Builder down to earth

[P. Racko]

Tuesday, August 22, 2000 
www.ptconnect.com/archive/today/news/hennessy.asp

                                         Builder down to earth 


                                         All great innovations seemed impossible at one time.

                                         Most of our ancestors never dreamed their descendants would fly through the
                                         air, watch events occurring half a world away, or talk to people anywhere on
                                         earth. 

                                         And most, save for science-fiction writers, never dreamed of living and working
                                         beneath the earth.

                                         Mr. Underground

                                         On the phone from Cape Cod, Mass., architect Malcolm Wells is talking about
                                         his conversion. "It happened in the mid-1960s. It was a time of protest and the
                                         environmental movement was just getting started. I'd done some awful
                                         architecture. I'd paved over about 50 acres of New Jersey with warehouses and
                                         such."

                                         Wells found a new way to build: Dig a hole, build a structure, cover it with
                                         earth.

                                         Last year, Wells poured his construction formula into a 143-page, self-effacing
                                         book called "Recovering America." In it, he touches on what he now considers
                                         the shameful part of his architectural past.

                                         "It had taken me years to realize that the big industrial buildings I was
                                         designing were actually destroying land. America's land. All I saw were the big
                                         fees and the glory. I also did offices, labs, churches, a world's fair building,
                                         libraries, and even I blush to admit an environmental center, all of them above
                                         ground.

                                         "And then, even after I'd discovered that underground design offered the best
                                         possible theme for architecture, it still took me years to see that this new/old
                                         way onto which I'd stumbled was perhaps the only right way to build."

                                         Wells, who lives in an underground house, suggests that instead of destroying
                                         land for generations, just cover structures with it, then landscape overhead.
                                         Result: more open space, less urban blight.

                                         Local peg

                                         Reading his book, I found myself thinking of the 911 center for which the city of
                                         Long Beach had trouble finding a site. What if it had been built underground
                                         and landscaped overheard? Ditto for the controversial police station in Scherer
                                         Park. Or even the McDonald's being constructed on Spring Street almost a
                                         golden arch's distance from yet another McDonald's.

                                         On helicopter tours across America, Wells took myriads of photos of blight,
                                         including some he had helped create. He put them in his book, sandwiched
                                         between his sometimes mind-boggling visions of the Pentagon sitting on giant
                                         pylons, a partially earth-covered Disneyland, even underground airports (with
                                         runways above ground, of course).

                                         "Some people, knowing of my earth-cover convictions, like to kid me about
                                         putting airports underground, for they know that I favor that idea, too," says
                                         Wells.

                                         "They joke about the sizes and shapes of the slots into which the planes would
                                         land ... They find them easier to talk about than the real issues such as the
                                         appalling amount of land, often wetlands near rivers or bays, that airport
                                         buildings and runways cover."

                                         As for Disneyland, he says covering part of it with earth would allow "the desert
                                         to bloom again after all the years it's spent buried under those vast areas of
                                         lifeless asphalt and building materials."

                                         What do other architects think of his ideas? Not much, guesses Wells. "A lot
                                         of architects would smile at such arrogance. I wouldn't blame them. From
                                         where they sit, this little pipsqueak environmental movement will go nowhere.
                                         But I've done the killer buildings and I've done the healer buildings, and they
                                         can speak for themselves."

                                         His hope for his "very small movement" rests with architectural students. Wells
                                         believes some are taking a fancy to his ideas.

                                         "My 25 years of experience with earth-cover construction proved to me long
                                         ago that the underground advantages are far greater than even their advocates
                                         sometimes realize. Not only does a living roof restore a dead site to life, it
                                         offers silence, permanence, protection from the weather, and, of course,
                                         amazingly low heating and cooling bills. Life on the roof conserves rainwater,
                                         too."

                                         What about earthquakes? "It's possible that earthquakes can damage
                                         underground buildings," Wells admits. "Earthquakes can damage whole
                                         continents. But I've yet to hear of such damage to earth-covered structures."

                                         "Recovering America" is a charming, relatively inexpensive, and maybe even
                                         revolutionary book. You can get it by writing Malcolm Wells, 673 Satucket
                                         Road, Brewster, MA 02631. The $7 cost for the hardcover book includes
                                         postage. 

                                         Tom Hennessy's viewpoint appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
                                         He can be reached at (562) 499-1270, or via e-mail at Scribe17 at aol.com