Self-reflective practice in sustainable design Volume Two30032398/mellershlucas-self... · Appendix...
Transcript of Self-reflective practice in sustainable design Volume Two30032398/mellershlucas-self... · Appendix...
Self-reflective practice in sustainable design
Volume Two
by
Susan Mellersh-Lucas BA (Architecture) (Hons)
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Deakin University
December, 2009
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Contents
Volume Two
Chapter 7 1
7.0 Introduction 1
7.1 Sampling 2 7.1.1 Sample sizing 6
7.2 Constructing the interview 7 7.2.1 The interview guide 7
7.3 The role of the interviewer 12
7.4 Developing theory from the interviews 13 7.4.1 Grounded Theory 14
7.4.2 Deconstructivist Theory 15
7.5 The interview analysis process 16
7.6 Conclusion 24
Chapter 8 25
8.0 Introduction 25
8.1 Architecture as an undermined authority 27
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8.2 The art of scenario building 30
8.3 The articulation of meaningful spaces 34
8.4 The employment of the architectural sciences 48
8.5 Conclusion 57
Chapter 9 60
9.0 Introduction 61
9.1 Human development pressures 64
9.2 Sustainable design 70 9.2.1 Functionalism 70
9.2.2 Double-loop learning 73
9.3 Self-transformation strategies as personal dynamics 78 9.3.1 Phenomenology 78
9.3.2 Integrity and intuition 83
9.3.3 Happiness and self-interest 86
9.3.4 Propensity 88
9.3.5 Suffering 90
9.3.6 Passion, courage and humility 92
9.3.7 Critical reflection 94
9.4 Self-transformation through interpersonal dynamics 96 9.4.1 Office culture 96
9.4.2 Participatory Design 99
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9.4.3 Advocacy, opportunism and leadership 101
9.5 Conclusion 106
Chapter 10 113
10.0 Introduction 113
10.1 Interdependence and design as praxis 116
10.2 Attitudinal change and existential need 117
10.3 Personal self-transformation strategies 118
10.4 Interpersonal self-transformation strategies 120
10.5 The need for certainty 121
10.6 The dynamic between empathy and certainty 123
10.7 The techno-psychosocial model of sustainable design 124 10.7.1 Consilience 124
10.7.2 The biopsychosocial model 124
10.7.3 Meditation 125
10.7.4 Action Research 125
10.8 Recommendations 126
References 127
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Appendix A1: Practitioner interview request 140
Appendix A2: RAIA interview request 142
Appendix A3: Consent Form 146
Appendix A4: Motherhood Statements 148
Appendix D1: Figure 7.2a (detailed view) 151
Appendix D2: Art of Building Summary Report 152
Appendix D3: Figure 7.2b (detailed view) 164
Appendix D4: Art of Dwelling Summary Report 165
Appendix E1: Art of Building Narrative Report 172
Appendix E2: Art of Dwelling Narrative Report 174
Glossary 177
Appendix B: CD format
Appendix B1: Interviews journal 1 (CD)
Appendix B2: Observations of interviewee character 12 (CD)
Appendix C: CD format
Appendix C1: AR_1st interview_09.10.06 1 - 38 (CD)
Appendix C2: DO_1st interview_09.10.06 1 - 38 (CD)
Appendix C3: GB_1st interview_15.02.06 1 - 50 (CD)
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Appendix C4: JT_1st interview_13.10.06 1 - 52 (CD)
Appendix C5: LH_1st interview_20.10.06 1 - 30 (CD)
Appendix C6: MP_1st interview_18.01.06 1 - 123 (CD)
Appendix C7: NP_1st interview_25.06.06 1 - 24 (CD)
Appendix C8: NP_2nd interview_18.10.06 1 - 45 (CD)
Appendix C9: SG_1st interview_29.06.07 1 - 28 (CD)
Appendix C10: SW_1st interview_01.12.05 1 - 27 (CD)
Appendix C11: SW_2nd interview_16.02.06 1 - 27 (CD)
Figures
Figure 7.1: Second step of the analysis process 19
Figure 7.2a: Third step of the analysis process 20
Figure 7.2b: Third step of the analysis process 20
Figure 7.3a: Fourth step of the analysis process 22
Figure 7.3b: Fourth step of the analysis process 22
Figure 8.1: The narrative structure for ‘The Art of Building’ 26
Figure 9.1: The narrative structure for ‘The Art of Dwelling’ 63
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Tables
Table 7.1: Interview Analysis Process 17
Table 7.2a: Fifth step of the analysis process 22
Table 7.2b: Fifth step of the analysis process 23
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Chapter 7
Conducting the field study
7.0 Introduction
In order to conduct research on self-reflective practice with architects practicing
sustainable design, a qualitative approach incorporating semi-structured
interviews was selected. Semi-structured interviews provide a snapshot and
enable thick description of existing thinking within the everyday language of
conversation. Iterative and deconstructive methods incorporated within
phenomenologically-informed journaling, Grounded Theory and Deconstructivist
Theory guided the collection and analysis of the interview material. Their value
lies in an empathetic mode of enquiry made rigorous through critical thinking and
well-defined methods for conducting fieldwork.
Defining rigour, however, is problematic. It is recognised that criteria for rigour
are paradigm sensitive and never completely objective or universal. All inquiry
reflects the standpoint of the inquirer, all observation is theory-laden, and there is
no possibility of theory-free knowledge (Denzin and Lincoln 2005; Smith and
Deemer 2003; Thornton 2006). Any discussion of criteria in making judgement
‘must confront the issue of relativism’ because it operates as ‘the central
condition of our very being in the world’ (Smith and Deemer 2003:437). In
recognition of the socially-constructed nature of standards of criteria, truth
statements have come to be seen as best-fit scenarios defining proximity to an
agreed construction of reality that operates as the norm until proven otherwise.
Patton (2002) observes how the criteria for rigour has shifted to reflect the special
characteristics of qualitative enquiry. The credibility of a qualitative researcher is
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to be judged through ‘dependability - a systematic process systematically
followed - and authenticity – ‘reflexive consciousness about one’s own
perspective, appreciation for the perspectives of others, and fairness in depicting
constructions in the values that undergird them’ (Patton 2002:546). This criteria
recognises that qualitative research depends ‘on the insights and conceptual
capabilities of the analyst’ whose essential contribution is, among others, ‘astute
pattern recognition’ (Patton 2002:553). According to Patton (2002) this is best
achieved through actively looking for rival explanations, explaining negative
cases, using triangulation of data sourcing, collection and analysis and above all
maintaining context in the presentation and analysis of the data. A researcher’s
skill rests on bringing all these strategies together in recognition that qualitative
research by its very nature produces multiple and often conflicting observations
that require defendable best-fit scenarios as explanations.
The aim of this chapter is to establish the rigour of the field study. Rigour is to be
achieved through criteria of dependability and authenticity. This behoves a
systematic approach to interviewee sampling, material collection and interview
analysis to enhance critical thinking and astute pattern recognition. In a detailed
account of the sampling process, Section 7.1 introduces the interviewees and
explains how rigour was pursued through triangulation of the sample group.
Section 7.2 explains the construction of a problem-centred and the expert-
oriented interview format as a means for eliciting subjective views relevant to the
research question and of deconstructing normative thinking about these matters.
Section 7.3 explains the role of the interviewer. Sections 7.4 and 7.5 outline the
application of Grounded Theory as an iterative method to guide the fieldwork and
maintain accountability and transparency. Section 7.6 summarises the field study
process to prepare for discussion of the interview findings.
7.1 Sampling
The three main categories drawn from the literature review through which to
pursue the research question were also used to define the sampling field. They
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are sustainable design, self-reflective practices and professional development
strategies promoted through the AusIA. Sample groups were identified via
selective sampling over a period of eighteen months. This evolutionary and
cumulative technique is traditional to qualitative research (Patton 2002:68).
Sampling started concurrent with the literature review. The review was used to
identify critical architects to leverage ongoing insights into the developing theory
of self-reflective practice in enhancing the transformative agenda of sustainable
design. The sampling field was specifically focused on architects practising in
Melbourne. The rationale for sampling such a localised field was to determine
the extent to which knowledge of the three main categories had filtered down into
local practice. This approach preferenced a deepening of the sampling field as
opposed to its widening. In effect, it is a further “thickening” of the research
material in accordance with Interpretivist methodology.
Critical sampling is made rigorous through both ‘data triangulation’, which refers
to ‘the integration of various data sources differentiated by time, place and
person’ and ‘analytic induction’ which looks to control the developing theory
through the sampling of deviant cases (Flick 2002:67). The review of the
UIA/AIA Declaration for a Sustainable Future and the BDP Environmental
Design Guide series was the first step in data triangulation (Chapter 2). They
established a baseline standard regarding formal approaches to professional
development in sustainable design and in ascertaining the visibility of self-
reflective practice as a design initiative. Other material showcasing architects
practicing sustainable design was also reviewed. In this manner, sub-groups of
architects practicing in the field of sustainable design and as contributors to the
AusIA in promoting sustainable design practice were identified.
Contact was made with eight recognised leaders in the field of sustainable design.
Greg Burgess, (the late) David Oppenheim, Mick Pearce and Allan Rodger are
internationally recognised, while Louise Honman, Natasha Palich, Jane Toner and
Stephen Webb are highly regarded both Australia-wide and within Victoria.
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Contact was made also with the AusIA in order to source office bearers. Allan
Rodger, David Oppenheim, Jane Toner and Natasha Palich are recognised
contributors to the AusIA. In total, eight prospective interviewees affiliated with
the AusIA were approached out of which Natasha Palich and Jane Toner agreed
to be interviewed as representatives of the AusIA. Designers who are
practitioners of both sustainable design and forms of self-reflective practice
including meditation were also specifically sought within the sampling field.
Of all the interviewees, Greg Burgess is especially well regarded for a design
methodology guided by self-reflective practice. Louise Honman was approached
through recommendations from colleagues who noted her informal approach to
self-reflective practice. Contact was also made with the Buddhist Council of
Victoria and various Buddhist groups for introductions to architects who
practiced meditation. Practitioners personally known to the researcher as
acknowledged Buddhists were also approached. Out of three prospective
interviewees identified, Seona Gunn, who also practices sustainable design,
agreed to be interviewed.
Greg Burgess is a Melbourne-based, internationally acclaimed architect and 2004
RAIA Gold Medalist. He is especially recognised for his work in designing
innovative buildings with and for indigenous Australians. His major contribution
to sustainable design is in elevating ‘the fundamentals of dwelling, human
interaction and public space’ through architecture (Croaker 2004).
Mick Pearce is an internationally acclaimed architect and winner of the 2003
Prince Claus Award for Culture and Development. His work in Australia, after a
career in Zimbabwe and Zambia, includes the award-winning CH2 building in
Melbourne; the first commercial building in Australia designed through
biomimicry; a “first principles” approach to the problems of sustainable design
(Biomimicry Institute 2009; Morris-Nunn 2007). Pearce is identified as an
architect committed to regionally appropriate and responsive architecture and his
specialisation is in the development of buildings which have low maintenance,
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low capital and running costs and renewable energy systems of environmental
control.
As an academic and sustainability consultant, Professor Allan Rodger, through
various international and national bodies has ‘established the UIA Programme on
the Sustainable Development of the Built Environment, chaired the jury for the
first world-wide design competition on Sustainable Communities and drafted the
Chicago Declaration of Interdependence for a Sustainable Future’ (Lighthouse
Experts Bureau 2002:wp). He is also an expert advisor on sustainability to the
AusIA.
Louise Honman is well respected as a heritage architect and is an award winner
for her energy efficient designs.
(The late) David Oppenheim was a nationally and internationally respected and
awarded sustainability pioneer through his commitment to architectural science
and quantitative assessment. He was also well regarded for his deeply spiritual
and reflective work as a designer (Fay and Owen 2008).
Natasha Palich is a Melbourne-based architect, well respected as a sustainable
design advocate at local government level and consultant to the AusIA. Natasha
currently holds the positions of Chair of the AusIA National Sustainability
Committee and Convenor of the Victorian AusIA Sustainable Architecture
Forum.
Jane Toner is an architect, well respected as an ESD consultant and for her
voluntary work with non-profit organisations such as OzQuest and Architects
Without Frontiers. She is also an active environmental advocate and advisor to
the AusIA.
Stephen Webb is also a Melbourne-based architect. He is well recognised for his
contributions to national award-winning projects such as CH2 and has authored
papers on the participatory design method employed for CH2.
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Targeting a mix of designers with and without affiliations to the AusIA or self-
reflective practice, but all committed to practising ecologically sustainable
design, triangulate different approaches to the central research aim. Case-
contrasts as well as case-comparisons provide for rigour through analysis of rival
explanations in the development of typology (Flick et al. 2004; Patton 2002:554).
7.1.1 Sample sizing
The field study eventually comprised eleven interviews held with the nine
architects. Determining sample sizes appropriate for theoretical sampling is
dependent on ‘theoretical saturation’ in that sampling stops ‘when no additional
data are being found …’ (Flick 2002:64). The emphasis in this research is on
theoretical as opposed to numerical generalisation. Therefore, ‘the number of
individuals studied is less decisive than the differences between the cases
involved or the theoretical scope of the case interpretations’ (Flick et al.
2004:150). Flick et al. (2004:150) further advise that ‘(t)o increase the theoretical
generalizability, the use of different methods (triangulation) for the investigation
of a small number of cases is often more informative than the use of one method
for the largest possible number of cases’.
The sample size of nine interviewees recognises the tension between ‘covering as
wide a field as possible (as against) doing analyses that are as deep as possible’
(Flick 2002:70). The sampling is considered representative of the field in a
number of respects. According to Flick (2002:70-71), it represents itself as a
‘specific individual socialization against a general background’, in that individual
interviewees represent specific examples of their social milieu. It also represents
a level of professionalisation specific to the individual case, in that all the
interviewees are in the field of sustainable design as practising architects.
Considering that seven of the interviewees are key architects in the field, their
individual views on the experiential nature of design become important as an
aspect of their expert opinion.
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7.2 Constructing the interview
The eleven interviews produced thick descriptions of ‘subjectively significant
connections between experience and action’ (Flick et al. 2004:7). According to
Flick et al. (2004:113) thick description also ‘aims at the explanation of
“explanations” (in a cultural field) in relation to the totality of this cultural field’.
Therefore, explanations from key practitioners regarding their experience of
sustainable design provide for a type of predictability that is explanatory of the
wider field of sustainable design.
Each interviewee is recognised as having a high level of expertise in his or her
various areas. They could possibly hold subjective theories about self-reflective
practice if they are not experts in that area. As practicing architects they are also
experienced problem-solvers by the nature of their profession. This means they
can be interviewed through any or all of the three interview methods - semi-
standardised, problem-centred and the expert interview - evaluated as favourable
for eliciting qualitative material (see Section 6.5.2.2).
7.2.1 The interview guide
Advice for conducting semi-standardised, problem-centred and expert-oriented
interviews recommend the crafting of an interview guide (Flick 2002).
Therefore, a guide was set up based on the six sub-categories drawn from the
literature review (see Section 6.1). It was crafted as open-ended Motherhood
Statements specifically related to the creative and moral dimension of being an
architect, to prompt bridging between the professional and the private domains
during discussion. All the interviewees were sent a Plain Language Statement as
a letter of introduction, an Ethics Approval Consent Form and the Motherhood
Statements (Appendix A). The objective was to stimulate expert knowledge
through presentation of problematic themes identified within the literature review
as significant to designers engaged in promoting ecological sustainability.
Prompts were made insitu to gain access to more reflexive subjective theories
influencing uptake of both sustainable design and self-reflective practices. The
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interview prompts were made in such a manner that, while asking about strategies
for monitoring professional and personal behaviour as part of the design process,
the words “self-reflective practice” and “meditation” were left for the interviewee
to articulate in an attempt to uncover a natural understanding from the
interviewee about their value to design. Each Motherhood Statement is presented
below with commentary explaining the intention behind them.
Motherhood Statement 1
We tend to operate at two levels of need, both of which are open to change:
Our public / professional needs which tend to be task-oriented.
Our private / personal needs which are primarily self-oriented.
I argue that design intervention aims at task-oriented needs while designer
transformation aims at self-oriented needs. So this interview is to discuss with
you your own blending process. How I want to discuss this is through two broad
topics:
The concepts of commitment / need
The need for an environmental ethic
The first motherhood statement explains the researcher’s concern to differentiate
designer transformation out from design intervention so as to establish one aspect
of design as self-oriented and the other as task oriented. This opening statement
makes explicit the preferred orientation for the interview and focuses the
interviewees on their own experiences and opinions about what the design
process means to them.
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Motherhood Statement 2
Expertise is understood as being able to distinguish between competence and
capability. It comes down to attitude. Improving capability relies on continual
improvements that challenge beliefs, abilities and knowledge base.
Within architectural practice, while there are many barriers to ecological
sustainability, there is also a growing awareness of the need to change.
