Living comfortably without air conditioners during summer in Taiwan might be unimaginable for many people, but writer Lin Tai-ling (林黛羚) believes it is possible — and easy to accomplish. Her latest book, Old Houses Made Green (老屋綠改造), features more than a dozen residences. Homeowners, living in places ranging from a Taipei City apartment to a three-building brick compound in Taichung City, changed their abodes to make them cooler and less humid.
As a landscaping student at Tunghai University (東海大學), Lin frequently traveled abroad with her classmates to study the creations of renowned architects like Peter Walker and Peter Landon. After graduating, Lin moved to Taipei and began working as an editor for home design magazines. Though she covered some of the most luxurious residences in the country, Lin was constantly struck by one thing.
“In school, I had been taught that the form of a building has to relate to its surrounding environment. After graduating, I began reporting on interior design in Taiwan. I thought, ‘Why is it so different than what I had been taught?’” Lin says.
Photo Courtesy of Lin Tai-ling
She became less interested in covering luxury residences, and began gravitating toward homeowners who had “greened” their homes, doing renovations on their own (and often on a tight budget) to make their living quarters more environmentally friendly.
Since 2009, Lin has published six popular books, four of which focus on sustainable residential architecture and are filled with photos, technical drawings and tips for low-cost remodeling. Known by her nickname Aling (阿羚), Lin also keeps a popular blog focusing on sustainable design and lifestyle at alingling.blogspot.com.
Accompanied by her miniature pinscher, a rescue dog, Lin recently sat down at a coffee shop near her Hsinchu home to talk about the benefits of green architecture and how we have plenty to learn from our grandparents about home building.
Photo Courtesy of Lin Tai-ling
Taipei Times: Your book emphasizes the importance of air circulation and natural light in architecture and interior design. Do you think that architects pay enough attention to these factors?
Lin Tai-ling: Earlier on they did, before there were air conditioners or dehumidifiers. Architects did not want residents to feel hot in their houses and complain, so they always had to consider that angle. But after air conditioners became commonplace, they began to think that all they had to do was to make the house look nice and they could depend on air conditioners for air circulation and temperature control.
TT: A lot of the homeowners in the book used building methods that were seen frequently 30 years ago or so ...
LT: A lot of people see sustainable architecture as a recent development. But as one of the homeowners I interviewed for my book put it, people are supposed to live in “green” buildings. Our grandparents’ homes would have been considered green architecture.
They had to think about what the direction the wind was blowing from, how the sun was shining into their windows, how to deal with humidity. Now if a building wants to reach the nine indicators [for EEWH, Taiwan’s green building certification system], then its production cost will be very expensive. But it’s wrong to think that a person has to have a lot of money to make their own home more environmentally friendly. Our grandparents didn’t use air conditioning. They paid attention to how the wind blew and installed windows accordingly to make their homes comfortable. To help absorb humidity, they left an open space of about 100cm below their floorboards. That doesn’t cost a lot of money. All they had to do was to be aware of the environment around their house.
TT: From a sustainable perspective, what do you think is the biggest shortcoming of most architecture in Taiwan?
LT: They are disconnected from their surrounding environments. Air conditioners are installed anywhere that is convenient, builders just carve out a small space for it. If an air conditioner is placed carefully, it should work for a long time, but people put it where it is constantly exposed to sunlight and high temperatures or left out in the rain.
An air conditioner repairman told me that 20 years ago he rarely had to repair machines, in part because summers weren’t so hot back then. But because Taipei is located in a basin and everyone now uses air conditioners, the temperature keeps getting higher. Air conditioners now have to do more work. If you ask a Taipei native who is more than 30 or 40 years old, they’ll say that it wasn’t so hot before. Now air conditioners and dehumidifiers have to work harder and that contributes to even higher outdoor temperatures. People have gotten used to air conditioners. As soon as they feel warm, they crank it up.
TT: How many of the houses covered in your books have air conditioners installed?
LT: Most of them don’t. Even the ones who live in Taipei. The homeowners are very smart. A pair of Yonghe District (永和區) residents wrote to let me know that they have not used air conditioners in 20 years, even though they live in a large apartment building. They live next to the Sindian Creek (新店溪) and the wind is always cool, no matter the season. Their neighbors in the building don’t pay attention to the wind, and they have all sealed off their windows and run air conditioners. But when this couple moved into their apartment, they observed what direction the wind from the river blows in and leave the windows on that side of the apartment open during the summer.
TT: You’ve already written several books about green architecture. Do homeowners now seek you out?
LT: I heard from a couple who remodeled their home after reading my first two books, so I included them in my latest, but I constantly go out to find new places to write about. My next book is about green offices, because some people spend even more time in their workplaces than they do at home. Taiwan has a lot of office buildings that are very poorly designed, with bad air circulation, even though that is the most important thing for comfort. People end up constantly coughing or suffering from sore throats. One of the things I want to encourage people to do in their offices is grow more plants to improve air quality. Some plants are especially good for cleaning the air, like Taiwan shansu [台灣山蘇, Asplenium nidus, commonly known as bird’s nest fern] and huangjinge [黃金葛, Epipremnum aureum, known as devil’s ivy or pothos]. Both are very common office plants in Taiwan. They don’t need a lot of sunlight to survive. Plants, especially ones that flower, are also fun to take care of and look at. They can be a good stress reliever for workers. Green walls [walls covered with plants] are now very fashionable and they are also well-suited to offices.
TT: In your books, most homeowners keep their renovation costs relatively low by doing a lot of the work by themselves.
LT: Yes, but most of them aren’t professional [architects or builders]. They are teachers or electrical engineers or artists who don’t have a lot of money for remodeling. When they start working on their homes, however, they go in a unique direction.
I think that in many other countries, people are used to the idea of DIY or recycling materials to keep costs down. But many Taiwanese people assume that if they want to live in an environmentally-friendly home, you have to invest in a specialist to design the building. I want to emphasize in my books that you can do a lot on your own.
TT: If you are a renter and cannot make major changes to your home, what steps can you take to make your living space more green?
LT: It’s just a little thing, but you can start with raising houseplants. Even if you aren’t allowed to do a lot in your apartment, you can usually install shades. People always complain about the heat, but they can install blinds or curtains. It’s a small step, but it makes a difference as long as the curtains completely cover the window frame.
If you live in a rooftop apartment, which can get extremely hot, you can ask your landlord if you can plant vegetables up there. That’s another way of going green.
Another thing I want to start writing about is the fact that a lot of people want to build a home in the countryside when they retire. My argument is that there is so little space in Taiwan already, unlike in the US or Europe, where there is so much land that you can move anywhere. In Taiwan, we don’t have enough land to support every retired person who wants a country home. So why keep moving? If you have lived in a city for 30 years already, you can continue to live there even as you grow older.
If you didn’t have the time to make changes to the place where you live while you were busy working, you can gradually “green” your home after retirement. If you go green, and I go green, even if about 100 people go green, that would make a difference. If everyone who retired in Taipei figured out a way to stop using their air conditioners, the city would become less hot and humid. People shouldn’t run away from the city. Leave the country for farmers and animals, don’t damage their environment, too. Green the place where you live.
For more information, visit Lin’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/aling.life
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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