cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures

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This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries] On: 28 April 2013, At: 07:46 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Building Research & Information Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbri20 Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures Ian Cooper Version of record first published: 08 Feb 2011. To cite this article: Ian Cooper (2006): Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures, Building Research & Information, 34:1, 82-86 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613210500363267 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

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Page 1: Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]On: 28 April 2013, At: 07:46Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Building Research & InformationPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbri20

Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architecturesIan CooperVersion of record first published: 08 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Ian Cooper (2006): Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures, Building Research &Information, 34:1, 82-86

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613210500363267

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form toanyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses shouldbe independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims,proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with or arising out of the use of this material.

Page 2: Cultural and social aspects of sustainable architectures

Cultural and social aspects of sustainablearchitectures

Ian Cooper

Sustainable Architectures: Cultures andNatures in Europe andNorth AmericaEdited by SimonGuy and Steven A.Moore

E&FNSpon,New York,NY,US, 2005; ISBN 0 41570045 0

This book contains a collection of case studies, variedin style, approach, focus and content, whose aim is:

to fundamentally revise the focus and scope ofthe debate about sustainable architecture and toreconnect issues of technological change withthe social and cultural contexts within whichchange occurs.

(p. 10)

As the title of the book suggests, the contexts ofchange addressed are those of advanced capitalism –although this phrase is missing from the index as arethe terms ‘market’, ‘economy’ and even ‘globalisation’.Hence, in their opening chapter, the Editors do notframe sustainable architecture in terms of politicaleconomy – as a response to the increasingly global com-modification of the built environmental (Cole andLorch, 2003). Instead, they locate it in relation to socio-logical and philosophical issues – such as the ways inwhich ‘local knowledge’ frames one’s relationship withnature 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 sectionsabout specific aspects of design – sandwichedbetween an Introduction and Conclusions by theEditors. The authors are almost equally drawn fromthe North America and the European Union, althoughthe latter offer only Northern European perspectives –from Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands,Norway, Sweden and the UK. In the main, theauthors are academics in university departments ofarchitecture and planning, joined by specialistsin environmental studies, social anthropology,cultural studies, regional and sustainable develop-ment, and technological innovation. The Editorshope that readers, by reading across and betweenchapters, will:

begin to understand more clearly competingconceptions of environmental issues and thesocial and technical processes framing buildingdesign.

(p. 9)

Taken together, these chapters are intended to presenta critique of past research into the environmentalimpact of buildings and to outline the methodologicalchallenges facing a new environmental researchagenda. This is then a book aimed squarely at aca-demics engaged in research: it is not intended as aguide for practitioners.

The buildings reviewed are a mixed bag. They rangefrom the Groundwork Trust’s Eco-Centre in SouthTyneside, UK, to the Environmental TechnologyCenter at Somoma State University in California,US; from a highly individualized New Mexico Earth-ship to a solar home in Sweden based on the ideo-logy of equality; and from a ‘zero-energy’ house

BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION (2006) 34(1), 82–86

Building Research & Information ISSN 0961-3218 print ⁄ISSN 1466-4321 online # 2006 Taylor & Francishttp: ⁄ ⁄www.tandf.co.uk ⁄journals

DOI: 10.1080/09613210500363267

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(the Information Centre for Sustainable Living inUtrecht, the Netherlands) to safe environments forvictims of multiple chemical sensitivity in the USand Canada. Some chapters are more process- thanproduct-focused. These are equally mixed. Theycover timber construction as an ‘alternative techno-logy’ in Canada, processes favourable to the pro-motion of sustainable buildings in Norway, greenbuildings as examples of ecological modernizationin Denmark, the limits on innovation in buildingprogrammes for communities recovering from majordisasters, and a socio-technical analysis of ‘smarthomes’ in Austria.

However, issues begin to unite this diversity. Each casestudy displays characteristics of the two approachesto technological development identified by Gram-Hanssen and Jensen in their chapter on green buildingsin Denmark. They either focus on ‘ecological modern-ization’, seeking greater resource efficiency and pro-ductive capacity, typically by concentrating on energyand materials, or they employ some form of ‘socialconstructivist’ approach, subjecting technologicalartefacts to sociological analysis – looking, forinstance, at the links and relations between physicalartefacts and the social organization, legislation,knowledge and financing behind them as a ‘seam-less web’ (Gram-Hanssen and Jensen, p. 166–167).Consequently, as Moore and Engstrom argue in theirchapter on ‘green building’ codes:

Technological choices are prefigured by differingconception of economic, political and culturalrealities.