Through this statement the questioning ranged from office-based approaches to
more personal approaches in developing expertise in sustainable design. This
question was drawn from research into office practice that suggests a growing
reliance upon practitioners as independent learning centres within office
hierarchies that are more horizontal in power arrangements, and networked across
groupings of independent learning centres (Dawson 2004; Doppelt 2003; Rodger
2000). It indicates the need for greater adaptability, flexibility and self-
motivation on the part of practitioners in maintaining professional standards of
expertise in an environment of fast-paced change and uncertainty.
Motherhood Statement 3
To commit - place sustainability at the core of (architects’) practices and
professional responsibilities - is the first principle upon which the RAIA
Environment Policy is based.
Examples given on how to do this involve the practitioner in ‘actively
encouraging clients to include sustainability as an integral principle…’ of their
project and to ‘maintain(ing) commitment to the delivery of sustainable outcomes
…’(RAIA 2001). These directives encourage the outward-bound efforts of the
practitioner to influence others in a social contract once the practitioner’s own
level of commitment has been forged. These are not directives aimed at forging
practitioner engagement prior to encouraging outward-bound efforts.
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The emphasis in the questioning was to draw from the interviewees their
understanding of the qualitative nature of commitment as a personal aim. This
was in a deliberate attempt to reorient the traditional approach to ethics from
“know-why” to “know-how” in line with a more phenomenological approach to
cognition and meaning-making taken up within the cognitive sciences (Section
3.3) (Varela 1999a).
Motherhood Statement 4
There is a lot of discussion about spirituality and its importance to living
harmoniously with the world. Architects are drawn to designing habitats that
work in this manner. Space and form are seen as opportunities to enhance
psychic as well as environmental energies. There is a lot of talk about buildings
in terms of energy transfer potential eg ‘harmonising / energising / vitalising /
refreshing / regenerating / respecting / relaxing.
Reflective practice and intuition as cognitive processes were broached within this
discussion in an attempt to link physical with metaphysical forms of energy and
well-being.
Motherhood Statement 5
The thrust of human development is to satisfy human needs.
In acknowledging this the UN Brundtland Report definition for ecologically
sustainable development is: “A sustainable society meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’
The questioning here was to focus the interviewee on how they scaled down this
global need to everyday practice and individual need so as to achieve desired
outcomes for themselves now and into the future.
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Motherhood Statement 6a
Happiness is considered our ultimate goal; it is now a well-tested fact that when
asked, people overwhelmingly support this as self-evident fact and requiring of
no further justification. It is our ultimate self-oriented need in that it is
considered both our highest aspiration and our most fundamental need.
Happiness rests within us as a state which acts like a hydrostatic level of well-
being. Research into this phenomenon concludes that most of us, most of the time
consider this resting point to be equivalent to feeling around 75% happy.
Motherhood Statement 6b
A further understanding of happiness coming out of the behavioural sciences is
that we experience it as a continuum of ‘constant struggle’ that rises and falls
unbroken between extreme misery and extreme joy. This concurs with our
understanding of happiness coming out of the natural sciences that see it as a
natural aspiration common to all sentient beings. Being ubiquitous it fosters
ecological sustainability through dynamic compromise between individual self-
oriented needs and the common good and is a state of equilibrium which has
always been maintained through natural checks and balances.
The science of happiness is a modern phenomenon devoted to tracking new
trends in the social and physical sciences promoting well-being alongside
understanding human pathologies (Layard 2005). The questioning was aimed at
drawing from the interviewees reflections upon their own sense of happiness and
well-being, how consciously they used their design practice to maintain this, and
whether this extended into non-human relationships.
Motherhood Statement 7
Fundamental challenges to conventional scientific thinking such as Gaia Theory
within the Biological Sciences; Chaos Theory and Quantum Theory within the
Physical Sciences; and the theory of Autopoiesis within Neurocognitive Science
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have instigated significant change in understanding the nature of existence and
the role humans play in it. While this has spawned urgent calls to respect the
complex logic of the earth’s living systems as a unique and irreplaceable
phenomenon within the universe it has also spawned a quantum leap in
technological prowess.
Non-human relationships were discussed in terms of the huge difference in power
sharing and the impact of technological prowess upon society’s ability to be
concerned for other life forms. The questions were directed towards personal
strategies for developing ecologically-oriented sensitivity and whether the
interviewees consciously and strategically drew upon particular philosophical
understandings of humanity’s existential condition in committing to ecological
sustainability as advocated by much of the literature on environmental and on
personal well-being.
7.3 The role of the interviewer
Current understanding of the interview process has evolved through two powerful
concerns: a feminist concern to move from ‘the practice of exploiting respondents
… to interviewing for ameliorative purposes’ and the postmodernist concern to
treat interviews as ‘negotiated text’ whereby ‘interviewer and respondent
collaborate together to create an essentially monologic view of reality … a
unified “we”’ (Fontana and Frey 2003:93-96). Both these approaches refute the
traditional notion of researchers as invisible, neutral entities and instead
accommodate the reality that, as part of the interactions they seek to study,
interviewers necessarily influence those interactions (Fontana and Frey 2003). In
recognition of this, it is required of the interviewer to make biases explicit (Patton
2002). This researcher enters the field as a mature-aged, graduate architect and a
novice meditator, with an emerging theory about the research topic developed
through the literature review, which requires empirical grounding. While
purposefully avoiding revelation of such a theory lest it distort the thinking of the
interviewees, the Motherhood Statements none-the-less reveal the pre-disposition
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of the researcher by inviting the interviewees to make comment upon the
experiential domain of sustainable design. This particular orientation toward
sustainable design surprised most of the interviewees. Responses ranged from
positive support, to bemusement, to confusion, to trepidation and even to slight
annoyance. While it is not necessary to draw attention to particular identities, it
is important to note a non-uniform response to a uniform document. This attests
to the power of preconceptions to influence the conduct and content of the
interview.
It is recommended to engage in mental cleansing processes in an effort to pre-
empt concerns that might prejudice not only the conduct of the research project
but also the reception of the research report (Patton 2002). Exercises for clearing
the mind utilising yoga and Buddhist meditation techniques were undertaken
through the conduct of the research. Journaling by the interviewer was done
immediately after each interview session. This strategy objectifies the
engagement without denying subjectivity by bringing the interviewer to a state of
detached mindfulness during the interview. Journaling brings to conscious
awareness individual experiences and background situations that affect fieldwork.
The journal provided a further technique for triangulating data collection (Patton
2002) (Appendix B). All the interviews were taped with the consent of the
interviewee. They were transcribed with the date and location of the interview
noted in the transcription (Appendix C).
7.4 Developing theory from the interviews
In acknowledging that there is no possibility of theory-free observation or
knowledge, a technique specific to Grounded Theory, known as analytic
bracketing, has been adopted for drawing empirical data from the interviews
while respecting them as context-bound and mutually constructed performances
(Fontana and Frey 2003:94). Temporarily deferring how a story is being told
while focusing on what is said before re-integration allows the necessary analytic
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separation between process and product that ensures a rigorous form of
subjectivity during the analysis process (Feldman 1995; Fontana and Frey 2003).
Feldman (1995:2) advises that ‘clusters of data tend to stick together (and that)
(t)hese clusters probably depend on both what is in the researchers thoughts as the
data are collected and how the members of the culture tend to organize their
culture’. The findings of the literature review suggest that practitioners tend to
cluster design initiatives with design intervention rather than with designer
transformation. This was borne out in the interviews and even though the
interview guide was set up to loosen this clustering, this interviewer was
conscious of being both caught up in and trying to refrain from reinforcing this
tendency and to maintain the focus upon the subjective domain of design. During
the analysis phase, Grounded Theory and Deconstruction Theory were
instrumental in loosening cluster boundaries further. This approach strengthened
triangulation of the analysis process in allowing movement between an
empathetic and deconstructive mode of analysis.
7.4.1 Grounded Theory
In order to decipher the interviewees’ responses, interview analysis proceeded as
an iterative, interpretive and deconstructive method utilising Grounded Theory.
Grounded Theory, rather than deducing testable hypotheses from existing
theories, provides a systematic technique that functions to expose an empirical
basis to the building of theory from the interview material and thus provide
credibility through transparency (Charmaz 2006; Flick et al. 2004; Glaser 1992;
Grbich 2007; Guba and Lincoln 1981; Strauss and Corbin 1998). As a method,
Grounded Theory is a critique of the interview texts for identifying major themes
from the clusterings of emergent sub-themes (Grbich 2007; Merriam 2002;
Strauss and Corbin 1998). It provides for ‘some of the quantifiable scientific
rigor (of) survey research … with its painstaking emphasis on coding data …’
(Fontana and Frey 2003:67).
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Coding starts with line-by-line coding to prompt close study of the data, before
moving to focused coding through which to ‘separate, sort and synthesize large
amounts of data’ (Charmaz 2006:54). Coding emphasises two main criteria: fit
and relevance:
[Study of the data] fits the empirical world when codes have been
constructed and developed into categories that crystallize participants’
experiences. It has relevance when an incisive analytic framework is
presented that interprets what is happening and makes relationships
between implicit processes and structures visible. (Charmaz 2006:54)
Therefore, the goal of Grounded Theory is to build a ‘substantive theory’ sourced
from the interviews that is ‘localized in dealing with particular real-world
situations’ (Merriam 2002:7/8)
7.4.2 Deconstructivist Theory
While Grounded Theory allows the researcher to view the culture of sustainable
design as nearly as possible through the eyes of its architect practitioners,
Deconstructivist Theory looks for self-limiting/expanding concepts contained
within those practitioners’ perspectives especially in terms of self-reflective
practice. Deconstruction Theory ‘points out both the dominant ideology in the
[data] and some of the alternative frames that could be used to interpret the
[data]’ (Feldman 1995:5). The assumption behind deconstruction is that
‘ideology imposes limits on what can and cannot be said … [therefore]
deconstruction aims at exposing these ideological limits’ (Feldman 1995:51). In
raising designer transformation strategies as an unacknowledged aspect of
sustainable design, the Motherhood Statements activate deconstructive techniques
to ‘ask the questions that tend to be ignored’ and give ‘notice [to] what is not
said’ (Feldman 1995:52). Deconstruction is accomplished through a number of
‘moves’ that analyse the interview text for any silences and gaps, dichotomies,
and disruptions (Feldman 1995:51).
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7.5 The interview analysis process
A rich and descriptive account of real-world situations encountered by key
architects in the practice of sustainable design in Australia emerged from the
interview analysis through two major themes: the art of building and the art of
dwelling. These two themes draw on Heidegger’s seminal ideas about being-in-
the-world, building and dwelling (Dreyfus 1991; Heidegger 1962; 1971; 2006).
Heidegger argued that Western philosophy has overlooked “being” because it was
considered obvious, rather than worthy of question. Yet, to “be” is ‘the bare fact
of human existence ... [and] the world is already there before anyone tries to
reflect upon it’ (Sharr 2007:27). In his deconstruction of ‘dwelling’ and
‘building’ through their common root in old German language, Heidegger argued
that ‘building isn’t merely a means and a way towards dwelling – to build is in
itself already to dwell’ (Heidegger 1971:146). He also argued that the original
term for dwelling meant ‘to cherish and protect, to preserve and to care for, …’
(Heidegger 1971:147).
In this thesis, the art of dwelling encapsulates the phenomenological idea that,
before one is an architect, one exists un-self-consciously through being-in-the-
world. The art of dwelling is, therefore, subject to pre-theoretical ways of being
or praxis (Section 5.1.1). Dwelling is not a fully self-conscious nor rational
exercise. Consequently, the art of building extends this idea to capture the pre-
theoretical stance of design-as-praxis out of which all design thinking emerges.
The discussion of the findings of the interview analysis is taken up in Part 3 of
this thesis. Prior to this, all interviews were analysed using the QSR N-Vivo 7
software program (QSR International Pty. Ltd.). The program allowed for the
organisation of interview transcripts into major themes and sub-themes through a
process of coding and note-taking linked directly to the raw material. It was
instrumental in quantifying the analytical process through its ability to generate
automatic diagramming of lists and models (Bazeley 2007; Gibbs 2006; Johnston
2006; Richards 2005). While it was found that critical stages of meta-analysis
Conducting the field study
17
needed to be carried out in hand-written form to expedite lateral thinking through
visual scanning of multiple texts, QSR N-Vivo 7 facilitated management, storage
and presentation of the large volume of text generated throughout the analysis
process. The rigour of a five- step process undertaken to structure and process
the interview material analysis is outlined in Table 7.1.
Step Method Purpose Outcome Figures and Tables
Appdx
1 Descriptive First step in the triangulation of analysis methods
Analysis remains tied to Motherhood Statements.
NA
2 Micro-analysis through induction
Analysis moves beyond description toward conceptualisation. Second step in the triangulation process.
A myriad of emergent issues identified and coded. Formulation of a provisional hypothesis for categorising the codes into three major themes.
Figure 7.1
3 Macro-analysis through deduction and iteration
A countermove to Step 2. To crosscheck the working hypothesis. An iterative method for developing the hypothesis.
Each major theme is re-populated with extracts from all of the interviews deduced to be relevant sub-themes.
Figure 7.2a Figure 7.2b
D
4 Meta-analysis through hermeneutical approach
Clusters are identified from amongst the various sub-themes.
From amongst the clusters a narrative emerges to explain the major themes.
Figure 7.3a Figure 7.3b
E
5 Micro-analysis through induction
Re-coding as cross-check for emerging narrative. Opportunity for independent analysis is provided. Third step in the triangulation process.
The emerging narrative remains grounded in the data.
Table 7.2a Table 7.2b
Conducting the field study
18
The analysis process was not linear but iterative in that the ordering of the ideas
into sub-themes and major themes did not appear sequentially but in dialogue
with one-another (Snodgrass and Coyne 2006). This process underscores the
hermeneutical nature of understanding generally, in that it occurred through
understanding the parts and the whole in tandem together, as a dialogue between
projection and reflection upon the emerging narrative.
The first step taken in the analysis was to describe each interviewee’s explicit
responses to the Motherhood Statements. The purpose of this was twofold: to
expose a-priori false assumptions held by the researcher (see Section 7.4) and to
satisfy analytical triangulation by evidencing any changes to the findings
following the application of Grounded Theory.
The second step involved microanalysis and deconstruction of two randomly-
selected interviews following the Grounded Theory method. This is a mode of
interrogating the interview texts line-by-line to move analysis beyond description
and toward conceptualisation (Strauss and Corbin 1998). It also helps suspend
the urge to draw theoretical conclusions before uncovering possible alternative
explanations hidden in the details (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Strauss and Corbin
(1998:68) consider that this approach ‘forces examination of assumptions (in
that) false assumptions will not stand up when rigorously compared against the
data incident by incident.’ This step was crucial to the analytical triangulation
process.
As an inductive approach to analysis, the second step identified a myriad of
emergent issues (Fig. 7.1). The issues were not specific to the Motherhood
Statements, but emerged as a structural device to categorise the full range of ideas
found in the interview material. These issues were identified through in-vivo
headings; a process promoted in Grounded Theory to ensure the categories are
kept as close to the original expressions of the interviewees as possible. The
issues were then tentatively categorised into sub-themes with major themes
emerging from the clustering of the sub-themes. The coding, comparing and
Conducting the field study
19
note-taking required of this approach allowed for the formulation of a provisional
hypothesis against which to code the remaining interviews. The major themes
are: the art of dwelling, the art of building and bridging strategies between private
and professional values.
Lack ofreflection
Moralimmaturity
Status Quo
Relationships Ethicalbehaviour
Makingchoice
Self
Suffering Love
Beingconsistent
Directexperience
Raisingawareness
Touchstones
Bridgingseparation
PersonalisingEcological
sustainability
Art of dwelling
Synthesising
Collaboration
Connectedness
Expertise
Best Practice
Creativity
Challengingthe status quo
Clientrelations
Architect'spractice
Sourcinglocal
Complexitybehaviour
Economiesof scale
Best Practice
ecologicallysustainable
design
Art of building
Challengingthe
status quo
Commitment
Conscience
PersonalProfessional
In a third step, the interrogation of the texts moved from micro to macro-analysis
in order to cross-check the previous step (Flick et al. 2004; Guba and Lincoln
1981). According to Flick (2004:13 original italics) ‘the analytic categories that
were established from the material in the previous stage of the analysis are now
applied to the material’. To achieve this step, each major theme was re-populated
with extracts from all of the interviews. Additional sub-themes emerged with
their associated issues. These were ordered into sets of typologies with
associated characteristics. By the end of this step only two major themes
remained: the art of building and the art of dwelling. Figures 7.2a and 7.2b
illustrate the coding structures for the two major themes (Appendix D). This
Conducting the field study
20
cross-checking process also allowed for iteration in developing the working
hypothesis.
Empirical
Experiential
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
Traditional
Practice typologies
Private
Public
Value typologies
Professional practice
Empirical
Experiential
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
Traditional
Practice typologies
Private
Public
Value typologies
Design
Empirical
Experiential
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
Traditional
Practice typologies
Private
Public
Value typologies
Ecologicallysustainable design
Empirical
Experiential
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
Traditional
Practice typologies
Private
Public
Value typologies
Architecture
Art of Building
being aware of being self-aware
Meta self-awareness
beliefs goals / aspirations
self-memories emotions
interests standards
values / opinions attitudes
perceptions sensations
Private self-information
other's opinions social relations
behaviours / actions abilities / skills
Public self-information
Personal settings
Financial / Economic
Political
Cultural / Social
Individual
Professional
Existing conditions
Art of Dwelling
Following a hermeneutical approach, as favoured by Glaser (1992; 1994; 2001;
2003; 2005), the fourth step involved meta-analysis of each major theme. This
was in order to identify a dynamic of concern across the various sub-themes.
Conducting the field study
21
This resulted in a re-assessment of the sub-themes into new categories and was
the climax of the analysis process. A narrative emerged to explain each major
theme in terms of their dynamics rather than as a composition of typologies.
Figures 7.3a and 7.3b illustrate the new coding hierarchies that emerged for each
theme. This step was taken off the computer and onto hardcopy. It involved
lateral thinking to move beyond a strictly causal coding regime to take account of
the dynamic processes pursued by the interviewees for structuring sustainable
design into their living and working habits. A more comprehensive coding
structure emerged through which to discuss the two major themes that define the
impact of sustainable design upon the state of architecture (Appendix E).
The Art of Building(architecture as an undermined authority)
Knowledge domains
Generative domain(scenario-building)
Representative domain(meaningful space-making)
Technical domain(architectural sciences)
Practice domains
Experiential domain(immersion)
Reflective domain(oeuvre)
Collective domain(tradition)
Conducting the field study
22
In the fifth step each interview was revisited again and re-coded inductively line-
by-line into the re-organised sub-themes to check how well the emerging
narrative was grounded in the texts (Table 7.2a and 7.2b). This iterative process
also ensured that as the ideas were coded into more abstract concepts, these
higher concepts remain ‘grounded’ via a recognisable pathway between the raw
material and the narrative. This opens the process to assessment through
independent scrutiny, and in so doing acts to further triangulate the analysis.
The Art of Dwelling
Human development scenarios
under-development
over-development
alienation
denial
apathy
Sustainable design
Functionalism
Double-loop learning
Self-transformative strategies
personal dynamics
phenomenology / enchantment
integrity intuition
happiness and self-interest
propensity
passion courage humility
critical reflection
group dynamics
office culture
Participatory Design
advocacy opportunism leadership
Conducting the field study
23
1 Coding opportunities refers to the process of selecting text from the interviews appropriate to each theme
The Art of Building Interviews Coding opportunities1 Undermined authority 11 164 Practice domains Experiential 11 56 Reflective 11 119 Collective 9 47 Knowledge domains Art of scenario-building 11 163 Articulation of meaningful spaces 11 132 Architectural sciences 10 52
The Art of Dwelling Interviews Coding opportunities
Human development scenarios Underdevelopment 2 9 Overdevelopment 10 81 Sustainable design Critiquing functionalism 10 60 Critiquing fear of change 10 48 Self transformative practices Personal dynamics 11 147 Phenomenology / enchantment 3 9 Integrity / intuition 10 24 Happiness / self-interest 10 19 Propensity 5 10 Suffering 6 19 Passion / courage / humility 8 16 Critical reflection 7 13 Group dynamics 11 57 Office culture 7 25 Participatory Design 7 10 Advocacy / opportunism / leadership 9 33
Conducting the field study
24
7.6 Conclusion
In this chapter, a formal analysis of the sampling process and the conduct and
analysis of the interviews according to Grounded Theory has been presented.
This was in order to explain the rigour of the qualitative approach undertaken in
the interview analysis. Interviewees were selected either for their expertise in the
development and implementation of sustainable design and/or their engagement
with formal and informal self-reflective practices. The sample size allowed for
thick descriptions to be gathered from key architectural practitioners through
which to develop a theory of sustainable design as self-transformative practice.
Through a five-step process of analysis, a rich and descriptive narrative of real-
world situations encountered by key architects in the practice of sustainable
design in Australia emerged. Two major themes were arrived at through which
to structure this narrative. They are: the art of building and the art of dwelling.
The following two chapters of this thesis presents a discussion of this narrative.
Chapter 8 discusses the art of building, while Chapter 9 discusses the art of
dwelling.
25
Chapter 8
The Art of Building
8.0 Introduction
Chapter 7 detailed the conduct of the field study in which the collection and
analysis of interview material through journaling, Grounded Theory and
Deconstructivist Theory proceeded. The interview material consisted of
responses to a number of Motherhood Statements that were designed to elicit
self-concepts from the interviewees through discussion of expertise, commitment,
spirituality, familiarisation, happiness and value-systems as they apply to their
practice of sustainable design. Through a series of analytical steps, this material
was ordered into major themes and their attendant sub-themes. Two major
themes were identified through this process. They are the art of building and the
art of dwelling.
These two themes are presented as two separate chapters. Chapter 8 discusses the
impact of sustainable design upon the art of building. Chapter 9 discusses how
the transformative potential of sustainable design affects the designer as the art of
dwelling. Through the presentation of extensive quotes drawn from the
interviews, the discussion remains grounded in the individual life-worlds of the
architects while offering new insights into sustainable design that explain its self-
transformative aspect and reveal naturalised types of self-reflective practice.
In Chapter 8, sustainable design is pursued through exploration of a concern that
was found to permeate all the interviews. This was identified as an undervaluing
of architecture as the art of building. Section 8.1 introduces this concern to set
the context for the rest of the chapter. The countermeasures taken by the
The Art of Building
26
interviewees have been coded into two domains: architectural practice and
architectural knowledge (see Figure 8.1). Architectural practice has been coded
into three levels of practice: the experiential domain; the reflective domain; and
the collective domain. These three domains describe the development of
expertise through immersion of the practitioner in gathering architectural
experience, the reflection of this experience in the development of an oeuvre and
finally its distillation into the collective domain of tradition. These three domains
describe an ordering of personal and career development strategies through
interplay with architectural knowledge. Three domains of architectural
knowledge have been identified: the generative domain of scenario building; the
representative domain of space-making; and the technical domain of the
architectural sciences. They represent a dynamic interplay of the arts, humanities
and sciences. In this chapter, the art of building is discussed through these three
knowledge domains. Section 8.2 presents the art of scenario-building, Section
8.3 presents the articulation of meaningful space and Section 8.4 presents the
employment of the architectural sciences.
Experiential domain(immersion)
Reflective domain(oeuvre)
Collective domain(tradition)
Practice domains
Generative domain(scenario-building)
Representative domain(meaningful space-making)
Technical domain(architectural sciences)
Knowledge domains
The Art of Building(Architecture as an undermined authority)
The narrative structure allows for the discussion of existential concerns and
metaphysical orientations of the interviewees through their references to both the
The Art of Building
27
exoteric and esoteric nature of architectural design. The esoteric urge to utilise
ways of knowing beyond discursive thought was found to underpin the design
process as surely as the exoteric urge expressed through reasoning and logic.
This general rule, as a characteristic of human nature, is attested to by the
interviewees through a propensity for morality, intuition and contemplation
alongside of, and often in tension with, rational thinking. The objective of the
discussion is to bring the discourse on esoterism into the discourse on sustainable
design. Such discourse will help to illuminate the central research question
concerning the potential of self-reflective practice to enhance the transformative
agenda of sustainable design.
8.1 Architecture as an undermined authority
The history of architecture is intimately bound up in human development (see
Section 4.2 – 4.4). It is an expression of culture that has its roots in the West in
the articulation of esoteric Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Christian cosmologies
(Cuomo 2007; Pérez Gómez 2005) . Architectural traditions of existential
authority and certainty lost their relevance in the turbulence of the Enlightenment
era (Habraken 2005; Vesely 2004). Historicism, revivalism and eclecticism
emerged in response to the new ordering of society brought about by the new
sciences, new technologies, greater access to and widened knowledge of the
world. As the Modernist era dawned these too, were in their turn, abandoned in
favour of increasing secularism, rationalism, professionalism, individualism and
novelty (Scully 1974; Walz 2008). Modernism in the twentieth century is seen as
a defining moment in the history of Western architecture, in that it took the new
certainty of the scientific/industrial era to wrest architecture free of its deep-
rooted cosmological traditions (Bangs 2007). The tragedy of this unprecedented
event is that it was caused by the development of technological capacities that
dispensed with observance of cosmological patterns in the ordering of form and
energy, logic of aesthetics and use of resources. Freedom came at enormous cost.
Modernist architecture, in this account of its history, was presented with a de-
The Art of Building
28
sacralised view of the universe hollowed out by a rationalist, materialist paradigm
(Norberg-Schultz 1975; St. John Wilson 2000). Esoteric methods were separated
out and sidelined in a secular world inspired by the scientific view (Faivre and
Hanegraaff 1995; Hanegraaff et al. 2005). The existential agenda of architectural
practice was re-fashioned into new sets of utopian ideals (Sharr and Weston
2001). This is the situation confronting the current agenda of sustainable design
(Chiotinis 2006). The following quote by Stephen Webb illustrates how
sustainable design remains an idealistic response to existential need.
I think there is a lot more important discussion beyond buildings. There
is also a lot of fundamentals with the broader curve and pattern in
civilization that we need to address before we get the perfect
environmental building right. And I think as architects we’ve got to look
beyond those four walls so, if anything, what I’m hoping to do is slowly
raise the quality of the urban realm through doing green buildings.
(Webb 2005:12.105)
This history, in all its complexity, has led to a reassessment of the possibilities
and limitations of envisioning as an aspect of design thinking integral to the
authority of the architect and the practice of architecture.
It’s very unpopular to say so, but … architects have been complicit in
supporting highly destructive practices for a long time, like the building
of our present cities. … they produced a lot of the imagery - the tower
blocks and mass transit for example - you would have to go back to Le
Corbusier, his drawings, he produced imagery and developers and
Governments came along and did it. Architects have been complicit in
this whole current morphology of the urban system, the agro-urban
system. … that system will kill far more people and do far more damage
to humans in the whole than a Hitler, Stalin or a Mao. I mean really our
cities are huge tender traps. We like them now and they seem
comfortable but they are tender traps. (Rodger 2006:320-328)
The Art of Building
29
When I think of ecologically sustainable development I do think about the
problems we’ve caused ourselves, the ways we’ve actually set up our
cities and the way we’ve set up our infrastructure. … [My] immediate
reaction is one of knowing how badly everything’s been done. I think
first and foremost about our poor quality of our built environment. I think
everything comes from that. … And then the whole mindset of whether
it’s possible to use macro solutions to fix some of the problems in the
world. (Webb 2005:14.123)
I want the natural and built environment to encourage change, because I
really do believe that it does. We create our environment and then it
creates us. (Palich 2006b:5.157)
You know, our built environment by and large isn’t all that inspiring, and
that’s probably why we are like we are. (Palich 2006b:12.387)
While Palich makes an observation about the uninspiring environment
modernism has delivered, Rodger targets its problematic heart. Resistance to
ecologically sustainable design tends to be articulated as a concern that it is too
pragmatic to be inspiring (van Schaik 2005). Rodger observes how misguided
and pretentious this type of criticism really is.
You may have seen Norman Day’s critique of Council House 2 [Pearce
and Webb’s pioneering office tower in Melbourne incorporating
ecologically sustainable design principles]. And he wrote point after
point after point, a paragraph about this thing and about the next thing and
the cooling and the heating and the water and the venting and the natural
lighting and all that stuff. And then he concluded that this might all be
very good but the purpose of architecture was to raise the soul or
something like that he said. It was certainly a sort of emotional response
and essentially it did all these good things but it actually didn’t do what
architects are supposed to do. Now, in my view, Council House 2, that
should be the starting point for everything else and if it doesn’t do all
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30
these things it shouldn’t even get built! And sometimes you get buildings
that are really inspiring and uplifting and have got a bit of magic. Not all.
It never has been all. You just get a little bit of magic emerges from time
to time. And if you’re getting that the community’s doing quite well. But
to sort of denigrate it because it doesn’t do that seems to me to miss the
point that this is the base condition that really aught to be built in and
that’s where we start. Now, how do we make magic from there, not
instead of there. (Rodger 2006.215-223)
Rodger observes that architecture, at its best, reflects aspirations that are both
exoteric and esoteric. The pragmatic concerns of sustainable design are not
necessarily a denial of the “magic” of architecture, but a necessary grounding for
this “magic”. The basis for the tensions in architecture Rodger observes, is
identified in phenomenologically informed treatises (for example Pallasmaa
2009; Pérez Gómez 2006; Vesely 2004) as the artificial separation between body
and soul/mind central to Christian theology. The modern sciences upon which
the pragmatics of sustainable design rest represents the quintessential expression
of a de-souled pragmatism. The challenge for architects is to recognise both the
necessity and the limits of this condition if they are to evoke the occasional
magic.
8.2 The art of scenario building
From earliest antiquity onwards the prestige of architects has waxed and waned
according to the utility of architecture to serve the communicative (or meaning-
making) needs of society (Cuomo 2007; Pérez Gómez 2005; 2006). With the
failure of the Modernist era of architecture to live up to the utopian ideals
unleashed by the advent of a secular/scientific/industrial age (Glazer 2007; Pérez
Gómez 2005; Salingaros 2007), the role of the architect has diminished into that
of bit-player in the pragmatics of building (Berglund 2008). This is a cause of
considerable concern for all of the interviewees. For some, they see a de-valuing
of their particular expertise. For others, they are concerned that many architects
The Art of Building
31
no longer know what their particular expertise is or should be. This has
consequences. As Rodger admits:
… architects are in a sense bit-players. … They only deal with a little bit
of what might be called architecture … so they only deal with a little bit
of that bit. But the dynamics of it, and the effectiveness of the
architecture is very dependent on architecture at a bigger scale of how the
cities go together. And then at a bigger scale again: how the cities relate
to the supporting hinterlands. (Rodger 2006:2.31-33)
The particular expertise that is missing is that:
Not many architects conceptualise their architecture as the organisation of
space in support of human activities. (Rodger 2006:2.35)
To overcome this problem Rodger then suggested that architects engage in:
… scenario building as distinct from accumulating provable facts. … you
also have to have some kind of vision for what it is you’re trying to do.
… now that’s a real architecture / planning thing. … it seems to me that’s
part of the community education, reflective practitioner kind of [thing] …
we’ve got to stimulate thinking and this becomes community education
through the injection of practice ideas. I’m just saying we should be …
building scenarios … [and] these should be live issues because we’re
going to have to make some decisions … huge, huge changes … I think
that’s something that architects could do very much more of.
(Rodger 2006:8-10.163-197)
This criticism of the architectural skill of scenario building as a precursor to the
art of building is particularly significant on three counts. Firstly, it is the opinion
of Professor Allan Rodger, an architect and academic instrumental in the drafting
of the 1992 UIA Declaration of Interdependence for a Sustainable Future – an
environmental manifesto taken up by the architecture profession world-wide and
a major achievement in scenario-building at the global scale (see Section 2.3).
The Art of Building
32
Secondly, the scenario building in which Rodgers wants architects to engage is as
utopian as any that have come before. This signals the great care that must be
taken by architects designing for ecological sustainability, given that scenario
building is historically constituted and therefore dependent upon the
circumstances and knowledge that nurtures it. Finally, Rodgers’ criticism must
be seen in light of the fact that architecture as the organisation of space in support
of human activities is a core consideration for all the interviewees. All assumed it
to be their core skill. However, differences in approach to scenario building by
the interviewees reveal a problem with maintaining focus on human agency.
When relationships are discussed there is a tendency to slip from its human
dimension to a purely physical one.
I think it’s probably also dimensions of self and dimensions of
imagination and dimensions of connectedness. Even suffering I think
[influences scenario building]. … It’s all about relationship and a sense
of self and a sense of the other and what the space between is.
(Burgess 2006:2/3.20-48)
For me an ecologically sustainable development is about creating spaces
that actually could positively contribute to the other spaces around them
and to the space as a whole, the greater space. Probably we have the
lighthouse of sustainable design which is buildings that use no energy,
that use no water, they create no waste in their construction or operation,
they don’t affect ecological diversity, in fact they might contribute and
feed something back into the system. This is how this definition expands
to ecologically sustainable development and we call this the lighthouse
model ... (Toner 2006:27.568)
… say a house that harvested its own water, purified its own wastes,
generated its own warmth, coolness, even produced surpluses for
operating machines and all that sort of thing – the autonomous house if
you like … a city of autonomous buildings would still be disastrously
The Art of Building
33
destructive because it could be so dependent on say food from outside,
unless you say we’ll make it totally autonomous. … And totally
dependant on high levels of mechanised transport for people and goods.
You see we could have, as it were, environmentally perfect architecture
still part of a totally destructive system so the interactions seem to me
profoundly important. (Rodger 2006.41-55)
Burgess, Toner and Rodger illustrate three understandings of space: the in-
between space of human interactions, its reification into contained space, and as
something separable from supporting infrastructure. These three understandings
illustrate how easily concepts of space and interaction can unintentionally become
divorced of their human agency and misappropriated as building dynamics. It is
a subtle manoeuvre that has its roots in mainstream concepts of human boundary;
a situation covered in the literature review and revisited throughout this chapter.
