Taking a Step Back from Sustainability

“In the United States, LEED certification-the national standard for the evaluation of sustainable buildings-is being more widely applied.  But there remains the problem that the moral imperative of sustainability and, by implication of sustainable design, tends to supplant disciplinary contribution.  Thus sustainable design is not always seen as representing design excellence or design innovation. […] The second issue concerns scale.  Much of the work undertaken by sustainable architects has been relatively limited in scope.  LEED certification, for example deals primarily with the architectural object, and not with the larger infrastructure of the territory of our cities and towns.”

The debate over the impact, future, or even existence of climate change is, in my opinion, not a debate at all.  It is a fact that global climate change has and continues to occur at the hands of the human race.  However, I believe that this debate continues – and will continue - to take place largely due to two factors – first, a lack of education, and second, the assumption that with sustainability comes sacrifice. In the context of architecture, this is often the case.  However, in his text “Ecological Urbanism,” Moshen Mostafavi proposes taking a step back from discussions of global climate change at the architectural level, and instead using this topic of debate as a platform for reimagining our approach to urbanism.  Mostafavi calls architects to think beyond the potential “sustainable” contributions of their own work, in order to address the much larger, and more environmentally-damning issue of rapid urbanization. 

The topic of social and spatial justice also re-emerges in Mostafavi’s writing in his proposal that equal access to public space might serve as the platform upon which new approaches to sustainability might be envisioned. Mostafavi argues that,

“It is physical space that provides the necessary infrastructure for alternative and democratic forms of social interaction. As Mouffee insists, “Instead of trying to design institutions which, through supposedly impartial procedures, would reconcile all interests and values, the aim of all who are interested in defending and radicalizing democracy should be to contribute to the creation of vibrant, agonistic public spaces where different hegemonic political projects could be confronted.”

After reading this text, I am reminded of a phrase that a transportation engineer shared with us during a lecture this fall in Charleston – building larger highways to solve issues of traffic congestion, is like solving an overeating problem by buying bigger pants.  It seems obvious after reading Mostafavi’s writing, but perhaps if we could solve the much larger issues urbanism – like suburban sprawl and a lack of public transportation that has led to our oil addiction – the role of sustainability in single works of architecture could become more about innovation and less about sacrifice.