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FERNANDO ABRUÑA
Fernando Abruña holds a Bachelor’s in Architecture and the Master of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and Pratt Institute of Technology respectively. He completed a non-traditional Doctor of Design Science Degree in 1977 at the age of 25 as an apprentice to Richard Buckminster Fuller from the International College in California. Dr. Abruña is a licensed, practicing architect, a retired professor of the School of Architecture, University of Puerto Rico, and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He is also the Founding and Past President of the U.S. Green Building Council, Caribbean Chapter, and the publicly recognized authority in Sustainable Design in Puerto Rico. Abruña is the author of local best-selling green design and construction books including Fresco Gratis (touching upon the subject of passive cooling systems) and ¡Casas! (which was published by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture). He is the Founder and 1st Director of the Sustainable Design Studio at the School of Architecture, University of Puerto Rico. Abruña practices his profession with his wife, Architect Margaret Musgrave, a Color Consultant and a licensed Green Realtor in charge of Interior Architecture for the firm. Abruña & Musgrave, Architects’ office is located in a two-hundred-year-old building in the historic city of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
KEEP SAFE
Fernando Abruña 2/18/2019 What inspired you to initially invest in this movement for design and construction? Before studying architecture, I was majoring in psychology. I remember walking with a friend at the University of Puerto Rico when I saw a tree casting its shadow against a street gutter. I saw this beautiful and contrasting conjunction between natural and man-made systems: the gutter as an expression of technology and the flickering shadow of the leaves of the tree so beautiful, moving with the wind against the sunlight. This was an epiphany, I said to myself this is something special and important. I told my friend “let’s go back to the library, I would like to see some catalogues on architecture schools”. There, I looked at a few catalogues and the one that caught my interest was Rhode Island School of Design’s (RIDS) catalogue. I eventually graduated from RISD where I did my research on natural ventilation; the school was so interested in the idea that they supported my building of a wind tunnel and a room to conduct my research. My first book, Fresco Gratis, was written in 1980 and based on this research. Then I went on to demonstrate and manifest those ideas in the world through design, building, publications, and education. The word ‘resilience’ comes from the structural principle of a material coming back to its original condition once a load is taken off. People come up with new definitions every day. The way I define it is as how a living space is designed to survive catastrophic (including climatic) events through ‘Feasible Redundancy.’ Redundancy in systems makes for better resiliency in the built environment since it allows you to survive. If a first system fails, a second system comes into play. If the second system also fails, a third system takes its place. The challenge, as I see it, is how to make this redundancy economically and socially feasible and hence the term ‘Feasible Redundancy.’
Resiliency depends hugely on maintenance; more important than the concepts of sustainability and resiliency is MAINTENANCE, especially in Puerto Rico where the catastrophic force of Hurricane Maria greatly impacted systems that did not have the benefit of appropriate maintenance in place. Whenever a system is designed, its maintenance needs to be planned for and carried out. Recurring funds and user involvement to assure maintenance are essential for resiliency and sustainability to function properly. What challenges did you encounter as you created these models? When I started working on these ideas within the design and construction industry, energy, materials, and resources were cheaper. Energy was so cheap that people would not consider natural ventilation, daylighting, and passive strategies because it was relatively cheap to do it the wrong way. The Oil Embargo of 1973 caused, in my view, a technological and cultural shift where people began to appreciate nature, sustainability, and resilience as potential solutions to the challenges brought about by the built environment and its effect on nature. In the beginning, it was the forces of counterculture that brought this discussion to the forefront. I became a tree hugger; I knew cutting down trees was not a trivial issue because of the inherent benefits that come from having them around. I knew it was wrong, but I could not justify it with rational arguments. My approach was visceral. Later on, corporate institutions started adopting these ideas and started assessing the impact of the systems and attributing scientific metrics to the work to measure that impact. The challenge at that time, when I began doing this, was that the metrics were not there. Now, with scientific metrics, you can argue not to cut a tree because it will, for example, cost you more for air conditioning, water retention, etc.
Another challenge is the risk factor and which communities are going to be on the front line in climate change and its consequent displacements. The place where you are born is such a significant piece of your own soul. Some communities face more challenges than others depending on their resources. The costs of things are skyrocketing. Building in flood prone areas is going to be costlier than going to a new place. But if we talk about the relocation of communities, we need to talk about well-off communities like Ocean Park as well as economically challenged and depressed communities like those bordering the Martín Pena Channel. If you are going to talk about relocating communities, you need to do it across the board and not just the communities with lower incomes, which are typically the more exposed and vulnerable communities. There cannot be any exceptions. The same relocation argument is happening and will continue to rise at a global scale. Imagine a foreigner, say from Switzerland, building an argument for all Puerto Ricans to move from the island because we are in the annual path of hurricanes, it makes some sense…but would all Puerto Ricans agree with this idea? Vulnerable communities also face the same challenge in flood prone areas. It is a difficult issue that needs more discussion. Ultimately, Nature will make the final decision, if we, as a society, cannot come to an equitable agreement between us all. What lessons have you learned from Maria and what do we need to invest in? The government issued recovery funds that need to be well-managed. There seems to be a speed frenzy as to how to spend this money. We need to move slower in order to make sure we spend it correctly, in the right places, and above all making maintenance the priority in that plan. The eyes of the world are on Puerto Rico. What we do will be carefully observed and studied by many other communities around the world. Puerto Rico is now living the future, which other regions in the world will be facing in theirs.
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