Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures

As the title of the book suggests, the contexts of change addressed are those of advanced capitalism – although this phrase is missing from the index as are the terms ‘market’, ‘economy’ and even ‘globalisation’. Hence, in their opening chapter, the Editors do not frame sustainable architecture in terms of political economy – as a response to the increasingly global commodification of the built environmental (Cole and Lorch, 2003). Instead, they locate it in relation to sociological and philosophical issues – such as the ways in which ‘local knowledge’ frames one’s relationship with nature or the cultural attitudes that can create new, more sustainable forms of architecture and urbanism. Readers are then offered 11 highly diverse chapters, each by different authors, arranged into four sections about specific aspects of design – sandwiched between an Introduction and Conclusions by the Editors. The authors are almost equally drawn from the North America and the European Union, although the latter offer only Northern European perspectives – from Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. In the main, the authors are academics in university departments of architecture and planning, joined by specialists in environmental studies, social anthropology, cultural studies, regional and sustainable development, and technological innovation. The Editors hope that readers, by reading across and between chapters, will: