I should to begin with a disclaimer: I am not from AIADO and nor am I from the United States, so in many ways I do not feel particularly qualified to comment on the broader thematic debates about “sustainability” in the context of current architecture and design, particularly in the U.S. (where I am yet to fully understand local planning, politics, or why everything is put in double plastic bags).
I am deeply interested in the issues that AIADO seems to be battling with presently, and having been (sort of) admonished by the art history department for publicly criticizing an aspect of their undergraduate program, I welcome more open forums in which to debate. So it is great that we now have this blog, as long as the online discussion is complemented by other, less distancing forms of public communication. Habermas would be chuffed.
I think what might help matters is to consider “sustainability” from an interdisciplinary standpoint. (There we go, another buzzword – interdisciplinary. Bear with me.) As we all know, with “green” emerging as the apparent religion of the 21st century, many academic fields are currently obsessing over so-called sustainability - with varying degrees of seriousness - using a variety of approaches, from the purely conceptual to the scientific.
Two fields that can be of particular use for designers, architects and critics, are environmental law and environmental ethics. Unlike other disciplines, in environmental law the concept of sustainability and environmental responsibility has to be carefully defined; it has to be something that can be proved.
Applying a (semi) legal approach to design questions may sound restrictive and cold, but it can help to illuminate questions of fairness, equitability, practical impacts and culpability. Similarly, environmental ethics concepts such as Intergenerational Equity and the Precautionary Principle can help to inform design practices, so that we can move beyond the buzz-word waffle and consider essential questions about environmental impacts on a short-term and long-term scale.
And as others here have suggested, we need to move beyond the dogma. There are certain situations when we need to ask ourselves whether a so-called “sustainable” approach may necessary at all, or whether such lofty goals may be an expensive, pointless hindrance, with very little measurable effect.
Interdisciplinary awareness is also crucial because as designers you will be working with a large number of stake-holders who may or may not be willing to commit to environmentally-responsible approaches, and within a complex policy framework. Designers and architects can’t “save the world” alone. One could be the most sustainability-conscious architect on Earth, but unless environmental and planning policy (and the will of clients), exists to support your work, your efforts may come to very little. Knowing how to navigate this policy framework, and work as resourcefully as possible within those restrictions, is essential.
Jesse Stein
MA candidate
Art History, Theory and Criticism, SAIC
April 26, 2008
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