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ARCHITECTURE CAN SAVE THE WORLD: BUILDING AND
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
CRAIG DELANCEY
THE PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM
Volume XXXV, No. 2, Summer 2004
Environmental ethics provides something new to architecture: decisive ethical
design criteria. Because of their relative novelty, these criteria in turn create the
framework for a new and potentially unique reconsideration of the aesthetics of
architecture. To establish this point, it is necessary to clarify the failure of most
ethical discourse about architecture to provide any practical advice. In contrast,
those goals, which are shared by most theories of environmental ethics, and which
are relevant to architecture, provide a number of highly practical constraints or
opportunities. Because these are criteria with practical import, they also provide
new opportunities for aesthetic exploration and reevaluation. I will address each
of these issues in turn.
“ETHICS” AS AN INDECISIVE AESTHETIC
Much has been written that is seemingly about ethics and architecture, but very
little about ethics and architecture has actually been said: Ethical language is typ-
ically used in architectural theory as part of an aesthetic argument that makes no
necessary use of ethical principles. This is evident by the fact that the apparent
ethical claims made for architecture in such contexts are usually indecisive. As a
test for whether a seemingly ethical claim is indecisive, we can ask whether we
could as a community come to agreement on the conditions under which those
principles would fail to be satisfied. Consider some examples of stylistic analy-
sis: We are not going to be able to settle a debate about whether, say, Gothic archi-
tecture is more or less “functional” than modern architecture, or whether baroque
is more or less “honest” than postmodernism.1
Thus, to say that architecture
1
See David Watkin, Morality and Architecture (New York: Oxford UP, 1977).

2. should be “functional” or “honest” is to say something that we are unable to con-
clusively deny of any school or style. And yet, many architectural movements
have been defended as “functional,” in contexts where being “functional” was
said to be morally good; the same is true of “honesty.” As another example, con-
sider Le Corbusier’s claim that the house is a machine for living in, and that the
mass-produced house will be “incomparably healthier than the old kind (and
morally so too).”2
This is evocative, even inspirational, but does not offer any
guidance about practical design considerations (many different designs of homes,
including many that would have horrified Le Corbusier, could be and are mass
produced). Such examples could be multiplied ad nauseum. There is little or
nothing that can be said in preference of one architectural decision over another
when such criteria are on offer, and so little or nothing that can be said to be
morally superior regarding one design option over another.
This indecisiveness is common even for ethical discourse which is explicitly
theoretical. Consider the following claim by Karsten Harries,
Architecture has an ethical function in that it calls us out of the everyday, recalls us to the values
presiding over our lives as members of a society; it beckons us toward a better life, a bit closer to
the ideal. One task of architecture is to preserve at least a piece of utopia.3
This is highly plausible; it seems like this is a function of architecture. This might
even be the best or most important function of architecture. But it also has little
or no ability to help us decide, as ethics requires, what should one do? It is inde-
cisive precisely because even though you and I both know a strip mall is not a
piece of utopia, we are not going to have any hard criterion from this claim alone
that will enable us to respond to the strip mall developer when he tells us he
makes strip malls because they are, as he sees it, a little piece of utopia. We would
need something more than just this notion that architecture is utopian to be able
to settle a question like, should we tear down this row of brownstones to make
that strip mall? We would need a value theory that can tell us what it is that makes
utopia better, so that we could measure these two outcomes against those values.
This is not to say that seemingly ethical discussions of architecture of the kind
that we see in the manifestos of architects have been mostly nonsense. Rather,
they are usually not ethical arguments or observations at all. Generally, seemingly
ethical terminology forms part of a rhetoric of endorsement. This situation is
partly a consequence of the simple fact that there is no clear way in which tradi-
tional ethical theories would seem to apply to architecture. Take any of the great
contenders of classical philosophical ethics as an example. What can virtue theory
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2
Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (London: The Architectural Press, 1927) 245.
3
Karsten Harries, The Ethical Function of Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1998) 291.

3. tell us about doors? What can Kantian deontology recommend regarding
rooflines? And how could utilitarianism help determine the appropriateness of
simplicity? Of course, there are some clear cases of architectural challenges where
such ethical theories will result in clear obligations. On any reasonable ethical
theory, an architect should not accept commissions for torture chambers, should
not design prisons for political prisoners, and so on. But these considerations are
relatively rare and peripheral issues, both in that they will arise infrequently for
architects, and in that there is nothing to such questions specific to the practice
and poetry of architecture.
More important as genuine ethical considerations that are, or at least can be,
decisive are what we may call the basic considerations of architecture. These are,
first, that the architect should not design or build unsafe buildings; and second,
that she should fulfill her obligations to the client and the community (e.g., if she
promises to design a bridge, it is a bridge that she should design). These basic
considerations are likely entailed by almost any ethical theory, and have surely
been part of architecture either explicitly or implicitly since its beginning.
However, the basic considerations can be met by a huge variety of forms of archi-
tecture. They provide a fundamental background of practice, but very little
aesthetic guidance, if any.
Environmental ethics confronts architecture with a profoundly different situa-
tion: it is the only ethical theory that provides for architecture decisive criteria
that go beyond the basic considerations. This is because the concerns of envi-
ronmental ethics result in clear and measurable ethical obligations. With the
exception of the basic considerations, this is a rare, and probably unique, occur-
rence in the history of architecture and architectural theory, and may even mean
that environmental ethics is the first ethics to present clear guidelines of any kind
to architecture. These new ethical obligations are not immediately aesthetic.
However, in providing clear and decisive criteria, they open the door to a radical
exploration of the aesthetics of architecture.
THE PRACTICAL CONSISTENCY OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
To understand the importance of environmental ethics to architecture, it is nec-
essary to identify the relevant shared values of environmental ethics. There are
several leading environmental value theories, and much that is contentious
between them. This might seem at first to entail that there is little chance that
environmental ethics can provide coherent guidelines to architecture unless the
architect commit to a specific value theory. However, in terms of practical
outcomes, there is significant consensus in environmental ethics.
Environmental ethical theories can be divided into those that allow that there
are significant moral values other than human interests (nonanthropocentric
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4. theories), and those that do not (anthropocentric theories). Of the former kind,
there are two leading kinds of environmental value theories today. The first is
known as biocentric individualism.4
This is the view that all living things deserve
some moral respect. For the biocentric individualist, individual organisms are the
focus of that respect: An individual life is generally morally good, and the more
an organism flourishes, the morally better that situation is. As a source of oblig-
ations, biocentric individualism counsels us to respect individual organisms, and
that means not inhibiting, and perhaps even helping, their flourishing. The second
dominant nonanthropocentric view is a holistic or ecological ethic.5
This is a
view that ecosystems, or “land communities,” deserve moral respect as wholes.
The focus is on the health of complete kinds of ecosystems. As a source of
obligations, these kinds of theories require us to respect the diversity and inter-
relationships of organisms in a geography. For both kinds of nonanthropocentric
environmental ethics, there are difficult issues about how to rank our duties; that
is, questions of how much respect an ecosystem or nonhuman organism deserves,
especially in comparison to the interests of humans, remain contentious. Also,
biocentric individualism and a holistic ethic can result in conflicting recommen-
dations, because the interests of an individual organism may not be the best inter-
ests of its ecosystem, and vice versa (think, for example, of the case of invasive
alien species). However, in practice these two value theories are usually very close
to each other, since individual organisms typically require a healthy ecosystem,
and a healthy ecosystem is composed of flourishing individual organisms.
A second form of environmental ethical theory is anthropocentric environ-
mental ethics. These theories take human interests to be the sole, or primary,
source of ethical value, but still call for changes in our behavior in order to benefit
the environment. On such a view, other kinds of organisms, or ecosystems as a
whole, are deserving of respect because of their utility to human beings.6
An
anthropocentric environmental ethic seems to be the default or implicit ethic of
many popular pronouncements regarding environmental issues. For example, it
is a common argument that degradation of the global ecosystem needs to be
stopped and even reversed because it poses a long-term threat to the welfare of
human beings. Or, similarly, the UN Bruntland Commission’s oft-quoted defini-
tion of sustainable development is: Development that “meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
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4
Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton: Princeton UP,
1986); Gary Varner, In Nature’s Interest? (New York: Oxford UP, 1998).
5
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford UP, 1949); J. Baird Callicott, In Defense
of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1989).