(p. 57)

Where authors adopt an ‘actor network’ approach,they emphasize the need to persuade, seduce andmotivate those involved in the procurement ofbuildings to participate in a network around a newtechnology. Hence, Ryghaug reports, in a chapter on‘policing sustainability’ in Norway:

The importance of having devoted and competentpeople to implement them at all levels of theprocess – from building owner to architect andfrom consultant engineer to researcher. It isimportant to enrol actors who take the challengeof realising sustainable buildings serious andwho do not view these challenges as trivial orgimmicky.

(p. 155)

At their best, the case studies in this book act as:

attempts to bridge the gap between the technicaland social environmental sciences by bring realmaterial flows into the over-socialised social

sciences and bring social systems and humanbehaviour in the under-socialised natural andtechnical sciences.

(Gram-Hanssen and Jensen, p. 167)

Whichever approach is adopted, the work raises a fun-damental question: Is green design primarily a questionof managing material flows or a cultural task aboutredefining the nature of society?

In this question lies a clue to why progress on intro-ducing green building has proved to be so slow.Moss, Slob and Vermeulen observe in their chapteron the introduction of more sustainable energy tech-nologies into new housing in the Netherlands that thecurrent model for promoting them just is not sophisti-cated enough:

Those engaged in promoting sustainable buildingare frustrated that years of demonstrationprojects backed by considerable resources havegenerally not succeeded in mainstreamingenergy-efficiency technologies and practices thatexceed the regulatory requirements.

(p. 77)

Typically, they suggest, it is believed that this failure isdown to the existence of three barriers: a lack ofknowledge and information; capital priority; andmarket distortions. Instead, they argue (p. 73) thatthe dominant assumptions on how sustainable build-ings can best be promoted are fundamentally flawed:policy-makers and planners pursue a rational choicelogic that is often at odds with every day experienceof human behaviour.

Policy making, design and the world of the urbanenvironment . . . each engages a particular con-stellation of actor groups – local politicians,planners, architects, developers and so on –who pursue their interests and responsibilitiesaccording to their own perceptions of problemsand logics of action.

(p. 74)

As a result, a gap exists in policies to promote greenbuilding between setting ambitious policy objectivesand relatively modest results. So many local policiesto promote sustainable buildings fail to live up toexpectations. Moss et al. conclude that the limitedoverall impact of such policies to overcome theassumed barriers indicates that other factors beyondthe immediate (financial) incentives may play asignificant role in framing the opportunities for greenbuildings. They call instead (p. 85) for a need to ident-ify those contextual factors that have the potential tocontribute to – or to work against – policy objectives.This leads them to argue that ‘cultural variations are assignificant as climatic conditions’.

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Such cultural variations can be quite small scale – suchas where to locate a bio-pellet heating furnace.Henning provides an example in her chapter (p. 97)on using renewable energy sources in Swedishhousing. In Sweden, attending to the furnace tends tobe a male activity, making it important to locate it ina ‘male’ space such as a boiler-room rather than in a‘female’ kitchen or utility spaces:

so whether or not boilers and washing machinescan share space depends not only on the design ofthe boiler but also on the ability of husband andwife to come to an agreement concerning theirrespective interests and responsibilities.

Other factors are much more macro – as Cavanaghand Kroeker indicate in their chapter on the productionof timber in Canada for use in green buildings. Theyfocus on the conflict between modern industrialismand sustainable sylviculture, which leads them toconclude:

The adjustments necessary to convert currentbuilding practices to sustainable ones are of themagnitude of those that occurred during thefirst industrial revolution, when changes inproduction led to new patterns of consumption.

(p. 141)

There are other fault lines between the chapters besidesthe need for micro- and macro-cultural analysis, e.g.between quantitative and qualitative analyses. As Jandaand Von Meier remark (p. 42) in their chapter on learn-ing from green buildings in the US, much of the debate isfocused on discussing ‘performance by numbers’:

quantitative data certainly form an epistemo-logical lens for formal debate and discussion[since] . . . quantitative data provide informationthat our senses cannot effectively collect andanalyse.

(p. 49)

But, as Gram-Hanssen and Jensen counter (p. 183),green building is concerned with much more than canbe measured – it is the cultural question about redefin-ing social structures.

