc@D, the possibility of interdepartmental collaboration regarding Green Design foresees an easier path toward knowledge of environmentally sustainable design than that of the individual go-getter. Creating ties with other organizations like student political groups, the Women in Business Club, the organic farm, and the government department can help students understand architecture not as object but also as agency, specifically in the reaches of Green Building.

The Upper Valley, with its fragile ecosystems and environmentally conscientious inhabitants, is an incredibly fertile resource for sustainable design. Clayton McClintock ‘02, who became interested in Green Building only after graduating from Dartmouth, worked at D Acres, an organic farm near Dartmouth. “I learned a ton about not only green building but sustainability in general,” he stated, “with regards to agriculture, forestry, water systems, etc. - in sum, permaculture, which is a concept you probably have come across an which has not, for a reason unknown to me, really caught on in academic departments, in general.”

Emily Meier ‘05 says, “I definitely think that sustainable architecture and living centers are important, and not just for architectural buffs. 1 think green building should be synonomous with building and that Dartmouth is a premier place to pioneer this mental shift -we are the Big Green after all. To pursue green building at Dartmouth takes a lot of personal initiative, the courses and professors interested in the topic are scattered. Perhaps Arc@D will change this. Environmental stewardship is practical, and green building is one of the ways that stewardship is being articulated.”

With the advent of Dartmouth’s new environmentally sustainable construction projects and the potential of sponsored interdepartmental programming, perhaps student awareness of this “quiet” architecture will increase to the level where Green Building is accepted as standard rather than innovation, and Green Building will no longer exist as a separate typology from architecture.