A PRECEDENT IN SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE: BIOCLIMATIC DEVICES IN ALVAR AALTO'S SUMMER HOUSE

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The problems discussed in forums such as that within the European Charter for Solar Energy in Architecture and Urban Planning are still up-to-date.1 The role architecture plays in energy consumption calls for a conceptual reorientation that ensures a responsible design approach to the environment and the use of renewable resources based on local conditions. In this sense, the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) figures as a pioneering precedent of a sustainable architecture. The Nordic climate and the deeply nature-concerned culture within which he lived are factors that derived a conscious design method characterised by the exploration of environmental concepts. The contextual approach was developed since his early career and reached a peak in his own summer house erected in Finland in the year 1953. As Aalto himself comments, this building had the advantage of being the ‘experimental game' of the architect, where he could freely work without worrying about the constraints of usual pro...