Sustainable Gratification

hedonist

[heed-n-ist]

noun

1. a person whose life is devoted to pleasure and self-gratification

Aren’t we all hedonists at heart? Sure, doing something for the benefit of society feels good, but isn’t that just another form of self-gratification? In the end, we look out for number one.

Unfortunately, we currently live in a society where the individual pursuit of our pleasures is no longer sustainable. Our current actions are damaging the environment at an alarming rate. Our collective actions will harm each of us individually, unless we can come together to make a change.

sustainability 

[suh-stey-nuh-bil-i-tee]

noun

1. the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, confirmed.

2. environmental science. the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby  supporting long-term ecological balance. 

Sustainability is for hippies, right? Being environmentally friendly may make them feel good, but we hedonists want our big, fast cars and our air conditioning on blast. It is a common belief that if we are going to be sustainable, then we have to give up all of these things that we love. We can never achieve a truly sustainable way of life if we feel we have to make sacrifices to do so.

Bjarke Ingles explains this point in his TED talk, Hedonistic Sustainability. Instead of taking things away, sustainable architecture can actually give us more. Questioning our perception of sustainability can open doors to new and wild ideas. We hedonists gain something new and fantastic that benefits us as individuals and as society as a whole.

I believe that this idea of changing perspective on a hardship can be applied across all scales of architecture. Global sustainability is large scale, but the principle applies on the small scale too. It is our job as architects to question perspective whenever a project hits a problem. BAR denial is not a problem for a project, it is an opportunity to make it better. An impossible lead time on a material isn’t problems, it is an opportunity to choose something better. Every issue is a creates a chance for improvement in a way we may have never imagined before. Keep questioning.