The architecture critic Dalibor Vesely’s (1985; 2004) reflections on the
ontological and cultural foundations of modern architecture illustrate how this
misappropriation manifests as dysfunctional built space (see Section 4.3.1).
Vesely (2004:21) argues that when architects undervalue the twin dangers of the
industrial model embraced through Modernism, (which he describes as abstract
thinking coupled to a unidirectional control perspective), this leads to scenario-
building favouring ‘possible realities’ as opposed to ‘real possibilities’. Vesely
sees this as an endeavour which loses touch with lived world exigencies, causing
deep disorientation for society. The reason for the disorientation is that scenario-
building within this paradigm is unable to give adequate representation to the
field of latent possibilities generated through interpersonal dynamics out of which
society is shaped, and in effect impoverishes culture as shared meaning-making.
The different interpretations of space revealed by Burgess, Toner and Rodger,
with their slippage from a focus on its human dynamics to a more abstract
relationship between buildings, illustrate how architectural scenario-building can
quickly lose touch with lived-world exigencies. The implications for sustainable
The Art of Building
34
design to be drawn here, is that scenario-building must remain resolutely
grounded in human interactions so as to give adequate representation to the field
of latent possibilities generated through them and avoid the pitfalls Vesely points
out.
8.3 The articulation of meaningful spaces
Vesely’s writings shed light on the nature of the built environment that modernist
architectural thinking has celebrated and encouraged, and that individual
architects now find themselves as ‘bit-players’ in. They also shed light on how
this undermines both the role and the skill of architects to articulate meaningful
spaces out of the real possibilities associated with ecological sustainability that,
by this very association, must prioritise planetary life if it is to provide for human
survival. While none of the interviewees expressed awareness of Vesely’s
particular argument, all were sensitive to the need to be more closely connected to
these deeper existential needs through their particular projects.
It’s more about how to search for elegant solutions in architecture. So it
also relates back to the idea [that] good design actually embodies
sustainability. … When I say elegance I don’t mean visual elegance but
getting back to addressing a whole lot of different things. … So, that’s
an overwhelming aspect of why I’m interested in green design. It just
gives such more meaning and reason to the ideas behind that elegant
solution rather than purely looking at form and function, proportion,
symmetry, whatever other design elements you put into it. You just build
so much more meaning into a building. It sort of answers your questions.
(Webb 2005:9.82-84)
Webb’s insight is that, for a solution to be ‘elegant’, it must articulate the deeper
existential needs of the designer as the embodiment of wider needs to be satisfied
by ‘green design’. His comments also highlight the search for moral grounding.
A common theme that emerges from across the interviews is the requirement for
The Art of Building
35
some level of moral certainty made emphatic through personal lived experience.
This provides the confidence and energy to sustain motivation.
… you know there are a number of people that I read who are very much
my mentor. … Scott Turner is a great physician who writes about the
physiology of animals and he’s the one that produced this idea of the
extended organism. Yeah, and its wonderful hearing or reading a
physiological explanation of living systems, it makes a lot of sense
because it’s so holistic. And that provides a model for my design. See, I
really take this biomimicry quite seriously.
(Pearce 2006:42/3.1508-1512)
I tend to self educate … Now it’s based on ecological ideas … I’ve
moved from being trained in one of the leading schools in Britain (The
Architectural Association), which was the leader of … the industrial age
or the machine age celebrating the machine. … [and] the dictum by
Corbusier that buildings were a machine for living in. I’ve moved away
from that, because I think that we’re no different from other species. If
you look at other species, or other animals especially, they make nests and
burrows and buildings, and other ways of modifying the environment, and
I subscribe to the idea that, that burrow, or that nest is actually an
extension of the organism. In other words … the psyche doesn’t end in
the fur or the skin or whatever it is. It actually, when you make a space to
live in, it extends to those boundaries. And so it’s absolutely vital that we
begin to see our habitat as extending that far. If they don’t, I think you’re
living in an unreal place, you’re not, you can’t relate to it properly.
(Pearce 2006:2/3.55-83)
It is the scientific thinking behind biomimicry that Mick Pearce turns to, to design
meaningful spaces. Pearce confirms Vesely’s writings in his own rejection of
Modernist architecture and the industrial paradigm articulated through it. In his
support of another paradigm, based on the ecological sciences, that supports the
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non-separability of humanity and habitat, Pearce is pointing out a failure of the
industrial model – its premise upon the separability of humanity and habitat and
concepts of self underlying this. In so doing, he provides an example of the
difference between ‘real possibilities’ for meaningful space based on science, in
opposition to the hubris of ‘possible realities’ perpetrated through the industrial
paradigm. Pearce’s understandings also demonstrate the critical role science
plays in scenario-building, and in this case in building concepts of self. Concepts
of self are only now under significant scrutiny within the cognitive sciences
(Harnard 2007; Maturana and Varela. 1973; 1987; Thompson 2004; 1999b;
Varela 1999c) and especially those mind sciences in collaboration with Buddhist
methodologies and understandings of the phenomenon of self-awareness (Mind &
Life Institute 2003; 2004; 2005a; 2005b). Significantly, Pearce goes on to
explain how he has established certainty in this matter:
[While] I’m an atheist, on the other hand, I think what’s very important is
to recognise where we’ve come from. And the real deep connections we
have with our origins. You know, people say “why the hell do you go
back to Zimbabwe all the time. Why don’t you just leave it?” I can’t
explain why I don’t leave it. But I will not leave it. I won’t leave it. I
was there about two weeks ago and driving through the country with these
wonderful villages and the plains and these immense great granite rocks
rising up covered in diverse ecologies that you don’t see anywhere in the
world. That’s beautiful. It’s absolutely incredible how beautiful they are.
And very much alive. The sort of relationship between human farming
which is all peasant farming. You know, that sort of stuff, for me, is
indescribably powerful. And you know, that’s important to me, that’s
very important. And I think we’ve come from the Savannah, that’s our
origins, that’s the origins of the species and … it’s that part of Africa
which has given birth to our aesthetic. That’s about spirituality, that’s the
essence. You know the plain, the flat plain and the water and the trees
and the edge of the forest. (Pearce 2006:46/7.1629-1641)
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Through his own deep love of his homeland, Pearce is able to experience the
qualitative dimension of Scott Turner’s idea of the extended organism, and in
effect dissolve the separation between Mind and Matter. He is also able to
interpret this as both spirituality and the birth of aesthetic appreciation. Pearce is
then able to give his architecture deep meaning in that:
… consciousness of sustainability brings back that, it’s all about changing
our attitude to nature. … The building responds to nature, in the same
way that a tree does – reaching - is what, exactly what I’m talking about
… that the building responds to me, so there’s a new relationship between
the city and nature that develops out of that.
(Pearce 2006:60/1.2073-2089)
When questioned as to how responsive the inhabitants of the building are to this
‘new relationship’, Pierce exclaimed:
Well, that’s up to them, but you know the building around them is.
(Pearce 2006:60.2097)
The story of human evolution that science tells, allows Pearce to place within the
story his deep love for the symbiosis he witnesses in his homeland between
humanity and nature. It has allowed him to draw inspiration for creating a built
environment that more closely mimics natural systems. In so doing, this provides
the communicative spaces so necessary for satisfying humanity’s existential
needs, which for Pearce is a dimension of human nature that is clearly bound up
in the Darwinian concept of the origin of species. The key to his architecture is in
appreciating space holistically - not only as something physical, but also as
something spiritual and aesthetic. Its qualitative dimension, experienced through
love and made logical as an extension of ‘the organism’, helps Pearce to dissolve
the spatial and psychological separation between ‘habitat’ and ‘organism’ that is
so characteristic of post-Enlightenment Western culture (Capra 1996; Harnard
2007; Maturana and Varela. 1973; Merriam 2007; Varela 1987).
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Having designed for a building capable of sensitive interactions between habitat
and inhabitant, Pearce considers it up to the inhabitants to make the connections.
This observation leads to two core requirements of architecture to articulate the
‘real possibilities’ for being sustainable noted by many of the interviewees.
Firstly, they confirm that for design to be sustainable it must be a participatory
process (Berglund 2008; Fuller et al. 2008; Sinclair and Stohr 2006). As a
participatory process it becomes the province of the wider community involved in
both making and using the spaces created. This is seen to strengthen connectivity
and responsibility at many levels, and leads onto the second point: the need for
certainty, and thus the onus placed on the building community in particular, to
provide certainty. Both these points are discussed in detail in Section 8.4. In
Pearce’s case, his sense of certainty in the scientific explanation of habitat as the
extension of the organism is reinforced through his own powerful and humbling
experiences of extension through love for his homeland. These two modes of
understanding together establish certainty for him.
In order to tease out Pearce’s design thinking, it is important to note that the
separation between ‘habitat’ and ‘organism’ is well documented within Western
culture as mainstream thinking. It is a vision of reality widely critiqued as one of
the major sources of alienation characterising contemporary society (Bateson
1972; 1979; Berry 1988; 1991; 1999; Capra 1983; 1996; 2002; Hamilton 2002;
Harding 2006; Oliver and Ostrofsky 2007). An argument canvassed within this
thesis is that such separation is a consequence of the ubiquitous influence of
scientific materialism – a philosophic concept popularised through nineteenth
century classic physics (Wallace and Hodel 2008). Wallace and Hodel argue that
this is in spite of contradiction across many forms of knowledge, and that it
persists because of entrenched mores. So, as Pearce noted, the problem comes
down to attitude and the solution must encourage attitudinal change towards our
own nature as part of Nature.
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Testing these mores and moving beyond them into a heightened sense of
connectedness is an art exemplified by Greg Burgess. Burgess is an architect
internationally recognised for his ability to enable community-responsive
architecture that sustains community at varying levels of existential need, in
particular through attention to sacred geometries (Burgess 2004). He
acknowledges that the conceptual separation between mind and matter is implicit
in a literal reading of space and that an architect must learn to read a very
different space – one recognised as pregnant with potentialities waiting to be
activated; an approach prominent in Vesely’s (2004) discourse.
Energy is also identified as a crucial architectural concern for Burgess, but not
that identified through the science of thermodynamics, so dominant in Pearce’s
thinking (Fortmeyer 2008). The energy Burgess explores is rich with meaning;
though more latent than comprehensible. The realm of space and energy Burgess
is able to access connects him to a mode of being beyond the strictures of self.
… you get into a very lifted energy where you potentially reach quite
unusual inspiration or access to certain integrating energies or whatever.
… you're under a creative, psychological, psychic, pressure to work
through something - and like your state of mind and your attitude - and
preparation – sort of meditating or – making yourself open to grace.
(Burgess 2006:16.386-390)
I think there’s something about that process which is much bigger than
yourself. … You’re doing something for the world and it’s something
that is graced by something bigger than yourself – so that hopefully it
speaks to a wide variety of people – rather than some little self-
expression, neurotically put together. So there’s something there about
service, like an attitude of service, an attitude of, I suppose love, or some
sort of the greater good. ... It’s not just simple “we need a roof, we need
a nice view or …”. There’s always that complex lattice of people and
place and culture and history you don’t even know you’re absorbing - by
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osmosis or by just being open. So you’ve got to be open and gathered.
Those two things together and I take that preparation seriously ... Yeah so
that preparation time then sets the mood or attitude or state of being for
the day and you hope ... (Burgess 2006:17.394)
… it’s all about moving into a state of being connected so that when
you’re – you have the right thought at the right time, the right gesture or
the right idea. There’s something when you’re connected – things come
together in the right way – that openness, it’s almost like an innocence in
spite of our worldliness – we have to trust I think.
(Burgess 2006:17.408)
Burgess is clearly talking about inspiration as a mode of communication that
connects him to a level of creativity beyond his individual limits and in which he
places his trust to access what is ‘right’. The kind of rightness described here
illustrates an esoteric quest by Burgess, that the philosopher and art critic Luc
Benoist (1988:13) describes as being able ‘to arrive at a quite different level of
truth designed to impart wisdom which would penetrate the entire being both
mind and spirit’. What Burgess practises and Benoist describes is design as
praxis (Chapter 5). It requires a crucial re-orientation to the world in that the
arrival point is according to Burgess, something opened up to rather than wilfully
sought.
Burgess’s insights illuminate another approach to scenario-building discussed in
Section 8.2, that architecture remain representative of real possibilities as opposed
to possible realities. Vesely (2004:14) describes the representative act as
connecting to ‘the potential field of possibilities present and available’ and
coming to ‘a representation of the latent possibilities (by) bringing into focus
their typical characteristics and enhancing their presence’. It ‘takes place each
time we succeed in grasping what is essential to a … project’ (Vesely 2004:14).
Burgess likens his experiences of this process to a meditative state and describes
this state as being open and gathered. It requires trust and an openness to grace –
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a quality of acceptance, of humility; a communion with an authority beyond
concepts of self. It provides certainty. This is the communicative state Vesely
(2004) argues has been ignored in the desire of the avant-garde to transcend the
limitations of traditional culture and the human condition, and which has led to
scenario-building as an instrument in the production of possible realities rather
than communion with real possibilities. The difference is subtle but critical in
that one encourages a state of dominance through hubris whereas the other
encourages a state of interconnectedness through humility. Experiences of self
define these two different states.
The path that leads through self and then beyond requires of both Pearce and
Burgess a level of sensitivity and critical awareness they liken to that still
accessible to cultures alive to their traditional wisdom. Quoting Burgess again:
… you have to gather yourself for something you haven’t done before and
you have to lift yourself – if you’re not going to do anything that’s
pedestrian or predictable – you’ve got to crank your energy up somehow
and get connected with yourself but out of yourself as well. It’s that sort
of being able to be enchanted or to wonder - to wonder about a person or
a place or about what you can’t see or what you can feel. It’s the use of
your whole being as a means of understanding, drawing information from
the environment. It’s also the space behind – I’ve noticed that’s
incredibly active when you’re not just listening to what’s being said …
The back space becomes very important – very live - which is quite
mysterious. I put that together with something a young Maori said to me
in New Zealand when I was over there about [how] they walk backwards
into the future. And I thought that was a very fascinating, profoundly
interesting thought or reality, because what it means is of course you trust.
By walking backwards you trust your own space, you're probably facing
your ancestors and there’s something amazing about that. Anyway I put
this together with this particular consciousness I had in my backspace – as
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you're trying to walk backwards or balance on something going
backwards – that sort of process, it’s very interesting. I noticed the
Chinese actually doing it in the parks – lot of the old people just walking
backwards, as part of a sort of training to not be seeing but to be sensing
out. So that’s part of, I think, what an architect – part of an architect tool
kit or whatever you call it. The undefined aspects of consciousness or
memory or imagination. It's like occupying a very different space not just
a literal one we all tend to be trained in. (Burgess 2006:18.420-424)
The spaces Burgess explores are dynamic ones filled with consciousness,
memory and imagination. In this sense they are also an ‘extension of the
organism’ as described by Pearce. These insights allow Burgess to conceptualise
his architecture as ‘the trace of the dance’ (Burgess 2006). He acknowledges that
sacred geometry attempts to articulate this dance through activation of universal
archetypes. It is in this sense that his architecture becomes an exploration of life:
… they’re explorations of the sacredness of life and the underlying form
and flux. There’s chaos and form … And I think working with
Aboriginal people - that’s sensitive chaos. That’s what that is - and it sort
of spirals in big gatherings and it’s space and all that sort of movement –
there’s no centre as such. I’m interested in centre and periphery and I’ve
been profoundly interested in Vesica Pisces sacred geometry for a long,
long time and that, I suppose, universal ordering principle. Movement –
that’s a part of flux – yeah I’m interested in the pulse between polarities -
between life and death and re-birth. It’s quite simple really. I find it very
moving and very wonderful. That’s what keeps me going.
(Burgess 2006:22.509-513)
Commitment to me is not just about a commitment to architecture, … it’s
more a commitment to architecture as an exploration of life. I mean
architecture is a vehicle for exploring and understanding life or
connecting up in as many different ways, as many different levels one can
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be conscious of. … Well it’s like the trace of the dance. … it's not
about freezing something in a Platonic fixed form – it’s about that poise
issue where a heart’s beating or something. So it’s about life and that’s
what interests me. (Burgess 2006:22.497)
When asked what ideology guides him as an architect, Burgess responds:
I suppose it’s humanist and it’s certainly got a spiritual dimension.