6
Bryan Norton, “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentricism,” Environmental Ethics 6
(1984): 131–48.

5. needs.” Here “generations” presumably means human generations, and so the
values expressed are essentially anthropocentric. Other anthropocentric consid-
erations may include the conviction that other organisms or ecosystems are valu-
able because they are aesthetically beautiful to human beings, or otherwise serve
the mental health of human beings. And yet, it is clear from the convictions of
most of those professing anthropocentric environmentalism that they have strong
interests in certain environmental goals, and so the positions are identified by
context (and often by contrast to what they oppose) to be supportive of some of
the same goals as those of nonanthropocentric ethics.7
Although these theories have fundamental incompatibilities in terms of the ulti-
mate values that ground them, almost all environmental ethics share a common
commitment to the goals of preserving and even restoring the flourishing of indi-
vidual organisms, and the long-term health of ecosystems. We can call these two
goals the shared environmental goals. For the purposes of practical architecture,
the shared environmental goals are sufficient to profoundly shape the approach
to design. Thus, these diverse environmental ethics can be treated as practically
equivalent, and I will here use the term “environmental ethics” to refer to all of
those value theories that have the shared environmental goals. The degree to
which we need to meet these goals, in contrast to other values we may have,
although contentious, need not be settled for us to be able to draw clear lessons
for the architect.
It is important to note that the shared environmental goals are in principle con-
sistent with the practice of architecture. Some activists (I know of no philosopher
who holds this position) have proposed a fundamental ethical preference for
wilderness, such that building would prima facie be in conflict with their values.
However, this view is a rare one, and therefore does not constitute a (widely)
shared environmental goal. For all the leading environmental ethics theories,
humans are recognized to be organisms with their own interests that deserve sig-
nificant, if not always preeminent, consideration. It must be recognized by
any who hold such a view, that for human beings our built environment now
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7
There are those who oppose most or all of the common goals of environmentalism on grounds of
holding an anthropocentric ethic. William Baxter (People and Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pol-
lution [New York: Columbia UP, 1974]) provides an example of someone with an anthropocentric
ethic who openly delights in attacking and demeaning environmental goals. To judge by the stated
values, it would seem the difference between environmentalists with an anthropocentric ethic and
those who oppose environmentalism is a matter regarding scientific predictions (the former predict
that human interests require certain environmentalist goals be met, and the latter do not believe
this). For the task of identifying shared goals among environmentalists, even this value-free dif-
ference is sufficient to distinguish these camps, and to warrant pulling the former into the fold. But,
it is worth noting that many anthropocentric environmentalists likely hold some nonanthropocen-
tric values, perhaps without having recognized or reflected upon this.

6. constitutes our habitat, and as such the moral consideration afforded to habitats
because of their utility to organisms must include human building. Many organ-
isms have an interest in a habitat that conflicts with the interests of other organ-
isms. Two male tigers may have conflicting territorial demands; or two species
of bird might fight over a hole in a tree that would make a favorable nesting site.
Humans are not alone in generating this kind of conflict (which is not to deny
that they are the very worst source of it). That the interests that humans have in
their habitats may conflict with the interests other organisms may have in their
habitats gives us reason not to reject human building, but rather to strive to min-
imize or ideally even eliminate such conflict while still ourselves flourishing.
CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
The obligations to respect other kinds of organisms and ecosystems present
architecture with a single general design ethic: Design and build so that we do
the most benefit to all kinds of organisms and their ecosystems (assuming here
that less harm is a relative benefit). This imperative, which stands alongside
anthropocentric functional and aesthetic goals, presents the architect with a range
of important constraints, which can also be seen as opportunities. These con-
straints and opportunities are relatively familiar since they have been variously
recognized by a range of working architects and designers, and practical consid-
erations specific to our own time make it convenient to organize them into two
classes, as follows.
Design for Sustainable Resource Use
A structure will require energy and other resources both to be built and to be
maintained. The ultimate design goal should be to have the building’s resource
use requirements be equal to or below a sustainable, which is to say indefinitely
renewable, level. A conservative measure of this would be the amount of solar,
wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources available on the immedi-
ate building site; and the amount of other renewable resources that could be har-
vested from that site. A less conservative measure would be the amount of such
renewable resources available in the community for the geographic footprint of
the building. This measure can be the relative portion of the community popula-
tion served by the structure, used then as a proportion of the renewable energy
and other renewable resources available to that community. For example, as a
crude first measure, a building which serves 1% of the community population’s
time should not exceed use of 1% of that community’s renewable energy use. The
closer a structure comes to meeting either of these standards, the closer it comes
to being no net drain on the environment.
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7. The sourcing of materials for a structure, and the effort spent in assembling
them, is easily overlooked in such a calculation. However, for example, titanium
walls built and shipped from a thousand miles away may have a huge energy
requirement relative to the use of local materials. These fixed one-time energy
costs must be accounted for, perhaps as an amortization over a long period. This
also means that the expected lifetime of a building must be taken into account.
A high fixed-energy expense building should not be undertaken if it is meant to
be short lived; but, sometimes, a short-lived (such as a recyclable or biodegrad-
able) building may be the best alternative for some needs. Similarly, the appro-
priateness of the design of a structure for its environment is a resource use issue.
A house built in a flood plain that is not built to survive flooding is likely waste-
ful: its fixed energy and other resource costs will be lost as soon as there is a
flood. The same can be said about homes in tornado or hurricane regions.
And, there is a generic architecture used in commercial buildings, leading to
identical designs from Newfoundland to New Mexico. It is obvious that this is
suboptimal.
Maximize Ecological Benefit to Local Habitat
Energy and other resource use is a convenient way to measure what is likely
to be a direct impact on the environment, and captures some or most of the impact
a structure may have on distant ecosystems. However, a range of other impacts
must be considered, especially concerning the immediate environment of the
structure and of the locations where its materials are sourced. These are what we
might call “ecological impacts” on these sites. For example, certain individual or
populations of organisms may be destroyed or displaced; certain habitats, like a
wetland, may be reduced in size; and so on. These ecological impacts must be
recognized because although an inefficient building will likely cause ecological
harms, it does not follow that an efficient building will cause no ecological harms.
One could drain a wetland to build a highly efficient building. Thus, the archi-
tect should ensure that the actual physical footprint of the structure and its service
features (e.g., access roads) do not irreparably damage the immediate ecosystem;
that the building materials are not toxic in either their construction or their long-
term impact (which can effect both the structure site and the site of the manu-
facture of the materials); that the maintenance of the building (for example, its
water needs, or the way it eliminates wastes) do not harm the environment; and
that the building’s existence over the long term does not impede the life of the
ecosystem.
Just as the goal for energy use is a sustainable energy use footprint, the goal
for other kinds of impacts is a sustainable ecological impact footprint. This notion
is difficult to make precise for reasons not of ethics but of our presently very
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8. limited understanding of ecology. However, the principle is relatively basic. As
a preliminary measure of ecosystem health we can use a measure of species diver-
sity and the size of species populations that either live in or require the relevant
habitat(s). In all but highly stressed ecosystems there will be a range of resiliency
of that ecosystem: Some amount of energy use and altering of the landscape will
not significantly decrease the ecosystem health (and some uses could possibly
even increase it). The goal of the architect must be to build in such a way that he
or she does not exceed the local range of resiliency, so that in turn the architect’s
structures do not significantly reduce the health of that ecosystem or most of the
organisms dependent on it; ideally, the architect will want to design so that he or
she actually improves the health of the local environment, which in turn improves
the range of resiliency and acts as an investment in natural capital (the benefits
of which may include allowing additional building that would not have been pos-
sible under the prior, lower range of resiliency). Thus, although a maple tree will
use energy, take up space, and in many other ways alter the local ecosystem, on,
say, a site in Upstate New York, its impact will not generally cause significant
ecological harm to the local ecosystem and, in fact, typically provides net bene-
fits by assisting the flourishing of other organisms. A tree is the ideal example of
an environmentally beneficial structure.
These constraints and opportunities are unique in that they are in principle mea-
surable. There is nothing here as subjective as aesthetic notions such as “honesty”
or “functionality.” Energy use in manufacture and in operation, and the impact
upon local and dependent diversity and populations, can be discovered and
reported. As greater knowledge about environmentally beneficial architecture
grows, architects striving to meet these goals will have ever more clear guide-
lines to meet.
These two general kinds of measures are stated here as both ideals and as con-
straints (as goals to minimize impact) more than as opportunities. Conceptualized
as constraints, they underlie practical goals of eco-efficiency (the goal to mini-
mize energy use and other impacts), and such aesthetically charged approaches as
dematerialization. However, some recent design thinkers have tried to reappro-
priate energy and other impact concerns, transforming them into positive goals.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart have argued that we should ulti-
mately aim to replace eco-efficiency as a goal with one of eco-effectiveness
and nutritive design: the goal to maximize benefit to the ecosystem.8
This recon-
ceptualization alters the project from minimizing harm to maximizing benefit.
Just as the maple tree mentioned above actually helps the ecosystem, the goal
endorsed by McDonough and Braungart is to make our products and structures
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8
William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
(New York: North Point, 2002).

9. biodegradable and nontoxic to such a degree that they are no more harmful to the
ecosystem when used or discarded than are, say, leaves. This reappropriation of
the efficiency goal shifts emphasis from constraint to opportunity, and provides
an important reformulation of practical discourse about environmental design.
Environmental ethics may provide other potentially unique projects for archi-
tecture that also deserve mention. One of these is architecture with nonanthro-
pocentric goals. For what is perhaps the first time in architectural practice,
environmental ethics may provide the motivation for building that serves not
humans, but other nondomesticated organisms. There is some precedent to this,
perhaps, but it is wholly marginal: the birdhouse is an obvious example. Larger-
scale projects include salmon runs built into dams and other river obstructions,
and artificial reefs. These projects, which are largely for human benefit, provide
a glimpse into possibilities for nature-restoring architecture, including architec-
ture that does not directly serve any human interests. Another possibility is a
design of resistance: Just as tree-spiking was a kind of landscape alteration meant
to resist the pillaging of important ecosystems, environmental ethics may suggest
to the architect other forms of design and construction meant to actively resist
environmentally harmful practices. It is not hard to imagine such possibilities:
barriers that are too low for SUVs; the design or creation of uneven landscapes
that cannot accommodate a lawnmower and so become inappropriate candidates
for a monoculture turf; artificial reefs that allow the passing of manatees but not
of boats.
ARCHITECTURE AS REVELATION
Architecture and much, if not all, of design, strives to be art. This means the
constraints and opportunities of environmental ethics in architecture ought to be
met beautifully. Thus, although these constraints and opportunities can be stated
as ethical guidelines with no explicitly aesthetic element, this overlooks the
radical alteration that environmental ethics brings to architecture. Decisive design
criteria, coupled with a profound new ethical vision, provide for architecture a
new opportunity: in striving to meet the goals of an environmental ethic, archi-
tecture can reveal the values of environmental ethics.
The role of revealing values is traditional to architecture. The Catholic Church,
to choose the most obvious example, sought to reveal its own ethical vision in
its architectural decisions. But environmental ethics provides an ethical vision
that is new not only in its values, but in kind. It is different in kind because the
criteria are decisive: Although two Christians may forever disagree about whether
a modernist cathedral is a properly respectful church, it is in principle a factual
matter whether one structure or another will benefit the local or global ecosys-
tem more. And this measurable ethical vision is new also in its values, perhaps
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10. radically so, and this provides an exciting opportunity for the architect who
accepts those values: can the architect both satisfy, and express the beauty of,
those values? Can she help us close off for a moment the demands of con-
sumerism, and see again the value of life? Can she make attractive her solutions
to environmental challenges, and even transform the constraints and opportuni-
ties of environmental design into fundamental beauties? Can she make explicit
for us the relative ugliness of environmentally destructive choices, of strip
malls and lawns and suburban sprawl and highways and disposable but perma-
nent products?
Contemporary attempts to meet these goals show that architecture is only in
the first, exploratory stages of attempting to answer these questions, as is evi-
denced by the range and (from the perspective of environmental considerations)
incompleteness of contemporary environmental architecture. But exciting work
that in part begins to reveal these values is extremely promising. It is possible
here to make only some very brief mention of a few examples that inspire hope.
We must recognize foremost the thinking and wide range of diversity of prac-
tices of those who are struggling to express environmental architecture, since such
an architecture cannot be solely about building (sometimes, environmental values
will require renovation rather than building, sometimes letting things continue as
they are rather than renovating, and even sometimes destroying what should not
have been built). Pioneers of both theory and practice include Ian McHarg and
Buckminster Fuller, who articulated incontrovertible demands for ecological con-
siderations in building and design. More recent leaders, working at a range of
scales, include such organizations as Center for Maximun Potential Building
Systems (CMPBS), Foster and Partners, T. R. Hamzah and Yeang, HOK, William
McDonough + Partners, MVRDV, Richard Rogers Partnership, SITE, and Sim
van der Ryn.
Early work in environmental architecture was at small scale, typically homes,
and this remains where more radical work is still most possible. A number of
design groups have made headway in satisfying and revealing environmental
values at these scales. For a very recent example, CMPBS’s Green Builder
Demonstration, and Demonstration Blueprint Farm, both in Texas, are function-
ing experiments in low-impact, high-efficiency design structures using local
materials that provide models for a leap forward in local environmental design
and agriculture. The work of groups and individuals like the Jersey Devils, SITE,
Thomas Herzog, and David Lea reveal a bold awareness of, and commitment to,
environmental values by developing homes or small commercial buildings that
express a more environmentally sound way of living. And reconceptualizations
of the building, such as Elemer Zalotay’s Swiss home built largely of found and
recycled materials, provide the first glimpse of more radical alternatives to the
goal of the traditional building made smaller or more efficient.
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11. However, the inexorable trend toward explosive global urbanization requires
that environmental architecture solve problems of large-scale projects. Here, very
exciting work is being done. Ken Yeang has articulated an insightful and sober
assessment of goals for “green skyscrapers.”9
T. R. Hamzah and Yeang have
developed some exemplars of these insights: their Menara Mesiniaga tower in
Selangor, Malaysia, is a high-rise that incorporates a range of passive solar and
passive ventilation techniques, includes accommodations for later additions of
photovoltaics, and uses a form with penetrating open spaces that allows for
green space and vegetation at different heights of the building. The overall
result is an artful combination of urban and green sensibilities. Other “green
skyscrapers” include the extraordinary Swiss Re Headquarters in London, built
by Foster and Partners. The 41-story tower flaunts its high-tech materials but
the overall form is organic, reminiscent of a pine cone. The building incor-
porates internal green spaces, passive solar lighting and passive ventilation, and
a strong attempt to achieve energy and resource use efficiency. The building is
perhaps the world’s most striking example of what has come to be called
“eco-tech.”
Other firms whose work has earned this label include the influential Renzo
Piano Building Workshop. Many first encounter Piano’s work when they see the
popular Pompidou Center in Paris, which Piano designed with Richard Rogers.
The more recent designs of Piano’s Workshop include more organic structures
with a more muted and environmental contextualism. For example, their
UNESCO Laboratory and Workshop in Vesima, Italy, incorporates local struc-
tures into a sloping transparent structure on a hillside. The design stresses the
local context, partly melding into the slope of the hill. Its transparency recalls a
greenhouse, and the design and materials aim to be eco-efficient. Similar eco-tech
design principles are evident in the Lloyd’s of London Headquarters done by the
Richard Rogers Partnership, which incorporates a number of energy-efficient
design elements, but is notable for its use of a modular construction that reduced
the initial construction impact and may in the long term save resources; or in the
Inland Revenue Headquarters of Michael Hopkins and Partners, in Nottingham,
which uses passive thermal control structures in a novel, high-tech setting. Eco-
tech captures the inspirational optimism of modernism (and perhaps also now
some of the free playfulness of postmodernism) while offering first steps toward
a large-scale environmental architecture.
Another way in which some large-scale works are revealing environmental
values are in the explicit use of landscape. The Lucille Halsell Conservatory in
San Antonio by Emilio Ambasz provides an example. More recently, Ambasz’s
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9
Ken Yeang, The Green Skyscraper: The Basis for Designing Sustainable Instensive Buildings (New
York: Prestel, 1999).

