Is Kelbaugh Wright?
Is Kelbaugh Wright?
Yes, it is a play on words, but the emphasis is that the late Professor Doug Kelbaugh (1945-2023) last book resonates the answers sought by Ronald Wright, that he put to us in his extraneous reflection on humanity and its long sorry history of doing the wrong things. In-fact you probably should read both A Short History of Progress, and Kelbaugh’s book together if you believe in the value of cultural studies, environmental reasoning and ultimately who we are, where do we come from and where are we going! The same questions asked by Paul Gauguin that Wright so elegantly laid out the answers in his turn of the Millenia book.
Doug Kelbaugh, had a sparkling career, first as a Princeton graduate architect during the 1970’s struggling and succeeding in being truthful about frugal energy efficient housing, via trombe wall designs. He built a firm that strived and won many competitions, but unfortunately few of them came to fruition due to clients not embracing what now is commonly sought, but he never gave up inspiring people to do better. He made his mark as an educator and then rising to become Dean of University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Planning, culminating with him winning the prestigious Topaz Medallion in 2016, the highest award in Architecture Education.
I was lucky to not only meet Doug, but I got to work side by side with him for a number of years planning and designing mixed use communities, when he decided to go have a break from academia and head back into practice once more. In that time, he never once waivered from his commitment in doing the right thing for the environment, even when there were easier paths to follow. During this time we were having one of our many deep discussions about societal sustainability, and I suggested that he reads Wright’s book in lieu of Jared Diamond’s ‘Collapse’, which I believed it to be more efficiently written and could be knocked over in an afternoon.
Doug later said that this book inspired him, and when he returned back to academia it became one of the key books he would make his urban planning students read before they could tackle any theoretical issue that accompanies such a discipline. For he wanted them to be grounded, understand that what we do with the resources we have can either make or break us, he wanted people to start taking our role in sustainability seriously.
In 2019, Doug being the constant warrior for sustainable development, especially focusing on climate change, released The Urban Fix. He asks ‘how can design, planning and policies of the built environment help address these epic challenges’? He quite rightly outlined solutions for the single most important issue facing our and future generations and his urban design war on climate change is commendable and must be addressed for the morality of our species.
He suggested that cities are our saviour, not just the current ones, but to build upon and harness the thermal dynamics and energy efficiency they offer today and make them better cities for our future. If there is anyone that understood the Albedo effect better than Doug, or at least explains its cause, impact and taming then I have not met them. For his suggestion that we as human’s must tapper our ‘go west’ mentality is at odds to sprawl developers, governments who generate copious amounts of wealth through turning over pristine land to slap a low yield, heat concentrating, inefficient low community wealth generator, yet maybe he is wright.
Wright outlined society’s misadventures, where these societies didn’t heed the warnings that they were receiving. For they fell and others followed, however will there be others following us? Doug finished his book with words from Ronald Wright, alluding to that fact that this world is the only one left, it is our record, our history, have we the wisdom to make the right decisions because time is running out and we cannot afford any more mistakes. Doug’s book is a must read for any up and coming urban designer or anyone involved within the built environment industry, including governments.
When Doug retired from the University of Michigan, he was not sitting around idly on his return to Seattle to rest on his laurels. He maintained the awareness of The Urban Fix to an even more burgeoning listeners, providing passionate discussions to bring about serious attention to this quickening issue. For us mere mortals, we could do well to delve into the solutions that Doug provides and make our cities better, resist sprawl and create more resilience to climate change and leave a better planet for our future generations.
Doug passed away in February 2023. We unfortunately didn’t get to catch up face to face again since our collaborative years, but continued a healthy exchange of ideas and thoughts. Doug left a lasting impression on his friends, colleagues and more importantly provided the world to become a better place than the one he left.
Vale Doug Kelbaugh 1945-2023
The Urban Fix, is published by Routledge, and available from any good bookstore or on-line from the publishers.