Sim Van der Ryn


Sim Van der Ryn is an American architect. He is also a researcher and educator. Van der Ryn's driving professional interest has been applying principles of physical and social ecology to architecture and environmental design.
Van der Ryn has promoted sustainable design at the community scale and the building-specific scale. He has designed everything from single-family and multi-family housing, to community facilities, retreat centers and resorts, to learning facilities, as well as office and commercial buildings.

Biography

Van der Ryn's family left the Netherlands during World War II, settling in Kew Gardens, Queens, then eventually Great Neck, New York. Sim grew up with a sense of closeness with nature and a fascination with its details. He got his training in architecture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and obtained state architecture licenses and national architectural certification.
Van der Ryn was appointed California State Architect in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown in the late 1970s, during which time he developed the United States' first government-initiated energy efficient office building program and led adoption of energy standards and disability access standards for all construction in California.
In the 1970s Van der Ryn founded the Farallones Institute which helped to create national awareness of "ecologically integrated living design." The Farallones Institute designed, built and managed an urban and a rural research/teaching center for studying appropriate technologies, energy-efficiency, organic agriculture, land restoration, community design and ecologically sustainable energy and waste systems, design and construction. The urban center was called the Integral Urban House. Van der Ryn later founded the Ecological Design Institute, Van der Ryn Architects' non-profit partner, which carries on this work.
"The worst thing you can do is keep making no changes," Van der Ryn once said while addressing an assembly of architects. "That's where the risk lies." Given America's dependence on foreign oil, he has proposed, that energy security is one of the country's greatest challenges and the status quo won't do. U.S. companies, he believes, would pay more attention to "green" buildings if their operational costs for energy bills were calculated on the same balance sheet as construction costs.
Van der Ryn has reported he has noticed, while driving around the United States, that many builders seem to pay no attention to one of the cheapest ways to save on energy bills: positioning the house on its site to maximize passive solar heat.
Sim Van der Ryn has been presented with numerous honors and awards, including: the Goff Chair of Innovative Architecture, University of Oklahoma ; Fellowship of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts ; Rockefeller Scholar in Residence, Bellagio, Italy ; the President's Award for Planning, American Society of Landscape Architects ; Arbolera de Vida Master Plan, Albuquerque, New Mexico ; the Nathaniel Owings Award, California Council American Institute of Architects ; a Commendation for Excellence in Technology, California Council American Institute of Architects ; and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Van der Ryn is in the architecture faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in California.

Early life

Sim Van Der Ryn is an American architect who was born in 1935 in the Netherlands, sim and his family escaped possible Nazi prosecution. SVDRs family decided to reside in Queens, New York, then arranged to move to Great neck, NY and finally resided in Long Island.

Career

Sim van der ryn didn’t find himself much in urban cities and continuously affiliated his interactions with nature. Upon that, it was evident for him to continue his education at the University of Michigan, Ann arbor, graduating at the age of 24 with a degree in B.Arch., in 1958. During that year Sim moved to California and joined the UC Berkeley faculty where he became an educator for 35 years. Later in his career, he was listed as a sate architect in California and New Mexico. Sim also, became a licensed architect where he received a certification by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

Teaching career

Sim’s vision has always been to include ecological values and philosophies to the built environment. He introduced new academic intervention programs through elementary schools in Berkeley, California One of the programs motto was “trash can do it” this method of recycling materials would encourage students to utilize resources through a new approach. The hands-on methods of understanding allowed students to grasped a real-life perspective of different materials and convert them to environmentally functional projects. The program Created opportunities to enhance and develop manual, intellectual and social skills. They have created and established a do it yourself guideline to rectify educational systems.
Sim had an innovate and unconventional approach to teaching. In his classes he insisted on creating a more balanced force between male and female candies. He persisted with this criteria and was able to create a more equal environment for all future professionals. His vision towards Architecture was to provide women with similar opportunities as men instructing to accept equal applicants of men and women in the early 70s. “Outlaw builder studio” was a significant platform for sim van der ryn to demonstrate his new ecological and solar architecture where his students develop building and social skills. Students created, designed and built accordingly to their need while living in the outdoors for at least three days of the week. Later on, some of the projects were taken down because they didn’t meet building codes and requirements. This was met with some scrutiny in his teaching career from his peers and other professionals.
Energy pavilion was a followed project in the early 70s. This project provided the first mainstream booklet on solar architecture. Students were able to construct an early design of solar panels. This energy efficient design was a futuristic outlook in ecological and environmental architecture. At the time of this project the world was witnessing the dilemmas of the oil crisis. Sim encouraged his studio to connect with the surrounding environment and maintain a cohesive approach in design.

Projects

Sim desired to become a painter he believed that design is a gate to understand ourselves through nature. He taught different watercolor classes to his students and found it to be meditative state. Sim also found it to be a starting point for a designer to integrate with nature and begin to collaborate with it.

Awards

Van de Ryn also contributed a foreword to the book Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher's Art by Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro.