What Does Green Mean?
This studio adopts techniques of debate as a design strategy to question and advance the criteria of ecological design and expand its socio-political reach.
This is a studio that looks at environmentalism and ecology in architecture as a discourse among diverse and competing schools of thought, each with its own political, cultural, and economic interests at stake. Our approach is to recognize the differences among these voices as the site for invention. This studio adopts techniques of debate as a design strategy to question and advance the criteria of ecological design and expand its socio-political reach.
Beyond Green. Mainstream media, blogs, and environmentalists would have you think that there’s only one way to be green. It seems to go without saying that we should switch the light bulbs, recycle more, and drive hybrid cars. But with all of these spokespeople in the same room, differences start to emerge. Archetypes proliferate: the preservationist, conservationist, hippy, locavore, humanitarian, adventurer, hunter, soldier, inventor, space explorer, power point guru, victim, and skeptic all have their own ways of defining the crisis and its solution. Embedded in each stance are theories about technology, individualism, wilderness, activism, consumerism, government responsibility, environmental justice, equitable distribution of resources, recreation, and the ethics of the human animal. And within each position lie land use practices, architectural strategies, and material obsessions ranging from the extreme interior and the house as a machine for living to infrastructural systems at a vast range of scales.
Can debate replace the manifesto? If ecology is a discourse, why are architects still offering manifestos, acting as though the crisis and its solution were certain and fixed? This is where debate comes in. Debates on the political stage too often function as mudslinging opportunities that further pit one side against another. But at their best, debates can also instigate the formation of new positions or advance ideas in unexpected ways. Debates create a structure for argument, exploration, and invention, airing differences with rules of play and a focused set of criteria. For architecture, debate as a strategy allows us to boldly take a stance while recognizing its inherent contradictions, uncertainties, and opposing perspectives.
Teaching Assistant: Yuval Borochov
Master of Science Advanced Architectural Degree Studio