(Burgess 2006:22.501)
The explorations of space and energy undertaken by Burgess illustrate how he
dissolves the separation between mind and matter, Self and Other, within his own
experience to bring about a richness of connections upon which he can ultimately
trust to provide certainty to his creativity. It also underlines the conviction that
his approach transcends current approaches to ecologically sustainable design,
which he considers simplistic in a ‘fundamentalist’ type way, in that they strive
for certainty through measures that show no tolerance for techniques such as his
own. In discussing his own techniques in relation to ecologically sustainable
design he concludes:
In some ways it’s to one side and in other ways it’s behind it all. But I
certainly don’t put myself as a shining example of [ecologically
sustainable design] but like a bit of a bungle like everybody else. But
with a strong sense of a starting point which has as part of its trajectory a
wisdom about these things. I suppose some people start it down here with
a more fundamentalist commitment to ESD but it’s not going to be much
good because there are so many things missing there that you need to sort
of come back here to reconnect or to gather and take the thing to [where it
has to go], because architecture is many things and ESD is part of that
picture and it’s an important part of the future that’s for sure.
(Burgess 2006:23.521)
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The criticism here levelled at current approaches to ecologically sustainable
design can be read as the failure to engage in it as something sacred and requiring
esoteric practice. Considering that esotericism is ‘a way of looking at sacred
things which gives deeper insight’ (Benoist 1988:15), the potential to engage
holistically in ecologically sustainable design as both sacred and pragmatic is
fundamentally compromised in Burgess’s view.
… there’s a million subtleties and impossibilities in getting things right. I
suppose that’s the other thing, one feels constantly ignorant about exactly
how to make choices in these things. It’s not a science in the usual sense
at all because there are so many things to weigh up and you get differing
opinions about where something sits. (Burgess 2006:5/6.121)
For Burgess, he is clear about the rules of engagement in working through the
complexity:
I think logic and reason, analysis, they’re all important, but I suppose it
sits all under the umbrella of intuition. Like intelligence, all that stuff
needs to be under the guardianship of intuition. It’s very real … [a] very
real creative process ... I suppose the issue is how you might characterise
it, or describe it, or learn about it, or use it. They’re all sort of slightly
elusive questions but I think there are principles there too and the
difficulty might be with some people letting go enough to trust enough, or
to put aside, getting to the right state of mind, because you need to have a
working trusting relationship with your intuition for that to fly I suppose.
(Burgess 2006:18/19.428-436)
The crucial insight offered up by Burgess is in describing design as a process that,
under the guardianship of intuition, lifts the business of sorting out things beyond
discursive thought to become the creative act of bringing forth real possibilities.
His approach reveals deep insights into an experiential domain brought to
consciousness through self-reflective practices that he describes as meditating or
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making himself ‘open to grace’, which move him beyond a conventional sense of
self (Burgess 2006:16.386-390).
Burgess provides insights into the structural significance of self and intuition in
design thinking. In the following quotes, Webb and Honman reveal that, to the
extent that self-reflectivity is not pursued as part of design practice, intuition
remains a mystery. Yet they utilise it because outcomes are so consistently
enhanced.
Its only so far you can take something like intuition (I know), but I’m still
a firm believer that there is a lot in our understanding of the brain that on
the surface is not rational, but there’s plenty of processes in nature that
can be understood that are nonlinear or nonrational. I think we just don’t
know enough about how the brain works, whether you take a very
reductionist point of view in saying that there are logarithmic processes
right back; there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that it’s not and that it’s
something more emergent in terms of thinking and consciousness.
(Webb 2006:6.71)
Consciously what I do are sometimes little exercises or disciplines where
I will stop thinking or take a break from a certain path of design or
process – deliberately do something different. Because I have learnt that
something in the brain helps fuse things together and gives you a different
look. I guess it’s a simple as sleeping on something, some kind of
intuition that suggests that nothings more to be gained rationally
following a process like this. It parallels the idea of trying to put yourself
in different experiences and spaces and gaining from that. I’m very
conscious that the trips away that I take I’m quite conscious that my brain
gets reshuffled from a design point of view in terms of influences, not just
architectural, but experiences of culture. So I guess that is a in a way a
deliberate way of trying to feed into that more intuitive way of thinking
things out. (Webb 2006:6.71)
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I know probably most of the time is spent doing the more logical “this
works, this doesn’t …” and all of those things take up probably ninety
percent of the time, ninety-five percent of the time, because you have to
get them right. But I know that unless the other is there, it’s a sort of
hollow solution, it’s not all there. So, I need to almost get out of the
office, come home and sit and think about it, and really think who these
people are, what drives them, what’s important about this site, what can I
build into this that makes meaning for them and also for myself. And so
I’m quite conscious of it, but it takes up such a small amount of time
compared with the rest. … but that’s the way things are structured at
present. There are so many things that you have to take into account with
planning and geotechnical and landscape issues and so many things. …
that’s all very well, you get a design that’s functional, but you don’t get
another level of meaning in a building, and you don’t get that unless
you’ve had time to reflect on it. (Honman 2006:5.86)
Webb and Honman provide examples of the different perspectives on the
centrality of self-concepts and use of intuition in the design process. Webb
deliberately shifts attention in his thinking from a rational mode to an intuitive
mode. In effect, he moves from problem-solving to a synthetic mode of thinking
in order to ‘fuse things together’. Webb, in effect, describes design-as-praxis in
which the attitude is more intuitive and accommodating than deliberative and
wilful (Chapter 5). Honman, on the other hand, engages in critical reflection
away from more pragmatic distractions in order to engage in a more empathetic
mode of thinking to achieve a more meaningful solution for both her clients and
herself. Both architects are in effect describing the need to think differently from
the techno-rational thinking that dominates so much of their thinking.
Pearce and Burgess illustrate two different approaches to the articulation of
meaningful space considered by all the interviewees to be part of their core
architectural knowledge bases. Pearce works with scientific concepts of space as
an extension of organism, and as an atheist, draws upon his love and wonder for
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the natural world to experience those concepts first-hand. Both modes of
understanding support the other to enhance certainty for Pearce. Burgess,
working within what he describes as humanistic concepts, deliberately draws
upon a less individualistic memory space, accessible through an attitude of mind
that values intuition, to experience communion with the sacred nature of reality.
He employs archetypes potent with universal meaning to activate his designs.
The richness of these experiences and the multiple layers of connectivity they
incorporate and activate provide certainty for Burgess.
Burgess regards the technical and scientific dimensions of sustainable design as
too ‘fundamentalist’, preferring instead to keep them subservient to the more
potent relationships he believes are activated through sacred geometry. His
criticism reflects a wider and perhaps less sophisticated ambivalence towards
sustainable design rife within the profession (Owen 2003). Oppenheim dismisses
this criticism as a preference for a methodology lacking in empirical evidence.
He wants architects to take up the challenge of a more scientific approach to
architecture.
And not only do they [performance standards] have to be seen in the
design phase, they also have to be monitored and verified and measured in
after the built object, and to see if they’re maintained. So there’s this
complete strategy of, again, not only measuring the design outcome, but
measuring the constructed outcome and measuring the performance
outcome to make sure it’s [all] there. So architects may find that process -
it isn’t an airy fairy methodology. … our office is trying to change the
psyche of architects, so that they see this as an issue that needs to be
addressed. (Oppenheim 2006:3/4.103-119)
Oppenheim articulates what Owen’s (2003) research highlights. In essence,
Owen highlights an epistemological tension between architecture as an artform
predicated on tacit knowledge, uncertainty and relativity, and sustainable design
with its reformist agenda rooted in scientific thinking, quantitative knowledge and
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certainty. This need for certainty and the difficulties in achieving it was
observed by a majority of the interviewees to be thwarting architectural expertise.
8.4 The employment of the architectural sciences
Immersion in the technical and scientific dimensions of sustainability is a concern
for all the interviewees. The reasons for this turn on the need for certainty, and
through this, the demand for quantitative measures of sustainability. Science and
technology are taken as the default mechanisms for action and there is a strong
desire amongst the interviewees for such mechanisms to live up to the promise of
certainty through ways of recognising, measuring and standardising sustainable
built environments. But experiences are mixed on that promise. This section
explores some of the reasons for the mixed experiences.
The first thing, in terms of ESD as practice, is numeracy. Then you can
implement strategies and do a whole range of things, but at the end of the
day, there has to be numeracy to measure if you’ve had any change. …
And you might have some strategies that are good, and some [that] are
bad, but you don’t know. So … you should measure environmental
impact and then get feedback from that system. Most architects are very
good at intuition and bringing together a whole range of issues, and
dealing with a whole range of issues, but are not good at necessarily being
numerate. (Oppenheim 2006:2/3.59-73)
Oppenheim’s observations about where an architect’s weakness and strength lies
were reinforced time and again throughout the interviews. Yet, in spite of the
support, this approach excited controversy. There is a concern that the current
scientific approach to sustainability cannot be applied and may never be
applicable across the full gamut of architectural considerations that necessarily
include aesthetics as well as psychological and social well being.
I am strongly in support of regulation and I think that without that there’s
not going to be a cultural shift. But once you start to regulate something
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you need to be able to measure it, and once you measure it you distil out
the design stuff and it becomes quite quantifiable and non-esoteric design
stuff. So you, by its very nature get down to the nuts and bolts, and you
lose some of the quality of the architecture, which is always going to be
impossible to measure. So, you know, catch 22 really.
(Palich 2006a:5.60)
Palich is concerned not to miss the multi-dimensionality, complexity and richness
of architectural design and raises two issues that go to the heart of the matter.
One is measuring, while the other is identifying, qualitative content. In dealing
with measurement, the social sciences have become the default means for
measuring qualitative factors, yet this is seen as problematic for a couple of
reasons. First, it has to do with the political problem of conceding professional
turf to outsiders. As Webb explains:
A really big part of why we end up getting ourselves into situations where
we’re backed into having to defend buildings against cost and quality is
that we don’t actually understand the importance of the social aspect of
the space and can’t actually have some form of knowledge and empirical
data to back that up. We’re relying on other disciplines, [for instance] the
social sciences, and it seems to have been the history of architecture over
the years that we’ve slowly given up these different knowledges. And it’s
probably that aspect of the architectural sciences that I really latch onto,
that there is the beginnings, or the re-emergence that architects can
actually claim (I hope the environmental engineers don’t get it back), can
claim some solid knowledge. So my take on the aspect of psychology of
space is that the architecture profession, us as designers, probably don’t
do enough of actually experiencing buildings and documenting what those
qualities are. (Webb 2005:13.113)
Secondly, resorting to the social sciences is seen to have real problems especially
when generalisations and extrapolations are attempted:
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… if one works between wellness and productivity, the evidence at the
moment is that it can range - as stated by Adrian Leeman from the UK-
productivity increases in that “green” building can be anywhere from –5
to +20. Now that’s not a set of numbers on which you’d want to base
anything. One huge error, and on both sides positive and negative. And
there’s so much grey noise in that report in terms of managers and
mothers dying, and children being sick. Stream out all of that, stream out
all of that and God knows what you’re left with.
(Oppenheim 2006:7/8.221-241)
Oppenheim’s dismissal of the social sciences in this particular case raises two
further points. Firstly, it was part of a greater concern, on Oppenheim’s part, to
defend the integrity of the scientific approach and in so doing, the status of
sustainable design.
I think that’s one of the biggest problems that architects need to face, is
how do they quantify what they’re doing, and only since we’ve had the
inception of Greenstar we really haven’t had a standard against which to
measure things. Now we do have it, and whether the standard’s right or
wrong or needs tweaking or anything, that’s another issue, or another
discussion, but we do have a set of standards that say, well, a group of
people, and an enlarging group of people, would suggest that some of
these things do lead to better outcomes. (Oppenheim 2006:3.91-99)
This is the first time that we’ve actually gathered a group together that’s
been able to be supported financially, because of the change of
regulations and the introduction of Greenstar. I mean there’s some sort of
regulation behind all of this. There was never a Section J, and never any
regulations to do with anything. We were the lone greenies out there.
(Oppenheim 2006:13.387-391)
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The second point concerns the real dilemma of using the scientific approach to
measure complex relationships that are fundamental to the architectural agenda.
As Burgess notes:
… there’s a million subtleties and impossibilities in getting things right.
… It’s not a science in the usual sense at all because there are so many
things to weigh up and you get differing opinions about where something
sits. (Burgess 2006:5/6.121)
… it can be quite confusing - this weighing process of what one would
like to do, and there’s the aesthetics to it as well, and there’s a point to be
made and there’s even a marketability. (Burgess 2006:7.168)
While there was real confusion on how far to integrate the scientific approach
into the architectural equation, those who embraced the concept of biophilia for
designing around a psychological rapport with nature, and approached building
performance through the concept of biomimicry seemed most at ease with this
issue.
In the last couple of years [I’ve] deliberately not focused on energy
because that is really where the technology comes [in] and its all very,
very important but just to readdress the balance, to always talk about
healthy nature of spaces and indoor environment quality. Biophilia, that
means in terms of having an environment that relates back to natural
patterns in the way we use things in the environment. Stressing the
importance of that is as sustainable if not more so than pure energy
savings and reductions … I think it’s a much-needed approach especially
for CH2 [Council House 2]. What came out of it from a costing point of
view and a marketing point of view was a healthy building more so than
an energy saving. (Webb 2006:4.51)
… the spatial appreciation of the outside, whether that’s to do with light
levels, quality of the air, experiencing movement of air, views, landscapes
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– all these aspects that tie back into something that’s very much wired
into the human experience, whether its called biophilia or whatever you
want to say. When you trace back history of qualities that people look to
in a space (and they are quite often given more ephemeral names), a lot of
them do come back to those aspects of a space or building that have a
relationship back to what’s either going on outside from a visual or a sight
point of view or what we associate. An example of that (we’ve been
looking at learning commons for some educational projects) is what we’re
calling domesticated space. So in some of the new ways of learning, what
we’re pushing is to create either landscape or access to use of food. It’s a
very simple way of students feeling more in touch with natural
environments and that has an impact on the way they learn and their
propensity to work together, which is a much harder thing to measure than
say, how much natural light they’re getting when they’re working. But it
also ties back down to the psychology or type of space that they’re in, so
there’s a lot there. But I think that that’s the one that brings it all together.
(Webb 2006:5.63)
In observing the difference between measuring biofilia and measuring light
levels, Webb touches on another problem associated with certainty. While
reductionist methodologies have been so successful in the physical sciences,
difficulties arise when they are used as the material indicator of more complex
psychological interactions. In measuring light levels and other physical settings
as indicators of biofilia, there is a real risk of using indicators that may be
necessary but not sufficient for an accurate measurement. There is also a
tendency to conflate one with the other in pursuing outcomes:
The thing is to reduce consumption of energy. That must be the first.
And you do that by using technological approaches to design, which
reduce energy. It just saves energy. I mean, we waste vast amounts of
energy in the way we behave. (Pearce 2006:8.296-300)
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Pierce sees a direct link between energy efficiency and behavioural change. The
latest evidence on the effect of Greenstar regulations upon energy use suggests a
more indirect link between the two (Wilkenfeld 2007). Wilkenfeld’s findings
highlight the need for ongoing project feedback from the field. While the
interviews show this form of feedback is considered obvious and necessary, it is
difficult to achieve.
… the buildings I’ve designed, particularly East Gate and Haruser House,
I’ve lived in the buildings. So we’ve set up the office in the building, and
lived there for four or five years and that’s enormously important because
you don’t normally get much feedback. The goal when we were in
Zimbabwe was to set up an architectural firm that did projects and
facilities management so we get [feedback]. And that’s how buildings
should be. And we’ve been at East Gate for six years so we know it
backwards and we know how it behaves. (Pearce 2006:40.1413-1425)
When asked if they are also the facilities manager Pierce responds:
No, … we keep on offering to take it over. … But ideally if we could
design, develop, build and then manage. (Pearce 2006:40/41.1429-1437)
When asked if he knew of any occasions where designers were engaged as such
he replied:
No, I don’t actually. No, I don’t think architects tend to get involved. So
they don’t build up this body of feedback as they should do. It would be
ideal if they did. (Pearce 2006:41.1441)
Burgess’ experience indicates that project feedback opportunities require support
that is not always available from either the client or the architect’s resources.
We don’t, I suppose, go into very detailed audits ourselves, but we have
worked with and employed people to do that who will [do an energy
audit] in the process of choosing and when the final building is there - to
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analyse. That’s what’s going on with this project too [units in George
Street, Fitzroy]. RMIT is doing an ongoing study of post-occupancy and
performance. But that doesn’t happen with all projects.
(Burgess 2006:10/11.244-260)
The real level of access to feedback most architects get is the sort Palich
describes:
We’re not all that great at going back and learning from our past
experiences. You reflect on them from a design point of view, quite
often. (Palich 2006a:7.211-215)
When it comes to providing a holistic service, this requires an investment in
research and follow-up that is not well suited to the demographic of the
architectural industry.
… the problem is lack of resources and as I mentioned earlier the nature
of architecture offices, they’re too small to produce a totally holistic
solution in terms of empirical [research]. (Toner 2006:7.144-146)
It also comes down to the fact that much of ecologically sustainable design is
considered too technical for most architects and outside the expertise of
mainstream engineers.
