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.

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 (EDI), 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 (as an instance), 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 (2001); Fellowship of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (1997); Rockefeller Scholar in Residence, Bellagio, Italy (1997); the President's Award for Planning, American Society of Landscape Architects (Colorado Chapter); Arbolera de Vida Master Plan, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1997); the Nathaniel Owings Award, California Council American Institute of Architects (1996); a Commendation for Excellence in Technology, California Council American Institute of Architects (1981); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1971).

Van der Ryn is in the architecture faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in California.

• Van der Ryn, Sim and Stuart Cowan (2007). Ecological Design, Tenth Anniversary Edition. Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN 978-1-59726-1418
• Van der Ryn, Sim (2005). Design For Life: The Architecture of Sim Van der Ryn. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 978-1586855307
• Van der Ryn, Sim and Stuart Cowan (1996). Ecological Design. Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-389-1
• Calthorpe, Peter and Sim Van der Ryn (1986). Sustainable Communities: A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs and Towns. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. ISBN 0-87156-629-X
• Van der Ryn, Sim and the Farallones Institute, Helga & William Olkowski (1982). The Integral Urban House. NY: Random House. ISBN 978-0871562135
• Van der Ryn, Sim (1978). The Toilet Papers. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press. ISBN 978-0884961215

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.