Reinterpreting Sustainable Architecture: The Place of Technology

Abstract This paper examines the relationships between diverse technical design strategies and competing conceptions of ecological place making. It highlights the conceptual challenges involved in defining what we mean by calling a building “green” and outlines a social constructivist perspective on the development of sustainable architecture. The paper identifies six alternative logics of ecological design which have their roots in competing conceptions of environmentalism, and explores the ways in which each logic prefigures technological strategies and alternative visions of sustainable places. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the contested nature of ecological design for architectural education, practice, and research.

[1]  Catherine Slessor,et al.  Eco-Tech: Sustainable Architecture and High Technology , 1997 .

[2]  Kenneth Frampton,et al.  Modern Architecture: A Critical History , 1980 .

[3]  J. Hannigan,et al.  Environmental Sociology: A Social Constructionist Perspective , 1995 .

[4]  William W. Braham.  Correalism and Equipoise: observations on the sustainable , 1999, Architectural Research Quarterly.

[5]  Dean Hawkes,et al.  The Environmental Tradition: Studies in the architecture of environment , 1995 .

[6]  Simon Guy,et al.  Developing Alteratives: Energy, Offices and the Environment , 1998 .

[7]  N. Long,et al.  Battlefields of knowledge : the interlocking of theory and practice in social research and development , 1992 .

[8]  Arne Naess,et al.  Deep Ecology and Ultimate Premises. , 1988 .

[9]  Maarten A. Hajer,et al.  The Politics of Environmental Discourse , 1997 .

[10]  Andrew Blowers,et al.  Environmental Policy: Ecological Modernisation or the Risk Society? , 1997 .

[11]  J. Lovelock.  The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth , 1988 .

[12]  Wolfgang Sachs.  Sustainable development and the crisis of nature : on the political anatomy of an oxymoron , 1999 .

[13]  Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy , 1994 .

[14]  Brenda Vale,et al.  The Autonomous House: Design and Planning for Self-Sufficiency , 1975 .

[15]  Simon Marvin,et al.  Understanding Sustainable Cities: Competing Urban Futures , 1999 .

[16]  P. Russell.  The Awakening Earth: The Global Brain , 1991 .

[17]  Victor J. Papanek,et al.  The green imperative : ecology and ethics in design and architecture , 1995 .

[18]  C. Jencks.  The Architecture of the Jumping Universe: A Polemic: How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture , 1997 .

[19]  Ian Cooper,et al.  The implications of urban sustainability , 1998 .

[20]  David Pepper,et al.  Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction , 1996 .

[21]  Arthur P.J. Mol,et al.  Sociology, environment, and modernity: ecological modernization as a theory of social change. , 1992 .

[22]  J. Mott.  Man's Responsibility , 1948 .

[23]  John Rennie Short,et al.  Environmental Discourse and Practice , 1999 .

[24]  Gene Bazan.  Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth , 1997 .

[25]  Michael Redclift,et al.  From a ‘Sociology of Nature’ to Environmental Sociology: Beyond Social Construction1 , 1998, Environmental Values.

[26]  Steven A. Moore.  Technology and the Politics of Sustainability at Blueprint Demonstration Farm , 1997 .

[27]  David Pearson.  The Natural House Book , 1989 .

[28]  J. D. Jardins,et al.  Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy , 1996 .

[29]  Barbara L. Allen.  Rethinking Architectural Technology: History, Theory, and Practice , 1997 .

[30]  Ulrich Beck,et al.  From Industrial Society to the Risk Society: Questions of Survival, Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment , 1992 .