Enhancing the sustainability of urban through ethico-asethetic projects
As a student of Architecture, I have been paying attention to sustainability on a relatively small scale. The sustainability of architecture covers so many topics, ranging from ecology to human comfort, while it is always considered within the project's site. So it was very inspiring for me to read the article “Ecological Urbanism” edited by Moshen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty. It brings up the perspective of planning and urban design.
As the current definition of sustainability of architecture, energy reduction is only a sub-topic, “Ecological Urbanism” also calls for qualitative value, which means the speculative design should be conducted to reconcile the relationship between environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.
To reach the goal of ecological urbanism, a trans-disciplinary approach bridging multi-disciplines is essential considering the complexity of contemporary urban. This method has been performed during the architectural practice, which helps avoid many problems at later stages and saves money and time. From my viewpoint, the leader of this ecological urbanism collaboration team should be open-minded and have the ability to combine feedback from different disciplines together.
Besides, several other principles are also helpful, such as dynamic/fluid rules for different locations and “bottom-up” methods for valuing participation by citizens. And recognizing the importance of the urban as the necessary site of conflictual relations is crucial.
Even though this article strengthens the qualitative value and uses the term “pragmatic” to describe many current quantitative standards or policies, I do not think the qualitative method is more advanced. It is qualitative because the science itself has not been developed enough to discover its criteria. And at the same time, from a practical point of view, setting up two parallel standards or policies is very important. So qualitative guidelines govern the unmeasured aspects of good urbans’ qualities, and quantitative ones control the energy reduction and other measurable criteria.
Xin,
ReplyDeleteI have always thought that sustainability was such a broad topic to wrap my head around. It can really mean just so many different things depending on the scale that you're wanting to work with. I think when working with something like sustainability, you have to be open-minded and take advice and feedback from many different professionals because even though the topic isn't necessarily a new one, it isn't as advanced as some other methods.
Xin, I agree with you that the concept of sustainability has to be considered from the very beginning of the project. In order to be sustainable architects have to be open to multi-disciplinary collaboration and to listening to the input of other professionals as well as the future building occupants and implementing those factors into the design. This will not only lead to a more holistic approach to design but to a cheaper and more sustainable project that does not require post-construction modification.
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