The Absent House and the Sustainable City

The documentary The Absent House (2013) offers one way to mitigate our possible dire future and move toward a sustainable ecocity. The Absent House highlights how urban architecture can strive for “absence” by building structures whose ecological footprint moves toward a zero output. This view of the ecocity strives to integrate sustainable architecture with biophilic urbanism. As Timothy Beatley suggests, a biophilic city is more than simply a biodiverse city. It is a place that learns from nature and emulates natural systems, incorporates natural forms and images into its buildings and cityscapes, and designs and plans in conjunction with nature. A biophilic city cherishes the natural features that already exist but also works to restore and repair what has been lost or degraded. Such an idealized vision of future cities underpins the architecture showcased in The Absent House.

The Absent House documents the efforts of architect Fernando Abruna Charneco to build a sustainable home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Charneco names his design the Absent House not only because it is close to 100 percent sustainable, but also because much of the house is roofless. The environmental architect works to make Earth habitable without threatening its survival. Sustainable development is possible when simplicity is the goal and helps rather than destroys the Earth. The home’s six pavilions allow the architect to eliminate many of the internal walls and provide natural ventilation. Solar panels provide energy. Rainfall is harvested through a green roof and collected in cisterns. Once filtered, the water is used for bathing, watering plants, and cleaning. A solar distiller filters water for human consumption. The location of the house was analyzed to take advantage of the tropical breezes and sunlight. The house gets plenty of power from nature without being connected to the grid, so hurricanes do not affect electricity or access to water.

Charneco also teaches green architectural design courses, so the documentary showcases student projects that also apply sustainable development practices that are minimal, ecological, and as affordable as possible. Their projects include small homes, compostable toilets, and even schools. In conjunction with Charneco’s philosophy, the goal is to work with the natural environment, making it integral, so that nature is protected. Intelligent architectural design practices lead to sustainable buildings. The Absent House illustrates such design. Walls that are tall enough to block out streetlights surround the house’s patio. The Absent House is a sustainable house and a livable house. Other homes can do similar things at more reasonable prices, the documentary asserts. If all building takes this green approach, our cities will be “absent” too.

The Absent House makes sustainable architecture and ecocities built on green principles seem attainable, while also offering images of what a future city might look like. The UK Government’s Foresight Future of Cities Project outlines and illustrates multiple and (sometimes) contradictory visions of future cities from literature, film, and other media, as well as architects and urban planners (Dunn et al.). One of these visions is the “Garden City.” An ecocity in some ways grows out of this “Garden City” postulated by urban planner Ebenezer Howard in the 1898 monograph To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform and its 1902 revision Garden Cities of To-Morrow. According to the UK’s Project authors, Professor Nick Dunn and his colleagues, Howard’s Garden City “contained various zones of activity intersected with green routes” (16).

But an ecocity aligns best with a biocity “that is thoroughly hybrid, a product of nature and humanity, and a habitat for such hybrids and their odd, evolving, and adapting assemblages” (Christensen and Heise 459). The Absent House also suggests other urban visions cited in the Future of Cities Project, including a Waste City that functions through recycling and waste energy capture and a Desert City adapted for an arid desert climate.