A clear and resonant example – especially in the lightof Hurricane Katrina – of the power of a more quali-tative approach is provided by Horwitz’s compellinginterpretative account of one small town’s reinventionafter the Upper Mississippi River Basin floods of 1993.Here she seeks to examine how the unstable and evol-ving practices and products of sustainable design inte-grate with or change the architecture of everyday lifeby drawing attention to the largely overlooked role ofimagination, illusion, memory and story in the practiceof sustainable architectures.

In 1993, torrential rainstorms caused breaches in morethan 1000 levees in the Upper Mississippi watershed,flooding the town of Pattonsburg, Missouri. Federalaid included the services of a team of experts gatheredby the American Institute of Architects’ Committee onthe Environment (COTE). The team worked with thecommunity through small workshops led by anexpert who reported to the COTE team, which thendrew up recommendations and plans. But, Horwitzreports:

Residents ignored virtually all of the recommen-dations of visiting experts. They proved resistantto the ‘sustainable’ plans of the experts. Ratherthey instinctively configured a new town thatreproduced their social relations but did sowithoutthe conscious regard for topographical variations,streams, solar gain, prevailing winds, etc.

(p. 190)

This revealed that there was no agreement between theprofessionals and the locals about what was beingrestored. In part, Horwitz comments (p. 191), commu-nities recovering from disaster may or may not beaware of the social and spatial grammars that theyshare or be able to help outsiders interpret how thesetacit rules operate. But there may be other factors atwork too:

Citizens erected barriers to a future imagined byothers. These barriers were constructed by ashared knowledge of what matters and whatexists outside tacit boundaries. One of the barriersto the practice of sustainable architecture may be adistrust of government agency and therefore adistrust of the design assistance teams who aresponsored by or participate in federal programmes.

(p. 199)

This leads Horwitz to conclude that sustainable designis not a technological fix:

It is a slow and shifting reconstruction thatcannot afford to shut out the past as weimagine alternative futures. Memory and hopecan be connected . . . where the desire tofashion anew and the desire to engage the pastmeet in a tentative division and a simultaneousjoin between oral and written traditions . . ..

This points to one of the shared lessons from the casestudies. Green building is neither a technological fixnor a fixed concept. It is under constant change, defi-nition and redefinition. New ‘green’ themes areadopted as new global and local problems, situationsor risks emerge (Gram-Hanssen and Jensen, p. 181).In understanding the case studies offered, there is noone social explanation or theory that can capture

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them all. Nor can any one case study reveal everythingthat needs to be said:

Buildings cannot behave as exemplars for allthings at the same time. It is very unlikely, forinstance, that a single structure will simul-taneously be the easiest to measure, the simplestto manage, the achieve the highest benefits, incurthe lowest cost, teach everything to everyone,and be as sustainable as possible.

(Janda and Von Meier, p. 48)

Instead, the case studies catalogue the rivalry betweendifferent approaches to green building, in terms of boththe most appropriate lens to be used to study them as aphenomenon as well as the right strategy to be fol-lowed to implement them.

As a result, the Editors note that the book offers anumber of contrasting descriptions of what sustainablearchitecture might be:

that is, what it might look like, where it might belocated, what technologies it might incorporate,what material it might be constructed from,and so on.

(p. 1)

As they comment:

The diversity of responses to these choices isquite bewildering and – rather than diminishingover time – appears to be accelerating.

(p. 1)

A debate is seen as raging between ‘light green anddeep green architecture’ and so the Editors seek toexplore, ‘even celebrate, the diversity of contemporarydebate about sustainable architecture’ – or rather, asthe title of the book signals, ‘sustainable architectures’in the plural. This is deemed necessary to open alterna-tive ways of seeing, alternative visions of how onemight best live in harmony with nature when:

the black box of ecological design is filled withparadoxes rather than certainty.

(p. 6)

The Editors focus attention behind the specific casestudy buildings presented on to the cultural framingof ‘science in practice’ – on the ways in whichpeople both interpret nature and make and inhabitbuildings. They cite Hajer (1995) to identify thatthis involves analysing ‘the discourse of environment-alism’ as:

a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categ-orisations that are produced, reproduced andtransformed in a particular set of practices

and through which meaning is given to physicaland social realities.