12. has developed an impressive building in Fukuoka, Japan, that incorporates exten-
sive interior and exterior tiered gardens. The earlier conservatory is remarkable
for its use of sunken structures and earth berms to capture a sense of the wonder
of landscape, drawing our attention not away from but toward the setting of the
visible portions of the structure. In this regard, pre-industrial and ancient archi-
tectural traditions can be a recurring inspiration to environmental architecture.
Pre-industrial (and even just pre-air-conditioned) civilizations had to respond to
many of the constraints and opportunities of environmental ethics not out of
choice but out of demand, typically because they had few nonrenewable energy
sources and no easy way to remove wastes. A respect and awareness of nature in
a Kyoto temple, an ancient Italian town, or an Anasazi village in the American
South West all can provide overlooked and important inspiration to contempo-
rary architecture. Ambasz’s conservatory successfully strives for some of the
numinous awe that paleolithic land structures reveal, but in high-tech materials
like glass and steel. In this same spirit, Renzo Piano’s Jean-Marie Tjibaou
Cultural Center, in Noumea, New Caledonia, is a stunning example of a com-
bination of local traditional sensibilities, local materials, indigenous design prin-
ciples, and high-tech materials.
A number of contemporary landscape artists express values that should inspire
the consideration of landscape by architects. These artists draw attention to the
impermanence and potential fecundity of natural structures. Their work includes
the hand-built structures of Andy Goldsworthy or Nils-Udo, or the landscape
events of Magdalena Jetelova or Dennis Oppenheim. Goldsworthy, the best
known of these artists, develops structures of found ice, wood, stone, and earth,
using only his hands and found materials as tools. The structures he builds tread
a border between the natural and artificial and call the very distinction into ques-
tion. By being both beautiful and very short-lived—they melt or collapse or
biodegrade in days, if not a season—they also should suggest to the architect new
aesthetic possibilities of impermanence, simplicity, and imitation of local natural
structures.
All of these architectural works are incomplete in the sense that few if any
fully meet or exceed the constraints and opportunities of environmental design.
For example, for all its beauty that respects both natural context and local indige-
nous design practices, Piano’s Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center likely has a
very substantial environmental cost because of its use of high-tech materials
that had to be shipped to New Caledonia. Also, to the degree that some con-
temporary buildings may meet the constraints and opportunities of environmen-
tal design, they may not yet provide ready models that can scale to mass society.
The vibrancy and beauty of these works and others do, however, provide impor-
tant and exciting steps toward what could be a wholly new flourishing in
architecture.
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13. ARCHITECTURE CAN SAVE THE WORLD
With the exception of the basic considerations of the duty to build safe struc-
tures and fulfill one’s commitments, never in the history of Western civilization,
perhaps of global civilization, has there been a more clear connection between
ethics and architecture than there is between environmental ethics and architec-
ture. In our time, for those who accept the shared environmental goals of envi-
ronmental ethics, it is fair to say that the ethics of architecture is environmental
ethics. But there is an additional, and perhaps more important, consideration.
Environmental architecture may not only be supported by, but it can in turn inspire
and further the goals of, environmental ethics. After transportation, our buildings
and their construction is the activity to which we devote the greatest energy-use,
and which has the greatest share of other forms of environmental impact.10
And,
since architecture and planning have a direct role to play in transportation, they
can also influence this highest-impact behavior. This means that, for environ-
mental ethics, the greening of architecture is likely the most important near-term
practical goal—a fact not well or widely appreciated among environmentalists.11
This is an additional and final way in which environmental ethics and architec-
ture, working together, may result in a radically new situation for architecture:
There is a long tradition of hubristic declarations that architecture can save the
world, but, if by “world” we mean the welfare of all kinds of organisms and
ecosystems of the earth, then for the first time, this claim may be true. Architec-
ture can indeed save at least some of the world.
ARCHITECTURE CAN SAVE THE WORLD
159
10
According to the WorldWatch Institute, 55% of the wood cut for nonfuel uses is for construction,
and 40% of the world’s materials and energy is used by buildings. David Malin Roodman
and Nicholas Lenssen, A Building Revolution. Worldwatch Paper No. 124. Washington, DC:
Worldwatch Institute, 1995).
11
Tom Woolley, “Green Building: Establishing Principles,” Ethics and the Built Environment, ed.
Warwick Fox (New York: Routledge, 2000) 44–56.