There are not many engineers actually who come as part of a mainstream
engineering practice who are either interested in helping to lead and
really, a lot of these things are quite technical so not something that an
architect carries. You’re really looking at the need to be in tandem and
usually that person tends to be more of a specialist than a mainstream
engineer, which effectively means that it’s an extra consultant. And we
have them on quite a few jobs where we convince people to make sure
they’re on board. Because we went through a process some seven or
eight years ago where we interviewed a lot of engineering firms to try and
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test their commitment because we wanted to make sure we were being led
so that we could lead. (Burgess 2006:14/15.338-342)
[In getting good engineering advice] it’s mixed and it’s constantly
changing. Probably there are different areas they’re strong and different
areas they’re weak. Strong is in anything that can be measured and
looked at from a Greenstar point of view - exchanges of air rate, straight
engineering things. Where it breaks down is where there needs to be
some judgements made from a modelling point of view. As soon as you
start looking at natural or mixed-mode ventilation for instance, you
struggle particularly at an early level with most engineers. I think that is
across the board. And probably the other area that we’re finding it
difficult is with engineers who put themselves forward as a co-ordinator
of all things environmental maybe pertaining to Greenstar but then only
really want to interface with the aspects that relate to their engineering
disciplines - and as you know full sustainability is much broader than that.
At the moment there’s a real overlap between architecture and sustainable
architects practising and environmental engineers and I’m not really sure
which way it’s going to go. (Webb 2006:12/13.157)
The scientific and technical dimensions of sustainability are a major concern to
architects critically because of the engineering component.
I think it’s essential for architects to become engineering thinking, and for
engineers to become architectural thinking. But, there’s a huge
communication barrier there. They don’t understand space and we don’t
understand energy, and as the thing has to express both, it’s essential that
we understand energy, basic concepts of energy. … architecture is energy
and light combined not just one or the other.
(Pearce 2006:46.1621-1645)
I don’t have the skills, the mathematical skills and the theoretical skills to
do all the engineering [though] I’ve got a good feeling for the engineering
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problem. And I find that this approach needs a new breed of engineers
who are trained differently from the chemical and mechanical engineers.
They need to be called something else because environmental engineering
is a holistic business, and it needs [to] break down all these barriers. ...
Holistic engineering [is] where you bring in every factor and deal with it,
actually put figures against it, and measure it. Turns into mathematics
and then it incorporates, in this new approach, the building form as a vital
part of the mechanical performance of the building. Whereas before you
made a pretty building, you sent it down the road to the engineer who
made it work. Built it up and provided all the ducts and stuff they would
have added in afterwards. But now the ducts are a space. That’s why I’m
going through all these crazy metaphors like the termite mound to try and
bring the thinking in to the team. And this is absolutely vital.
(Pearce 2006:29/30.1027-1051)
When asked about integrating the expertise of biologists and ecologists, Pierce
notes one of the major problems with the scientific view that make it such a
difficult tool within the architectural sciences:
Well, they would be very useful, I mean, they probably haven’t got to the
point where they’re placing humans in the ecology. Some of them are.
… So I’m looking for ecologists who bring in humans into the story.
(Pearce 2006:30.1069-1075)
The quest for certainty through scientific and technological means is one
recognised as fraught with difficulty on numerous fronts. There is a tension
between the certainty that can be delivered via the physical sciences and
recognition of genuine uncertainty characteristic of complex systems that is the
hallmark of the social sciences. The danger in reducing complex human
interactions to behavioural or physical indicators is real. The newer sciences of
biophilia and biomimicry have been embraced as the most certain route through
difficult terrain, and there is a growing literature of evidence-based biophilic
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design to back this up (Kellert et al. 2008). The interview analysis has revealed
that concessions of expertise to outsiders is seen as brought about, in part by a
lack of clearly defined knowledge bases for architects and in part by the
demographic typical of architectural practices. This is compounded by the
increased scope and depth of expertise required to implement ecologically
sustainable design.
8.5 Conclusion
This discussion of the art of building has used an undercurrent of concern about
the state of architecture as an undermined authority to identify a range of practice
and knowledge domains as counter strategies to this concern. The three practice
domains identified conform to natural alliances universal to the pursuit of
excellence. These are the experiential practice of personal immersion, the
reflective practice of building an oeuvre and the collective practice of establishing
tradition. Knowledge domains were identified as the art of scenario building to
service the articulation of meaningful space through the employment of the
architectural sciences. Discussion of these interactive domains revealed both the
esoteric and exoteric nature of architectural design.
Section 8.2 commenced with an exploration beneath the call by Professor Rodger
for architects to critique their approach to scenario building. Using Vesely’s
writings as a guide, it exposed the challenge of ascertaining the ‘real possibilities’
for ecologically sustainable design as against the ‘possible realities’ favoured by
modernist architecture informed by unrestrained industrialism. Webb summed up
the compelling attraction of sustainable design, seeing it as an elegant solution for
addressing real possibilities through a range of factors that prioritise planetary life
and shared meaning-making.
Section 8.3 was devoted to teasing out real possibilities for the articulation of
meaningful space. Pearce and Burgess provided powerful reflections upon the
nature of meaningful space from their very different perspectives. A bridge of
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understanding emerged between Pearce’s characterisation of habitat as an
extension of the psyche and Burgess’s esoteric engagement in the experiential
domain of psychic extension. Pearce knows of this space while Burgess actively
cultivates his experiencing of it. Both architects saw space in terms of a mental
energy embedded within a domain articulated through form-making.
Architecture designed in accordance with this truism, in Burgess’s words,
becomes ‘a trace of the dance’. To achieve certainty, both architects relied on
immersion through an attitude of love. Being ‘gathered and open’ defines the
attitude of immersion. Immersion relates to an attitude of accommodation
(Chapter 5). The major finding taken from this discussion is that neither the facts
nor intuition alone could achieve certainty without immersion through love.
Love has been found to be an important characteristic of the subjective domain of
design practice.
At the end of Section 8.3, ambivalence within the profession towards sustainable
design was seen essentially as a reaction against its scientific and technological
bias. Section 8.4 critiqued this ambivalence, as the architectural sciences are
considered elemental in providing technical certainty in the pursuit of ecological
sustainability. Oppenheim summed up the desire for technical certainty in his
insistence on ‘numeracy’ and his preference for pursuing ecological sustainability
through the physical sciences. However, the architectural sciences rely on both
the physical and the social sciences. The social sciences, involving the
complexity of human interaction, provide for less certainty, yet they function to
bring the human element into the building performance equation. Criticism of the
architectural knowledge bases has highlighted a lack of expertise regarding
energy as form-making and of the psychology of space-making. Biomimicry and
biofilia have both found support in providing for design strategies that
acknowledge these criticisms.
The aim of this chapter has been to present the impact of sustainable design upon
the art of building. Through extensive quotes drawn from the interviews, new
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insights into design as praxis reveal naturalised types of self-reflective practice
while ensuring the findings remain grounded in the life-worlds of the
interviewees. Three major findings can be articulated:
First, within the subjective, experiential domain of design as praxis, reflection
upon concepts of self, whether informed by an esoteric or exoteric level of
knowledge, emerged as a key means for establishing certainty. Through an
attitude of love, its practical outcome was to extend the psyche beyond limited
self-concepts into the greater interactive space of habitat. Within this activated
space real possibilities awaiting articulation become attainable. Trust in one’s
intuition plays a major role in this regard. This aspect of human creativity lacks
the attention and respect it deserves for its central role in enabling the design
process. It is a mental capability shown to require a deliberate attitude of trust
and respect even if its workings remain a mystery. Meditation is a well-
recognised practice for gaining greater insight into this aspect of human mentality
(see Chapter 3). Burgess’s meta-analysis of his own experiences indicates a high
level of sophistication can be achieved in articulating the intuitive dimensions of
design as praxis. He describes his technique as meditation and defines its quality
as an opening up to grace.
Second, a lack of design expertise has been found to exist concerning the form-
making dynamic of energy and the psychology of space-making. This finding
confirms the importance of a process-oriented view towards reality. It
emphasises energy as the generative condition for form-making. It also
recognises space as a psychological as well as a physical dimension. This
understanding reinforces the concept of habitat as the extension of the psyche.
Habitat is recognised by both Pearce and Burgess as a mode of presence
cultivated by its inhabitants and not to be distinguished from them as an
independent phenomenon. It indicates a domain of interconnectivity that is both
experiential as well as empirically ascertained. Again, Burgess provides vital
insights into the experiential nature of this domain. Through self-reflective
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practices, he has deliberately drawn upon the energies it is composed of to bring
its information-rich qualities to the fore. This approach to habitat finds
confirmation in the extensive architectural tradition of sacred geometry (see
Chapter 4).
Third, the interviewees see the reorientation of the design agenda towards
ecological sustainability as a necessary strategy that counters the undermined
authority of architectural practice. This strategy requires high levels of certainty
across the three architectural knowledge domains. From the interview analysis, a
typology of holistic, design knowledge has emerged in response. Its articulation
as an elegant solution requires, not just physical and social measures of
wellbeing, but phenomenological and psychological ones as well that come
through intuitions and feelings. These different accounts of wellbeing represent
different realisms and modes of certification. If these different accounts can be
brought into ‘a consilience of equal regard’ (Gould 2003:259), the dogma of
certainty can be swapped for salience and a measure of predictability may be
achieved that better accommodates human agency within complex real world
dynamics (Wang 2006).
In Chapter 9, the Art of Dwelling, a fuller account is taken of the self-
transformative dynamic of sustainable design alluded to in this chapter. It will be
presented as a phenomenology of Dwelling through Being and treated as
something sacred as well as mundane in its everyday impact upon the designer.
Chapter 9
The Art of Dwelling
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61
9.0 Introduction
From the discussion on the art of building in Chapter 8, three major findings
emerged concerning the subjective domain of design as praxis and self-reflective
practice. First, reflections upon concepts of self, combined with strong emotions
of love, were found to inform more objective design knowledge. These concepts
helped break through limited self-concepts to open up understanding of and
access to the real possibilities of habitat as an extension of the organism/psyche.
This was found to be a key mechanism through which sustainable design could
provide for more meaningful and ecologically sustainable forms of habitation.
Second, critical reasoning, emotive power and heightened self-awareness were
shown to configure the creative process but not completely define it as a quest for
certainty. Intuition was also found to play a major, if mysterious, role in
producing a truly elegant solution. Burgess, in particular, revealed this to be a
domain of experience that could be more self-consciously engaged in through
meditative practice.
Third, a typology of holistic, design knowledge emerged, which combines
phenomenological, psychological, physical and social measures of well-being.
These measures represent different realisms and modes of certification that
together allow the designer to offer a more salient architectural response to the
complexities of bringing the human development agenda in line with planetary
well-being. Explorations into the art of building have so far revealed that sound
reasons and opportunities exist for self-reflective practice.
This chapter considers how the transformative potential of ecologically
sustainable design affects the designer in the art of dwelling. This requires
observing design practice as a two-way dynamic between objective knowledge
and subjective attitudes. What do the interviewees think is the transformative
agenda of sustainable design? What are the attitudinal barriers to this agenda?
What are the personal settings they already have that have drawn them to take up
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the challenge? Do they also see the challenge in terms of their own self-
transformation?
To answer these questions, the interviews were coded via Grounded Theory to
reveal what the interviewees had to say about themselves and the world in which
they practice sustainable design. Two sub-themes emerged: personal settings and
existing conditions (Figure 7.2b).
The sub-themes within this coding structure represent an iterative dynamic of
self-transformation. A narrative emerged from the interview material that
explained this dynamic as the art of dwelling. The interviewees embody this art
through an ongoing critique of the status quo. The status quo was found to
represent three different expressions of existential need discussed, first, in the
context of human development pressures, second, as a hidden limitation of
sustainable design, and finally as two iterative strategies for self-transformation
oscillating between the personal and interpersonal (Figure 9.1).
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In Section 9.1, existential need is identified in terms of human development
pressures. Under-development and over-development pressures were found to
afflict human well-being as an expression of existential need in different ways.
The narrative concentrates on the afflictions caused through over-development, as
this is the real-world setting within which most of the interviewees work. Section
9.2 discusses a second expression of existential need that remains un-addressed
within the distinct strategy currently pursued as sustainable design. A third
expression of existential need underscores the self-transformative strategies
employed by the interviewees in rising to the challenge of sustainable design.
These strategies involve personal and interpersonal dynamics. Section 9.3
explores private self-awareness as personal dynamics. Section 9.4 explores
public self-awareness as interpersonal dynamics. Section 9.5 presents the
The Art of Dwelling
Human development scenarios
under-development
over-development
alienation
denial
apathy
Sustainable design
Functionalism
Double-loop learning
Self-transformative strategies
personal dynamics
phenomenology / enchantment
integrity intuition
happiness and self-interest
propensity
passion courage humility
critical reflection
group dynamics
office culture
Participatory Design
advocacy opportunism leadership
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conclusions drawn from the discussion of existential need for its impact upon the
art of dwelling.
9.1 Human development pressures
The interviewees see energy and resource consumption together with
technological advances as the double-edged sword of human development. They
see them largely in terms of opportunities for self-fulfilment that are not only
unsustainable but morally wrong. This understanding is well supported by the
literature on ecologically sustainable development (Chapter 2). As a result of
human development pressures, the under-developed world is now in great need of
these resources (UNDP 2008). But time is at an absolute premium in ensuring
development pressures can be met in ways that are sustainable and are of real
benefit to those most in need. The dilemma of development is bound up in
notions of growth, needs and limits (Meadows et al. 1972; 2005). The growth
mentality, which currently powers unsustainable development, must be
transformed. It is financed through an outmoded economic model, which has
seriously distorted utilitarian concepts of human well-being and compromised
ongoing development agendas (Section 2.1). It is also based on an industrial
production model with a functionalist concept of nature bereft of intrinsic value
(Diesendorf and Hamilton 1997; Hamilton 2003). This model of development is
not only unsustainable but is seen by the interviewees to have caused real loss,
not only in terms of physical resources but also in existentialist terms of
alienation from the natural world and sense of place within it.
No economic argument factors in natural resources. Our economies in the
West are all based on growth. They don’t put a cost on that. They don’t
recognise the limits. (Pearce 2006:11.387-395)
Pearce pinpoints the loss of fire from consciousness as a major factor in the
alienation process that has reduced the ability of modern society to really know
how to live within Nature’s limits.
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Vitruvius, I’m told, said that what created human society was the fire. …
And it seems that in the machine age fire has disappeared from our
consciousness, whereas previously it was always there. It was there on
the fields where people farmed, because you burnt the stuff off and you
cleansed the field with fire, and you fertilised the field with ash. Now we
use fertiliser, and we use machines which are all driven by fire in the form
of fossil fuel. … And fire has become something we fear, particularly in
Australia. … In Africa it’s not so. People are totally conscious of fire.
…They also are conscious of the carbon cycle. … The problem for me is,
we’ve lost that consciousness [of fire], and therefore we don’t understand
that we’re adding vast amounts of fires that never happened. … the solar
energy has been stored up [as fossil fuel] and now we’re releasing it
without even realising it. And we’re totally changing the balance. One
way of looking at it: that consciousness of energy, I think, needs to be
something that architects need to express. (Pearce 2006:12-14.439-531)
Honman articulates the existential danger of urbanisation in breaking down
connections with the natural world.
I think it’s how vulnerable we are, and how intertwined we are with
nature. We’ve really tried to get away from that. We’re terribly urban,
[yet] we are connected in so many ways to nature, to animals, to plants
and what’s showing up so rapidly is that those connections are being
broken, and the effects can be catastrophic. … So I think that you must
try and make, understand some of those connections. Even if you’re not
terribly scientific or well read about scientific issues, you must take on
board what people say who know about these things, and say “What is my
action going to have on this particular piece of land” or whatever.
(Honman 2006:8.122)
The over-developed world on the one hand knows much about its condition but
has lost much in terms of a common sense, embodied knowledge about how to
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dwell in nature. This situation gives further testimony to the problematic
embrace of the industrial model of development discussed throughout this thesis.
Exploitation of energy is a major factor in the strength of the industrial model and
its dominance over older patterns of human development. Extraordinary wealth
creation has been attributed to its successes in the harnessing and exploitation of
human and natural resources. However, liberal democracy is based on
utilitarianism; a philosophy which supports the rights of the individual and of
future generations to partake of human development initiatives (Section 2.1).
Pearce is very clear that once a need is stoked it must be met. In this sense need
is tied to aspiration.
… it’s partly living in Africa too, you realise that you don’t need so much
of this stuff because you see people without it. I mean, the whole time
you’re conscious of people who live at a much lower level of
consumption. [However] they see what they can’t, what they don’t get.
… we can get it, so we can do without it, but if you don’t get it then you
can’t do without it. That’s a huge problem. … it’s why they all move in
to cities in vast numbers. (Pearce 2006:55/56.1926-1938)
I can think of at least two or three people who have said to me they prefer
to go back to Africa than come here, because they’re missing [something].
It’s actually freedom from need. (Pearce 2006:56-57.1978-1982)
However, when this was noted as the privilege of choice Pearce agrees that those
who don’t have the choice can’t get rid of the need.