(p. 8)

And the approach they have adopted in this book is totreat technology – like the notion of sustainabilityitself – as a fundamentally contested concept. Thisallows them to explore competing notions of whatconstitutes ‘green-ness’ in architectural terms:

how a building’s environmental design is shapedby the strategic priorities of the many actorsinvolved in the planning, design, constructionand use of the building: how hybrid designsresult as a product of a compromise betweenseveral often conflicting interpretations of greendesign; and how we can identify a range ofalternative trajectories of green design.

(p. 10)

What do the Editors conclude from the diverse andpregnant examples of ‘sustainable architectures’ thatthey have assembled and drawn to their readers’attention? They want to resist what they see as thecall, from:

building scientists and many architectural pro-fessionals, to standardise our interpretation ofboth the environmental problem and our strat-egies for creating more sustainable futures.

(p. 221)

Instead of aiming to produce ‘an alternativeorthodoxy of sustainable architecture’, they treat their:

collected chapters . . . themselves [as] the subjectof research, as part of the ongoing dialogueabout sustainable architecture that this bookseeks to promote.

(p. 222)

And so they seek to celebrate, not condemn, the ‘plur-alistic practices of sustainable architecture’. But thispresents them with a dilemma:

But readers will understandably want to knowhow all of this theorising adds up to somethingmore than a collage of our moment in history.The contributions to this book highlight thediversity of ways in which we think about sus-tainable architecture and of design approachesto sustainable architecture. How, then, do wehandle such diversity without collapsing intototal relativism?

(p. 229)

Not surprisingly, given their own stated orientationtowards sociology and philosophy, they seek to do

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this by re-engaging with theory in order to emphasize‘the co-construction of sustainable architecture’:

We argue that the contributions to this collectionillustrate how a move away from the legislationof national or international standards for sus-tainable architecture, and towards the narrativesthat conscript citizens into ever-evolving localtectonic cultures, provides a more productivebasis for debate about sustainable architectures.This argument requires a clearer understandingof how technologies and human practices areco-constructed.

(p. 231)

And this leads the Editors to promote ‘critical pragma-tism’ (Schlosberg, 1999) based not simply on liberaltolerance for difference, but on ‘agnostic respect’, i.e.‘the cultivation of care for the positions and responsesof others’. They offer ‘an urgent call’ to acknowledgeand recognize ‘the diversity of practices that mightpoint to alternative sustainable futures’:

It is our hope that we have contributed somecritical resources that might help stimulatethat ‘never ending debate’ about sustainablearchitecture.

(p. 239)

Ultimately, what this reviewer finds most strikingabout the Editors’ response to their collection ofcontextualized narratives is how ungrounded it is inboth time and space; how detached it remains fromthe material conditions of existence; indeed, howunhurried and continually self-reflective it is. In short,their response appears trapped in a free-floating uni-verse of ideas. Hence, their own ‘urgent call’ toaction has little of the urgency of those (e.g. Lowe,

2003, 2004; Roaf et al., 2005) driven by climatechange – another phrase absent from the index. Andhere lies my frustration with the book as a whole. Itdoes not articulate explicitly the ‘new environmentalresearch agenda’ promised by the Editors in theirIntroduction. And so it offers no programmaticresponse – what should we do next? – either for prac-titioners (who are not the intended audience for thebook) or even for the research community (who are).To give one highly specific but germane instance ofthis programmatic failure: the book does not begin toidentify what would be an appropriate researchagenda on ‘sustainable architecture’ to pursue in aresearch-active school of architecture.

Ian CooperEclipse Research Consultants, Cambridge, UK

[email protected]

ReferencesCole, R. and Lorch, R. (2003) Buildings, Culture and Environ-

ment: Informing Local and Global Practices, Blackwell,Oxford.

Hajer, M. (1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse:Ecological Modernisation and the Policy Process, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford.

Lowe, R. (2003) Editorial: Preparing the built environment forclimate change. Building Research & Innovation, 31(3–4),195–199.

Lowe, R. (2004) Forum: Lessons from climate change: a responseto the commentaries. Building Research & Innovation,32(1), 75–78.

Roaf, S., Crichton, D. and Nicol, F. (2005) Adapting Buildingsand Cities for Climate Change: A 21st Century SurvivalGuide, Elsevier/Architectural Press, London.

Schlosberg, D. (1999) Environmental Justice and the New Plural-ism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism,Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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