Professor urges better use of resources to ensure Earth's future

Ti Gong

Professor Vladimir Bazjanac of Stanford University’s civil and environmental engineering department recently gave a lecture to students at Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

“Tongji has established a long-term partnership with Stanford,” said Tan Hongwei, a professor at the college. “Many of our graduates choose further study in Stanford. And staff between two universities often visit each other’s campus.”

Bazjanac has been a senior advisor for science at the University of Zagreb and Civil Engineering Institute of Croatia, is the former leader of the interoperability team in the Building Technologies and Urban Systems Department of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and has won national and international architectural design, industry and scientific awards. He also took part in designing Shanghai Disney Resort.

Tell us about the house that you’ve built for yourself.

It is a California house made of redwood. It’s in earthquake country meaning I had to make it as earthquake-safe as possible. The house is at the edge of a park that used to be a quarry. I designed a foundation system with the help of a structural engineer. We engineered several reinforced concrete piers going straight into the rock tied together with reinforced concrete ground beams. I have multiple sheer walls designed to handle an earthquake.

I can see the whole city of San Francisco from my house. I have views of three bridges. I’d be a fool not to maximize the views from my house, so I designed a window in each room of the house that looks toward the bay and can see at least one of the bridges. 

Ti Gong

What is the most memorable architecture you’ve designed?

I worked on the former French president (Francois) Mitterrand’s last federal project which was a new international conference center in Paris. I worked on it for more than two years, and commuted from Berkeley to Paris every month. The design consisted of  three connected buildings enclosed completely in glass over a large concrete underground. One of them had a small forest of trees inside. You would have been able to see from the outside, through glass, the steel structure supporting the buildings.

We were just about to start construction when Chirac became the president. The first thing he did was to stop the project. So it was never built.

What is your dream building that you’ve always wanted to design and build.

An energy-efficient church in the Arizona or New Mexico desert.

What do you think of traditional architecture in Suzhou and modern architecture in Shanghai?

The trip to Suzhou was very interesting because we went to Zhuozheng Garden.

The building construction process in China appears to be much faster than in most other parts of the world. I think it is more organized and systematic. From my perspective, this puts China in the leading position in terms of construction speed.

China has an enormous number of new, very high buildings. I understand why: China has a large population that needs an opportunity to live the way that they would like to. My comment is that living in congested urban environment is depriving people of personal free space. I notice that Shanghai has many nice parks, and that these are used. My house in Berkeley is at the edge of a city park. My daughter, when at home, could go into the park and play there any time she wanted. I think that freedom and environment played a significant role in her growing up.

But I don’t see that kind of free independent childhood having an opportunity to develop in a dense high-rise urban environment. So my comment is:  As efficient as high-rise buildings are, people who reside in such buildings do pay a price for it.

But high-rises seem to be the modern solution in today’s society.

It may be the only solution. Look at Hong Kong. I see in Hong Kong an even more exaggerated state of the over-population condition. What Hong Kong has done is quite unique, although it doesn’t solve the problem that I have mentioned. Hong Kong is truly a three dimensional city, emphasizing the third (vertical) dimension. They put in places an almost independent freeway system at the top level which effectively frees space at the bottom for other uses. 

What can smart buildings do to help the environmental crisis we are facing now?

Good design is always energy efficient. It may consume a lot of energy because of the processes it enables and houses, but the consumption will always be intelligent and it won’t be wasteful. What comes with over-population is overuse of energy. There’s no way around that.

People will have to learn how to use their resources intelligently and productively, without destroying the planet.

Have you always been very concerned about environmental issues?

I’ve been interested in this topic for almost four decades.  These days I would call myself an environmentally dedicated information scientist. I’m not concerned about energy consumption in the long run for a very real reason: Modern humans have been steadfastly destroying this planet’s environment and by now may have passed the point of no return. This ultimately means human extinction from the planet.

I used to think that humanity still has sufficient time, like at least 350 years, to enable the recovery of the planet. But less than five years ago, I received a scientific report written in the UK which had a gloomy prediction that the planet only had 50 years left before loss of the ability to support human life. A Russian report, using different databases, came to the same conclusion a couple of months later.

What actions have you taken based on your concerns about this issue?

I talk to whomever I have an opportunity to point out the problem we are facing globally. I do what I can, but that’s unfortunately not very effective at all. Decisions that could mitigate climate change and its effects are controlled by politicians and industry. I’m talking, but people who have the power to mitigate climate change are not listening.