Larry Scarpa says the world of design turned upside down when the mechanical air-conditioner became affordable and efficient in the early 1950s.
“This changed everything for architects,” said the Los Angeles-based architect, showing a picture of a 1950s advertisement for a window air-conditioner in his keynote address at Sarasota MOD Weekend Friday night. “In 1948, there were only 50,000 home air-conditioner units worldwide.”
Architects Larry Scarpa of Los Angeles, John Howey of Tampa and Joyce Owens of Fort Myers following a panel discussion at The Francis in downtown Sarasota during Sarasota MOD Weekend. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-11-2014.
That number soared as Fedders, Friedrich and other brands turned sweltering households into cool oases during the 1960s. But in the early ’50s, the modernist architects of the Sarasota School used site-orientation, floor-to-ceiling jalousie windows, deep overhangs and sliding-glass doors to let cooling breezes flow through their houses.
It helped that their seasonal clients were not in residence during the summer.
As air-conditioning became more popular, such sensible, “passive” design methods became unnecessary, Scarpa noted. Home builders simply overpowered the summer sun with 10,000 Btus or more of cooling power from a window- or wall-based air-conditioning unit.
Architect Lawrence Scarpa of Los Angeles was the keynote speaker at Sarasota MOD Weekend. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-11-2014.
Scarpa showed a photo of a turn-of-the-20th-century skyscraper in New York, which had plenty of big windows that opened, letting in fresh air and light, and contrasted it with a photo of the Seagram’s Building, designed in the 1957 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
“As air-conditioning became the norm, we built the Seagram’s Building, which is a beautiful building, but a building dependent on mechanical systems, and reliant on electric light,” said Scarpa.
Scarpa implied that architects, empowered by technology, could ignore the principles of passive, sustainable design, such as those found in the vernacular “Cracker” houses of Florida’s settlement era.
“I love them because of the poetry and simplicity of living with nature,” said Scarpa, who is from Miami, studied architecture at the University of Florida and worked for “Sarasota School” architect Gene Leedy in Winter Haven at the start of his career. His firm is Brooks + Scarpa.
In 1984, as a young architect, the 54-year-old Scarpa
Architect Larry Scarpa of Los Angeles delivers his keynote address in the Academic Auditorium on the campus of Ringling College of Art + Design during Sarasota MOD Weekend Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. He encouraged architects to include sustainability in their designs. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-11-2014.
designed “Treehouse.”
“I had no idea of sustainability, but I was interested in the concept of living with nature.”
He has been successful, winning many awards along the way while gaining a reputation as one of the nation’s leading “green” architects.
“I have tried to do work that is both beautiful and performative,” said Scarpa, who arrived in Sarasota after being presented the 2014 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Award for architecture at the White House.
His mission is clear – to encourage today’s architects to think about sustainable building design and not just be fixated on creating dramatic sculpture that is published in the trade journals.
The builder and designer can do this without simply resorting to plastering roofs with photovoltaic (PV) panels, Scarpa said.
“Air and light is easy and free,” he said. “You can make buildings super performative on a passive level.”
Yes, he does use PV panels. One of his California designs, an apartment building for low-income families, has 200 solar panels on one of the walls. The rent is $400 a month, and the apartments have ocean views.
“Poor people need this the most. They have highest percentage of their income going to utilities,” Scarpa said. “It’s not heroic. It is common sense. ‘Beautiful’ and ‘sustainable’ are not mutually exclusive concepts.”
For his own home, he remodeled an old house, installed PV along with passive green materials and design methods – and his electric bill is $500 a year.
For one client, he designed a 4,500-square-foot net-zero energy building. That means it creates at least as much power as it consumes. “Most buildings we do are in that realm,” he said.
He says building owners and designers who dwell on the upfront costs of green technology, especially in long-lasting commercial buildings, are missing the point. For a building that will last 100 years or more, a 15-year-payback for green tech is a “no-brainer.”
Sustainability in his own home cost about $30,000 extra, and he expected a 17-year payback. But the investment paid off in six years.