They don’t have that experience. So they can’t get rid of the need. But
we can. The first world people can go back and enjoy not worrying about
the need. Not caring about the need. Not needing the need.
(Pearce 2006:57.1998-2010)
You know that’s a real problem with the West, we can escape. We can go
in to the airport lounge and get away from the crowd because we have the
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money and the means to do it. And we lose that touch, that contact with
nature. I mean it’s very much to do with that fire business.
(Pearce 2006:58.2032)
The speed at which urbanisation pressures have grown means that time is the one
resource which cannot be squandered in fulfilling under-development needs. The
urgency of the situation is felt to be dire not just in terms of providing for
development needs to be met, but in ways that are truly just in terms of people
and planet. Pearce links a new sense of justice to an understanding of the Earth
through the concept of Gaia.
I like to then, when you’re talking about energy, think about the next
triangle, which is scale. That is the rate at which the energy is consumed.
And distribution. … Who gets the energy? That’s about human justice.
See, scale is about rate, rate of consumption and the rate at which the
ecology can absorb the resultant entropy. Distribution is about justice,
and finally allocation for efficiency. (Pearce 2006:9.323-335)
And cities in Africa are growing at six percent, and they’re not getting a
house, or a job, or any benefits. People need a tap to turn on water.
They’ll need power. So we’ve actually got to provide vast amounts of
energy somehow. And I don’t believe that the Chinese are going to go
back on their objective to urbanise four hundred million people. We’ve
got to find a way of doing it and keep the planet going. I mean that’s the
problem. So you know, the need is not going to disappear. I think that
the consciousness of where we are and the results of pursuing all of these
needs must be got across. It must be part of our education. We all should
learn about Gaia and about the consequences of climate change.
(Pearce 2006:55/56.1942-1958)
Understanding ecosystem equilibrium dynamics as Gaia is a recognised strategy
for ascribing intrinsic value to Earth systems (Section 2.1). It constitutes taking
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up ‘completely different’ responsibilities Rodger notes are of such urgent concern
in bringing human aspirations into balance with Earth’s holding capacity.
… there was nowhere, by the late fifties, where human activity hadn’t
intruded. … So even in the most remote places on Earth, the fingerprints
of humans were there. And the corollary of that was that having grown
into the environment as it were, filled it, there were no new places to go,
no empty spaces, a whole array of responsibilities become completely
different. You really have to take responsibility. You may or may not
like it but that’s the way it is. Growing empires can grow as long as there
is space round about them. But the human enterprise, Bill Rees, he says
that if we all did it like the European and the Americans, we’d need four
Earths and we’re living at more than one Earth at the moment by running
down the stock. (Rodger 2006.386-390)
You’re actually using up the one resource that you can’t make any more
of. You’re using up time, the lead time. … its immutable and you only
get it once, every little bit of it. … You release carbon today, the total
effect of that is spread over sixty or seventy years and there’s nothing you
can do about it, you can’t catch it again. … And if you take action now to
look after the future, it takes a long time to transform the capital stock,
even if you have a total commitment to doing it, which you don’t.
(Rodger 2006.80-100)
Sense of urgency was highlighted in the literature review as the missing
ingredient in responding to unsustainable development (Section 2.1, 2.2, 2.3).
From the review of the MA Report and the IPCC Report, mainstream neoclassical
economics, with its emphasis on instrumental rationality and narrow, short-
sighted cost-benefit analysis, is condemned for obstructing a concerted effect to
change.
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I’m instilled with a sense of urgency. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I
certainly feel that there’s a sense of urgency to address these issues. To a
point where I feel panic about it, but that helps as a driver. I don’t know
what it would take for people to do it because I come across people all the
time who don’t believe that there’s an urgency about what we need to do.
So why would they do it? Because your community’s asking for it,
because its the latest thing to be? (Palich 2006a:2/3.24)
Rodger exposes why the real need is to transform the current development model
while emphasising the inherent self-interest within any strategy to deal with the
problem.
Well, by far the best thing we could do for our own survival - forget about
sustainability - survival of ... a congenial lifestyle in Australia - the most
valuable thing we could do would be to develop and to give away our
market visions for sustainable futures including giving away - making
available at prices that could be absorbed - the technologies. … It’s
absolutely in our self-interests ... and what a mission for a technologically
developed world and [to] make it globally available!
(Rodger 2006.294-400)
The behavioural change literature explains the current response at the level of
individual decision-making. It is related to the problem of ‘bounded rationality’
in that rules-of-thumb logic, pre-empting of one’s options, conservatism and
short-sightedness are value perceptions that filter and often distort rational human
behaviour (Garnaut 2008:408). In Section 9.2, weaknesses found within the
current approaches to sustainable design in dealing with bounded rationality are
discussed.
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9.2 Sustainable design
Observations as to the seriousness of the situation, its urgency and the stance
required of the designer to address them provide the opportunity to look more
closely at models of sustainable design currently subscribed to by the
interviewees. How well do they attend to the transformative agenda required of
them? Sections 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 describe two particular expressions of existential
need of concern to some of the interviewees that may be confounding the
situation.
9.2.1 Functionalism
Webb is concerned to look beyond a conventional approach to human
development (what he calls the “straight way”) and to see it as something to be
fundamentally overhauled.
So I think there is a layer and a level that we have to look to beyond the
straight way that we live now and start questioning “well, what does it
actually mean to be a conscious thinking hominid in the rest of the
landscape?” And maybe it’s not as simple as saying that we can just work
with nature, it’s some very different relationship to what the rest of the
modern world has. … the bigger picture is how do we now create a new
relationship with nature in the way we want to live.
(Webb 2006:2/3.28-32)
Webb wonders whether trying to improve the situation through simply ‘just’
working with nature is enough. Just working with nature implies a value-free
functionalist attitude toward the natural world as a resource to be exploited.
Functionalism powers the unidirectional, exploitative relationship with nature
currently under critique (Plumwood 2002). Webb is critiquing the continuation
of a functionalist attitude. It is a mindset that he believes must be addressed
through the transformative agenda of ecologically sustainable design and
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development. The relationship Webb considers appropriate is that of a creative
act based on want. But what typology of a wilful, creative human being is Webb
referring to and how are wants to be assessed? What sort of mindset is Webb
advocating to go with this new typology?
… we’re always going to have to solve a lot of fundamental natural
problems by technology because of our ability to conceptualise. So given
that is a given, I think we’re in a great position ... to actually take the best
of technology and look at what actually is superfluous in our lives. And
whether that’s looking at purely the material aspect of life or whether it’s
looking at all our petty status anxieties that we’ve all got. I think that’s
something to be learned from our previous connections with nature …
(Webb 2005:17.144)
Pearce (2006:5.142) concurs with Webb’s understanding of humans as
technologists. He specifically acknowledges that ‘all species on the planet
transform energy’ – it defines life and therefore survival. He sees the need to
manipulate earth’s energies as deeply ingrained in the human psyche. It provides
the impetus behind humanity’s technological and cultural development.
It’s to do with energy. All the species on the planet transform energy
from the sun. And we’ve found enormous deposits of energy stored from
previous periods and we’ve mined it. Now, it goes right back to the use
of fire. … you get all these huge advantages just from transforming
energy. Well, that’s where it starts and it goes on and on because we
now, without realising it, are changing the climate of the planet.
(Pearce 2006:5/6.142-189)
According to Eckersley (2004), the outline Webb gives of human nature as
technologists driven by petty status anxieties is succinct and incontrovertible,
even if it is a little dismissive of the full emotional power of human motive to
conflate need with want. Pearce acknowledges its roots in the evolution of life
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and its power in transforming human culture. Webb advises using technology
only to address one’s needs, with the extent and nature of need to be assessed
through references to previous connections with nature.
… it’s more looking at your needs in terms of the minimum requirements
to live and then build on what we’ve got from a technological point of
view. … Most of the problems in the world would be solved if we
actually consumed less. It’s a pretty big thing whether that’s in terms of
emissions or in terms of materials. (Webb 2005:17.144)
Webb believes that once those minimum needs are defined this should lead to
reduction of resource consumption. He attests to this approach through his own
interest in bio-mimicry and biophilia (see Section 8.4). These are scientific
understandings of nature as a system of instruction from which humans draw
sustenance that is both physical and emotional.
So for a number of years I had a very strong interest in looking at natural
systems. There’s obviously the emerging science of bio-mimicry.
Architecture has got a lot of scope to get into that. … I am just
constantly inspired by looking at the way nature does things. I think it’s
such an untapped resource in terms of not just buildings but everything
we make and manufacture. It’s probably not quite an environmental ethic
but it’s … looking at the processes that nature might use. There’s no
doubt that how nature does it is a way that’s sustainable.
(Webb 2005:18.156)
The effectiveness of this approach lies in its potential to transform an orientation
toward nature from one of unidirectional control towards a more respectful
relationship (Sections 2.1 and 8.2). The functionalist approach is thereby
tempered through respect. Webb considers such settings as necessary for reduced
energy consumption. While biomimicry is largely concerned with a technical
understanding of nature, biophilia is squarely aimed at uncovering the link
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between nature and emotional well-being and designing the built environment
accordingly (Frumkin 2008; Greene 2008; Kellert 2005; Kellert and Farnham
2002; 2008; Kellert and Wilson 1993; Kibert 1999). Bio-mimicry and biophilia
are both regarded as genuine improvements upon current attitudes and strategies
within architecture. But is it really enough to rely on this approach alone? Can it
really address petty status anxieties? An observation critical of current
approaches to sustainable design initiatives made by Palich provides the trigger to
explore into this matter in greater depth.
9.2.2 Double-loop learning
Natasha Palich is an architect recognised for her advocacy and leadership within
local government and the AusIA on matters to do with sustainable design. Palich
is frustrated by the tendency to focus on efficiencies rather than effectiveness as a
reflection of ‘a distinct strategy’ toward ecologically sustainable design that
favours existing techniques and technologies. In her estimation, this approach
has been proven not to work:
I’ve tried to explain the recent revision of the new Port Phillip [local
government] policy around that, so it’s not lowering our impact, it’s not
being efficient about everything, it’s being effective about everything.
It’s an idea that’s been around for ages … I don’t think that’s generally
well understood. … But we’re also working within a distinct strategy –
the techniques and technologies that we understand. And what we
actually need is to shift away from that because they don’t work! And
they won’t ever get to! (Palich 2006a:20.675-683)
While the need for certainty has been seen to configure the ‘distinct strategy’
Palich rails against (see Sections 8.3 – 8.6), it is the idea of an uncritical stance
towards sustainability strategies themselves that has been found in need of further
investigation (Section 2.2). Palich realises that focusing on design intervention
alone is problematic and relying on a distinct strategy that preferences technical
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innovation is also not working. It is then worth considering Palich’s accusation
in light of Action Research theory about the extent of real change required for
sustainable outcomes (see Section 6.4.7).
Action Researchers argue for double-loop learning through the necessary
prerequisite of personal transformation for any systemic change to be effective
(Argyris 1990; 1993a; 1993b; Argyris and Schön 1974; 1978; 1996; Crossan
2003; 2004; Senge 2003; Senge et al. 2008). In their estimation, focusing on
technical and institutional change initiatives alone is not enough. This supports
Palich’s concern. In favouring efficiency-through-technology measures as the
distinct strategy of choice, this approach while necessary is not sufficient, in that
it doesn’t directly challenge the need for personal transformation.
We have masses of technology. There’s no shortage of that. And our
ability to use them; there’s no shortage of that. The biggest problem we
have is our own culture. (Pearce 2006:15.551-555)
But the biggest thing that I think [about] all this stuff is, “yes there’s
going to be a few GHG emissions saved and there’s going to be a bit of
water saved”, but I think what I’m mainly doing is working towards first
is cultural change / shift. (Palich 2006a:4.41)
Gunn provides a clear example of the consequences of focusing on design
intervention without adequate attention upon designer self-transformation.
I think it’s easier to deal with a client that doesn’t want to use recycled
timber. But it’s very difficult to deal with a client who’s stubbornly
egotistical and thinks that his way or her way is the only right way.
(Gunn 2007:7.62-66)
It has to be started by questioning how big a footprint you think is
ethically correct, as opposed to how much you would like to have. Or
how much you think you should have because other people have it too.
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So there’s a lot of – how will I put it - from a Buddhist point of view you
have to look at ego and ego is very important in the design process.
(Gunn 2007:3.28)
Gunn reflects on the central role of ego in defining what is ethically correct and
then designing in recognition of this. She is talking about the ego of both the
architect and the client, for once a position has been taken, the designer must take
on the responsibility of encouraging the client to think critically about these
matters as part of the design process.
However, there’s a responsibility, I think, for pointing out to your clients
that perhaps what they need may not necessarily be what they would like
or want or what would be responsible. But quite often – sometimes - you
just have to suppress that because the code of practice states that we have
to design for our clients. (Gunn 2007:3.28)
Gunn’s reflections in particular about architect/client relations place the architect
in a subordinate relationship. This was supported by many of the interviewees as
a barrier to change. Ways of dealing with this are presented in Section 9.4.
However, the important observation to be made at this juncture is that, according
to Action Research theory, personal transformation is activated through double-
loop learning. This is a type of learning that requires a self-reflective stance
toward the status quo to expose one’s complicity in the life-long habitual
conditioning that maintains the status quo (Section 6.4.7). On the
social/personality index it requires meta-self-awareness skills (Figure 3.1). Palich
sums up her own predicament. She, alone among the interviewees, admitted her
own culpability.
I think actually that because I’m so passionate about it and because I am
interested in learning about all this stuff, I read about it over and over
again that it becomes ingrained. … But even someone like me with my
ingrained belief in all of this stuff, I’m not living differently. And so I
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often think, well what hope have we got. You’ve got somebody like me,
I’m passionate, I’m way fit, I practice it as much as I can but really, I live
in a three bedroom house, I’m out in the suburbs, I’ve got two cars, I’ve
got a dog. (Palich 2006a:7.83-93)
In explaining why little effective change has occurred in spite of this knowledge,
Senge et al. (2008) note it requires a commitment to personal transformation
together with support for such transformation from wider social and professional
structures; a situation which Palich herself admits is rarely the case:
Clients come to you and say, “I want to be really green (with my) building
and I’ve come to you because you’re a sustainable architect”. But then
they either don’t take my advice on what to do or they don’t ask me and
go off and make decisions and buy things or whatever without [consulting
me]. So I think I have fairly high expectations in terms of, if you want to
say, you are doing a sustainable building. I don’t think they’re high
expectations but I have experience to think they must be. But they’re
fairly simple decisions to make and I don’t see my clients always
following through with them, so it’s pretty disappointing in a way.
(Palich 2006a:2.16)
I have fairly high expectations of the Institute [AusIA] I think which isn’t,
definitely isn’t shared by all members. But you forget … you forget that
there are people out there who don’t think like you. … It was related
back to whether or not you took the precautionary principle on something.
And by not taking the precautionary principle and putting other things
into place I felt was a very egocentric approach, whereas what I was
trying to push was an eco-sense in that it would take in precautionary
principles. And I think for me that’s how I put it into practice – an
ecological viewpoint, worldview – is to take the precautionary principle
on everything. (Palich 2006a:9/10.125-140)
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Transformation is really at the core of all this, and because we live in a
pretty comfortable society, with a government who’s encouraging that
kind of unreal sense that everything is all right, when it’s not, I think, in a
way that’s saying we don’t need to suffer or we don’t need to
acknowledge that other people are suffering. Because I think the only real
transformation comes about through suffering, in a way. So if you live in
a comfortable country it’s more difficult to transform, more difficult to
change when you don’t feel the need to. … Reflection is very crucial in
all of these things. To reflect what went wrong, to reflect on what is
being denied, or are things really as good as [they seem], or why aren’t
we thinking more about this. Because I think that’s the problem, that
comfort thing is a real problem in Australia. We think all of us have it
pretty good, why bother to try too hard about these sort of things. [This
is] part of the picture in which architects work and it’s part of denial, part
of that thing about denial and lack of reflection as is the whole issue of
Australia’s past. And it’s in the present now, we’re denying a lot of
things ... So that’s head in the sand kind of stuff.
(Burgess 2006:2.32-36)
Palich and Burgess’ criticisms re-emphasise that fear of change is deep-seated
and it is this fear of change that hides behind petty status anxieties, egocentricity
and denial. These deep-seated fears also remain hidden by an emphasis upon a
distinct strategy for change based on existing techniques and technologies. The
problem with this strategy is that the real focus of change, life-long habitual
conditioning, is not directly confronted. Without direct attention upon cultivating
meta-self-awareness skills through self-reflective practice, the opportunity for
transformation that includes designer self-transformation necessarily remains
under-acknowledged and therefore under-supported at many levels. Self-
transformation, as a condition of both individual and group dynamics, reflects the
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powerful role of social interaction in the development of self-identity and in
guiding a sense of adaptability to change.
