Sustainability is systemic. At the core of un-sustainability is a growth-oriented economic system whose continued expansion has become a net detriment to natural, social, and human capital. In this context, how can architecture, as a profession and an artifact, respond? This presentation considers 5 propositions:
1. Architecture & radical efficiency
2. Architecture & democratic infrastructure
3. Architecture & sustainable materials
4. Architecture & regenerative metabolisms
5. Architecture & social capital
A talk at Miami University, November 2018.
21. Neoclassical economics: Ecological economics:
Source: Herman E. Daly, Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics: Essays in Criticism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1999.
41. Why efficiency is so important …
Source: GEA, 2012: Global Energy Assessment – Toward a Sustainable Future, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK and New York, NY
95. • Embodied Solidarity?
Percent made by cooperative / social enterprises
• Embodied Centralization?
Extent to which production requires large-scale
investments
• Embodied Capital Bias?
Percent of material’s cost tied up in capital or energy
(vs labor)
131. “Social systems are just as non-linear as biological
systems. … There are thresholds in human behavior,
times when cultural evolution moves unexpectedly
rapidly. … When the time is ripe, society can be
transformed virtually overnight.”
Paul Ehrlich