‘Green’ architecture harming wildlife

October 2nd, 2009

Sommerhaus Piu's large glass windows may lead to unnecessary bird fatalities.

When we think about eco-friendly housing, we tend to focus on the nifty green aspects of the structure itself: things like solar panels, reclaimed wood, nontoxic insulation, LED lighting, radiant flooring, etc. These technologies and materials are exciting, even sexy — who wouldn’t want to live in a cutting-edge house of the future? Unfortunately, sometimes in the effort to make these structures aesthetically pleasing and loaded with energy-saving gadgets, one of the most important aspects of environmentally friendly architecture is overlooked: the environment itself.

A reader from Germany wisely pointed this out in regard to my post on Sommerhaus Piu, a prefab house meant to be enjoyed as a vacation home in the bucolic countryside. Like many modern-looking ‘green’ structures, it features a large wall of glass to create that feeling of communing with nature. She wrote:

…What is debatable though or must even be downright disapproved of, are the large glass panes set up right in the middle of a a/any natural bird habitat!

You write enthusiastically “…we’d go … listen to birds chirp …” but had better realize you will more often hear them crash into the panes (no joke!). If you are faster than your neighbor’s cat you need not worry about what you will have for your gourmet dinner (not really a joke either): robin, wren, thrush, woodpecker, even the dazzling and colorful European kingfisher (!), perhaps the odd buzzard … all of them still at home in the beautiful lake surroundings of Pian, north of Berlin, Germany.

Thus, instead of calling this summerhouse “Piu” (probably unwittingly recalling onomatopoeically the lonesome cry of the buzzard!), our suggestion would be “Sommerhaus Vogelschlag (Birdcrash)”.

…Ecology is not merely about our energy consumption as related to sustainable resources, but also about how we/every single person can/must help protect biodiversity.

I admit, readers, I am guilty: I did not even considering the possibility — nor the irony — of birds crashing into the giant plate glass window of an eco-friendly house, probably because it’s been a very, very long time since I a) lived anywhere outside of a city; and b) called anything but an apartment building my home.

But the question now is, if this isn’t what truly green design looks like, what does?

–Jennifer Grayson