Alumni Award Recipients
Ed Mazria
Zia Award, 2010
Here’s a shocker for you: the largest consumer of greenhouse gases in the world is not cars and trucks and things that go. It’s not industry. It’s the built environment. Buildings.
There was a time when buildings were designed with respect to their environments. There was no air conditioning, so buildings were positioned in the shade, with cross ventilation. There was no central heat, so south-facing walls were included to absorb the winter sun. In New Mexico, our thick adobe walls insulated our homes.
As heating and cooling technologies became pervasive, the possibilities for design became limitless. An all-glass building – once ridiculous because of local climates – becomes a thing of beauty supported by fossil-fuels.
Ed Mazria, an internationally recognized architect based in Santa Fe, became known originally for The Passive Solar Energy Book, a sort of bible for passive solar construction, which he wrote. Now he is known for his vision that just as design has contributed to untenable consumption levels of fossil-fuels – coal in particular – so can it contribute to the turnaround of those levels. Buildings are the problem, but buildings are also the solution.
In 2002, Ed founded a non-profit organization, Architecture 2030, in response to climate change. Its goal is to achieve a dramatic reduction in the building sector’s climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions by reforming the way buildings and developments are planned, designed and constructed.
The group’s 2030 Challenge was adopted in 2006 by the 80,000-member American Institute of Architects. Subsequently, numerous organizations and government entities worldwide have adopted the challenge as well.
Ed received his bachelor’s of architecture degree from the Pratt Institute and his master’s from UNM where he has also done research and taught. His buildings have been featured in architectural digests, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He lectures internationally about the 2030 Challenge and the means to meet it.
Ed has changed the world dialogue of climate change and the built environment. His work will have a profound impact on our future.
While Ed was unable to be here today, we are grateful for his work and proud to honor him with our Zia Award, which his wife will accept for him.
