The choice of aluminum as a structural material is disastrous with respect to sustainability (Fig. 7). The elaborately
articulated tensioning system for each case, as well as most of the fittings are in aluminum. No matter how well a building
performs after it is realized it is nearly impossible to recoup the energy spent fabricating aluminum. If there was a unit that
describes the amount of energy required to create usable material from raw components, ‘X’ representing 640 kilowatt
hours per ton, it would take X to produce usable timber, 4X for
brick, 5X for concrete, 14X for glass, and 126X for aluminum. “A
building with a high proportion of aluminum components can
hardly be green when considered from the perspective of total life
costing.”17 It required less energy to harvest, mill, and transport
the Iroko from Africa than it did to smelt the aluminum.