Sim Van der Ryn has been a leader in sustainable architecture for over40 years. As well as creating a portfolio of inspiring green designs -notably the 1977 Bateson Building in Sacramento - he is also a teacherand an author. His most recent book "Design for Life" traces hisancestral and ecological design roots. Principal Voices talked to Vander Ryn about the passion which continues to consume his life. CNN: What inspired you to become an architect? Sim Van der Ryn:Probably was when I was 14, I worked out on a farm helping a handymanbuild a Cape Cod cottage from a set of ten dollar magazine plans. Ijust thought the whole process of translating from a two-dimensionalset of drawings to a three-dimensional reality was exciting. CNN: At that time, was there anything that you were interested in pursuing? SVdR:Let`s see. I had a tendency towards art - painting, drawing andsculpture. But my parents were really practical and told me that wasn`ta suitable profession! CNN: Was ecological architecture always something you wanted to pursue? SVdR:My first interest was really in what we called Post-OccupancyEvaluation {POE}. I was interested in the social side of architecture,because it seemed to me that you read architectural criticism and, youknow, there was no criteria other than subjective, especially when youconsider how a building works for people. I helped found POE whichnever really went very far. Later on I was the Chief Architect for theState of California and I had money to do that {POE} but none of myclient agencies wanted to do that. CNN: What is/was POE? SVdR: There is an international association called the Environmental Design Research Association which kind of grew out of POE. I started it together with this English woman called Clare Cooper Marcuswho was teaching at Berkeley {University of California}. She did anevaluation of public housing projects. And at the same time a fellowcalled Oscar Newmanwrote a book called "Defensible Space", which was an attack on what wasthen the standard - Corbu {Le Corbusier}, high rise public housing -which turned out to actually dynamite a number of projects in thiscountry - in Chicago, St Louis. CNN: When you were starting out who did you look up to in the architectural world? SVdR: The biggest influence on me was Buckminster Fullerwho was a peripatetic character who would show up at schools. He reallyprovided a larger vision that was far more than just designing abuilding. And that for me was the kind of Satori moment - learningfrom him that the issue was much larger than the building. I neverforgot that. He was thinking in "whole systems" terms and I have beenever since. And then my work was always involved in socially orientatedarchitecture - when we still cared about that in this country. Iworked on migrant farm labor housing, I built a lot of prefab systemsbased on Fuller`s work. I was a refugee from Holland and as Isay in my book {Design for Life} I found who I was just kind of beingin the leftover pieces of nature that were in New York city - duringthe war construction stopped. So that was a huge influence in shapingmy life. I lived in New York but I left as soon as I could. Ireally not much of an urbanist. I believe in cities, but basically, mywork isn`t very urban. I like to build in places where nature is. CNN:After the 1973 oil crisis did you notice a change in mood? Wasn`t theremore of a push towards sustainable architecture during that period? SVdR: No, that wasn`t really true of most places. I was fortunate to hook up with Jerry Brown.He liked the outsiders. His great genius, when he was Governor {ofCalifornia}, was bringing all these outsiders to run these agenciesthat had always been run by insiders. That was a great gift. The oil embargo of 1973 did wake some people up. {President} Carter gotit but wasn`t able to sell it. We did have some federal initiatives and
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