quare id faciam?

Culture, nature

'Sustainability' enjoys lofty buzzword standing these days, and it's very prominent especially in architecture-related talk, of course. There certainly seems to be reason to hope that a lot of good may be done through it in the realm of architecture & planning. For my part, although I cherish a silly wish that we might dispense with buzzwords generally – and though I worry that 'sustainable' is far too slight & particular a word to do the work expected of it in the current environment, and that the concepts meant to be established could be weakened, in the big picture, for the sake of selling it – I'm very interested in the trend, and would like, with time, to become more involved in seeing a number of the aims it represents pursued.

Here are a couple of clips of not necessarily well-articulated but nevertheless thoughtful & perhaps representative expression on the theme, from an interview in the AIA's new podcast catalogue. The interviewees are architects Dan Williams and Henry Siegel, both associated with the AIA's Committee On The Environment. The interviewer is Kira Gould, the committee's present Vice Chair.

Gould:  I'm just wondering if ... getting to that knowledge and those deeper understandings – some of which we used to have, as part of the profession, and maybe just need to reinvestigate – but if that involves conversations with a broader set of people than we're used to talking to.

Williams:  Absolutely, great point. One of the things that's critical is the study and understanding of ecology; and we spend, uh – like for example if we're doing urban design, we spend a tremendous amount of time on how people walk and move, and transportation systems and all of that – but very little time, you know, really looking at what community means, in the larger sense. And the community is, you know, the animals and the critters and microclimates, and all those really dynamic pieces. So one of the things ... that we think is really critical is ... for architecture students and ... architecture professionals and ... all people in the sustainability movement to really look deeply into ecology – you know, read a book, read several books, take some courses, get an understanding of how this home that we live in works, and then apply that to your design.

Gould:  Become a nature nerd.

Williams:  There you go. Yeah, we – we are nature, there's no separation. One can think they can separate themselves, but ... it's actually a pretty wonderful planet and when you call it home, it's a very different approach.

And Siegel's summary statement at the end of the interview:

A lot of people are talking about [sustainable design], and I don't think anybody quite knows what it means yet. But I think we're headed in the direction of really thinking about whole systems. And what that means to me is – is taking away the separation between nature and culture. So, what happens when you think about your building as part of a whole system that involves a site and a community and a region, and how do you think about all those much broader issues when you're designing just one building that's just a piece of that – ... it's not just an object that sits on a site, it's a piece of a much broader system. And how does that affect the way you design buildings.

There's little argument to be made against conceiving of building as a matter of involvement in communities as 'whole systems'. But the approach made in argument for thinking ecologically here might be too generously abstract for its apparent ends. I wonder, in particular, how far this provocative & undoubtedly useful 'no separation between nature and culture' language can be worked before it gets architects into troublesome territory (if, as things go, it should turn out to be language that has any real endurance). How sustainable, the question might be, are our ways of talking about 'sustainability'?

posted by paul bowman @ 8:45 AM