9.3 Self-transformation strategies as personal dynamics
The logic for taking a critical stance toward current approaches to sustainable
design was to expose the need to include designer self-transformation as part of
the agenda. Action research theory holds that double-loop learning must include
self-criticisms by the designer in living up to the transformative agenda of
sustainable design. This logic reinforces the need for engaging in meta-self-
awareness through self-reflective practice. Action research theory further holds
that attempts at self-transformation are often thwarted by a deep-seated fear of
change and lack of support from wider social and professional structures. This
being the case, a wide range of strategies utilised by the interviewees will be
assessed in terms of countering this fear. This section presents a range of
personal dynamics that constitute private forms of self-awareness. They include
bodily sensations as well as self-images formed through a combination of moral
training and emotional qualities.
9.3.1 Phenomenology
Within architecture, phenomenological approaches are pursued as a counter to the
alienation and disconnection observed as a consequence of Modernism
(Alexander 2001-; Alexander et al. 1977; Caicco 2007; Dovey 1979; Holl et al.
2006; Norberg-Schultz 1966; 1975; Seamon 1993; 2007; Seamon and Buttimer
1980). Phenomenology has been used to explore subjective ways of knowing
through heightened self-awareness. It is a deliberate philosophical stance against
the scientific method with its pursuit of objectivity and dismissal of first-person
experience as a legitimate knowledge base (Harvey 1989; Husserl 1939/1973;
Merleau-Ponty 1964; 1992; Varela 1987; Varela and Depraz 2003; Varela and
Shear 1999; Wallace 2000). Uncritical scientism is seen to undermine deep-felt
engagement with the natural world and the design knowledge flowing from this.
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Oh I do Tai Chi. That is self-expanding and also to me it’s a holistic sort
of a thing. It actually fits in with sustainability to my way of thinking.
Everything’s interconnected; every movement creates another movement,
that’s my core [understanding]. … It’s not even something I can explain
but which is a meditation as I see it. … We all need to personalise that
somewhere. All that I can think about when you ask me that question
[about experiencing interconnectedness] is being at some point in the
middle of a Tai Chi exercise and having that sense. … If you’re
engaging in [Tai Chi] practice I guess you do have that more intuitive
sense of [interconnectedness] … but it’s at such a deep level. How you
access that? (Toner 2006:24/25.508-526)
When asked if she consciously draws on it to enhance her design knowledge
Toner replies
No. I think it’s just part of what I do. You never get to think about these
things. (Toner 2006:25.528-530)
Though Toner finds Tai Chi reinforces her understanding of sustainability, she
does not admit to practising it as a deliberate design method. While this may
reflect Toner’s current professional situation as one in which design is not the
focus of sustainability pursued within the office, it can also be argued that lack of
support for subjectivity in Western culture has undermined it as a guide (Chapter
4). Her oversight can be argued as a consequence of the taboo of subjectivity
within the sciences and its flow-on effects into an overly-scientistic approach to
sustainable design (Section 5.1). The only interviewee to cultivate a deliberately
phenomenological approach to guide his design response is Burgess.
I think part of the use of it [intuition/creativity] is communication I think.
… It’s about making the space in which people can – a group of people –
can co-habitate and creatively contribute to and begin to build energy in.
I think that’s quite critical, especially group clients, group dynamics. So
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the way your state of mind affects the capacity to express yourself is
extremely important for working the way towards what it is it’s got to
become. So, because it’s already involving people in the process …
there’s a communication, an exchange in energy, or mutually building an
energy which is not just me or you or the other people, it’s a shared
energy which is freed from you and shared, which sort of lifts – which
makes a lifting – it’s that thing of the other, or the group, or the
community, or the world. All those things take it into another realm
where you’re still connected [to the thing it has to become] but there are a
whole lot of connections working with it. So it's in movement and lifting
and it’s integrating energy … It’s not comfortable necessarily. …
There’s something there about being prepared for things to be a bit raw.
So we do some very refined things, but there’s something important about
not being afraid of rawness and reaching towards something and not quite
getting there or you fall on your face or you’re getting up or there’s
something you can’t see clearly and you’re going for it – and that’s pretty
wonderful - to go with that rather than feel you've got to work it ‘til it’s
[done]. So there’s something there in architecture; a kind of poise – quite
sort of sibilant poise, or dynamic poise or dynamic compromise.
(Burgess 2006:19.440)
Burgess’ understanding of riding with a dynamic rather than working an idea too
self-consciously highlights the value of a process-oriented view in dissolving
self-boundaries (Section 8.3). Phenomenological engagement in design dynamics
brings consciousness to real-world bodily processes of engagement that constitute
sensations, feelings and imagination as a holistic experience (Chapter 5). It
encourages the practitioner to re-orient and enlarge their sense of self through
mindfulness of these processes and in so doing, to become more genuinely
grounded in the moment and place of their experiences. Dwelling in their
experiences, truly dwelling in them as a physical, emotional and mental
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experience, becomes the base from which to design. In referencing an image of
Persian art, Burgess emphasises an attitude of enchantment as an appropriate
meditation upon dwelling:
That’s one of my favourites. The birds and the whole world is enchanted
and it’s all about moving into a state of being connected so that you have
the right thought at the right time, the right gesture or the right idea.
There’s something when you’re connected – things come together in the
right way – that openness it’s almost like an innocence in spite of our
worldliness – we have to trust I think. (Burgess 2006:17.408)
Through exposure to African life and cultural expression, Pearce recognises his
own need for self-expression has been enriched by full-bodied, emotional
experiences beyond the strictures of the intellect. He realises the value of art as a
mode of expression that channels this need.
You see, I’m very lucky because I work in Africa. They’re fantastic to
work with. I’m very lucky because you can’t escape from that [psychic
intuition] in the way they do things. Here you get enormous value from
aborigines I would have thought because of their [intuitive] knowledge.
All these things, they should be [valued]. Exactly, and you see though
their art and, of course, that is another thing that I should do more of, I
should paint. Do more art. But actually working with Zimbabweans on a
building site or anywhere, you can’t escape from that, because they just,
you know, it’s there. They haven’t a problem … they’re very physical
people. And they’re very good at singing and dancing. And their
language is fun. And their language is all metaphorical too, they’re very
good at metaphor. So everything’s like this or like that. And they work
intuitively, very much so. So you listen to your feelings much more. I
mean I’m normally very bad at that; my heritage prevents me from
listening to my feelings, my English [heritage]. Very positive enriching,
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and the third world gives you that. That’s why I go back there all the
time, it’s fantastic. You go to Bali, and places.
(Pearce 2006:51/52/53.1778-1853)
Pearce has come to recognise the limits of his own cultural upbringing at a
number of levels. First, he finds that to paint more and to think more
metaphorically has allowed him to move beyond his emotionally-limited
upbringing. Working through different modes of self-expression and
understanding the world through different language traditions has helped Pearce
to take a critical stance toward his culture and the connections and boundaries it
sets up.
… the psyche doesn’t end in the fur or the skin or whatever it is. It
actually, when you make a space to live in, it extends to those boundaries.
… It’s like making new boundaries. Now boundaries have all sorts of
problems about them. They have one side, which is what I call language,
or culture. … We particularly have a fascination with language. We have
to speak in order to think and so on. But the act of speaking, language is a
very consoling act. I mean there are dozens of examples of people
who’ve moved to different places and failed because they’ve not changed
their culture. They’ve taken their culture with them and simply practiced
their culture in a different environment. (Pearce 2006:3/4.71-111)
Pearce’s observation about the comfort of psychological boundaries that culture
and language bring reinforces his and Burgess’s concern to move beyond
language in order to break down boundaries and make new connections. Burgess
places himself beyond discursive thought through phenomenological means
embedded in the meditation he practices as part of the design process.
Connectivity becomes a deeply felt experience and a dynamic that he is then able
to reflect upon with real understanding. His approach acts as a counter to
uncritically placing one’s own self-concepts onto other cultures and environments
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(see Section 8.3). Heightened self-awareness plays an important role in critiquing
one’s self-concepts and activating the real possibilities of group dynamics. Self-
critique enhances the ability to respond appropriately to other’s needs throughout
the design process.
This discussion highlights the need to ground design responses in real-world
possibilities through a critique of self-concepts. This is in order to balance a
tendency toward an overly restrictive view of self that is seen by
phenomenologists as a subtle form of disengagement. Culture plays a central role
in reinforcing this tendency and Western culture, with its under-developed
notions of subjectivity is defined through this characteristic (Wallace 2000;
Wallace and Hodel 2008).
9.3.2 Integrity and intuition
Cultural settings that foster alienation, apathy and denial are keenly felt by all the
interviewees as moral laxity. They are well aware that absorbing firm moral
training through upbringing allows them to resist these pressures and to ground
their own self-affirming measures. They understand that to practice ecologically
sustainable design with integrity they must live according to its tenets. They are
also well aware of the need for reinforcement across all domains of life. The
more embedded the learning, the more intuitive the thinking and more confident
the interviewees were of their stance in light of the cultural milieu.
It’s more about what right has one person got to exploit anything, person,
animal, ecological system for their own need, I guess. I don’t know
where that sense of justice or equality has evolved from. I guess my
father has always tried to instil that sense of fairness.
(Palich 2006b:8.263-267)
I try and take my approach all the way through my business really. So I
bank with a bank that I don’t think is as unethical as some of the major
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banks. All my investments are in ethical investments. My mortgage is in
an ethical investment. I try and live that way. All the paper I use is
recyclable. I work from home because I’m only doing two days a week.
But I like that because I don’t have to travel. … I would try and through
my business support organisations or events or people if I think they are
trying to make a difference. So if I can assist them in any way. I think its
fundamental to practicing architecture sustainably that you actually
practice sustainability. (Palich 2006a:2.20)
We also have that oath. This is something that I took very seriously and
once again I think it’s being brought up as the child of an architect, who
was really into - it wasn’t sustainable design it was just environmental
design. … My background has come back out and it’s been endorsed by
the movement of the moment. … It’s the moral issue that’s the
interesting one. If you’re attaching a morality to it you don’t want to set
yourself above people at all. That’s not sustainability. For me it’s about
sharing the information and having extra knowledge in this area.
(Toner 2006:11/12.246-258)
I was brought up an Anglican. I was an altar boy and I was always
fascinated by the physical and the metaphysical and to try to find some
morality that guided one’s actions. And when I started to do architecture,
I found it very odd that there didn’t appear to be an ethical approach to
design. … there was no ethical evaluation of why one does it. And does
this bring one closer to God or further from God, all of that was missing.
And then when the first oil crisis came, well the first one that I
experienced … all of a sudden I said “Oh, okay this is an ethical issue”
and, “where do we sit on all of this?” So I suppose that was my guiding
thing. But what drove me was this sense that we need to be moral and
ethical in what we do and how does one take the path that one’s chosen
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and not be a priest and to do that in an ethical way.
(Oppenheim 2006:8/9.261-273)
Oppenheim’s comments highlight the impact of existential need upon human
motivation. Time and again throughout the interview process, interviewees
expressed existential concerns that drove their actions and their need for integrity
in the process. Ecologically sustainable design provides the vehicle that
transports these emotional forces into real-world engagement.
For Webb, self-worth comes through making a practical contribution to life;
whether that be in the private or public sphere, and practised through
architecture or otherwise. Critically for Webb, happiness is tied to the creative
process required for the practical outcome and architectural design is well suited
to this existential need. Sustainability, for him, is an emergent philosophy; a
quality of design tied to wider views about life that enhances the practical
contribution that Webb can make.
I’ve always been a strong advocate of an objective view of life; one where
your ability to produce something is a direct measure of your self-worth
whether that’s to physically produce something in terms of ideas or
whether it’s doing something. I’m a very strong advocate of the
relationship between your own happiness and your ability to produce
something whether that’s personal or public. So therefore, my main aim
in what I do is the enjoyment of the process and what I’m doing. The
sustainability side of it is certainly a very strong motivator behind it but
it’s not why I engage in architecture; it’s an emergent philosophy. And if
I wasn’t doing architecture I’d probably be doing something that had
some other sort of similar ideas-based or creative aspect. The absolute
bonus of what I’m doing is that it also has a very strong relationship back
to my ideas about the world. I couldn’t imagine any other profession that
has such a scope for cross fertilisation. (Webb 2005:15.131-133)
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Webb provides the definitive statement about sating one’s existential need
through vocation. The art of dwelling is to practice one’s vocation with care.
Whether practiced through Palich’s humanitarianism, Toner’s professional ethics,
Oppenheim’s religious concepts or Webb’s utilitarianism, all attempts at logic
only reinforce what is recognised as a fundamental setting of human nature
(Layard 2005). This is a recognition of the right to self-expression. The only
proper response to the fact of existence is awe and reverence. When tied to a
concern that one’s own self-expression not come at the expense of others, it
illuminates a fundamental moral precept of sustainable design.
9.3.3 Happiness and self-interest
Emotional well-being underpins one’s sense of vocation. All the interviewees
direct their happiness and self-interest toward hopeful activity. Directing them
towards the service of others is seen as a moral act that is also self-interested even
to the point of selfishness. This understanding reveals how deeply embedded
Darwinian utilitarianism is within the Western psyche.
It’s necessarily in your self-interest to be an advocate for sustainability.
… Interdependence and inter-responsibility it’s hard to confront. … The
question is … if life is good, do you want to make life good for your
children and grandchildren and succeeding generations if it’s good. … If
Life as distinct from our life … it actually becomes a rather exciting and
challenging task once you’ve bitten the bullet that you’re not going to
spin it out forever. If you think “she’ll be okay”, if you think Mother
Nature is a beneficent mother who looks after her progeny then, “She’ll
be right.” “Don’t worry about it too much.” That’s for some people
much more comfortable. I think it’s unrealistic. (Well, look at religions -
full of endless, endless promise.) Well, if you take the actual experiential
side of living as good, something after that’s a bonus, but the living bit we
actually have some control over. (Rodger 2006.370-386)
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I don’t think it really matters if the human race becomes extinct but I kind
of like this idea that we’re all trying to save ourselves. I’m quite
entertained by this whole thing. But the only reason I subsume myself in
it is because it entertains me and I’m passionate about it. You know the
only reason I have enough time and energy to devote to this is because
I’m fed and I’m loved and I’m housed. It’s all selfish, it’s all driven by
self-need. I mean that’s how I see it if you really get down to it, if you’re
talking about happiness. But I get very, very upset when I see people –
(you know there’s that fundamental level where I think we’re all stuffed),
but at a day-to-day living-with-community type level I do get very
influenced and driven and passionate about it. Therefore we have
responsibility, definitely. (Palich 2006a:9.125-133)
Palich sums up the complexities of existential need. She embodies what she
admits is a self-oriented need tempered through selfless responsibility. Her self-
critical stance allows her to distinguish responsibility as a thanksgiving for her
personal good fortune that allows her to give and take with integrity.
Honman emphasises the emotional well-being pertaining to responsibility. She
understands that to act through a sense of responsibility is a decision-making
exercise guided by an emotional response to moral training.
You must maintain a global perspective of those things, but also bring it
down to how you deal with people on a day-to-day basis. … you’ve just
got to be so straight with people, and not to favour one party over another
… And if you feel … uncomfortable about it then I know it’s a wrong
decision for me. So it’s just a feeling that you think, “no this is not right”.
And I guess I’m fortunate that I was brought up with very good core
values from my family, and I’m really lucky that that happened. … but
you’ve got to really think, take one step back from that decision and say,
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“okay, what’s the right things to do here” … it’s what makes you feel
good. (Honman 2006:12/13.194-198)
Honman’s decision-making is bound up in feelings. It is a response to feeling, is
guided by feeling. In this manner it is a sense-making activity guided by intuition
(see Section 3.4). Intuition may be explained as a reflection of moral upbringing
but to fully explain propensity, phenomenological accounts of intuition take into
consideration the embodied nature of cognitive processes that lie strictly beyond
the reach of consciousness (Thompson 2001; 2007; Varela 1999a).
9.3.4 Propensity
Propensity refers to an inclination. The full significance of propensity was
defined through praxis with its close relationship to prohairesis as ‘the exercise
of choice between various things or courses of actions, [which] is at one and the
same time a preferring and a choosing’ (Snodgrass and Coyne 2006:112) (Section
5.1.1). The essential quality of propensity can therefore be understood as both a
preferring and a choosing; a situation emphasising its mix of tacit and
deliberative knowledge.
I was right into, you know, trees and stuff. And then it took me a while
to actually work out and learn about what it was and then apply it; redirect
that energy into my profession. Because at one time I had a dual focus,
one that was the more green end of the campaigning, and then I managed
to apply that to my profession. So, I don’t know where it comes from, but
it’s always been there and I was able to direct it towards what I had been
trained in. But I often describe myself more as a greeny first and
foremost, over and above an architect. But it’s becoming better, because
they’re becoming more and more integrated. (Palich 2006b:6.189-205)
Existential need surfaces through propensity. For Palich, her first motivation is
environmentalism and sustainable living as a practical approach to sating her
existential need. This has found expression in sustainable design at the
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professional level. Palich’s engagement in sustainable design indicates that, for
her, sustainability is the higher authority and the basis for existential need. This
can be contrasted with Webb’s approach as discussed earlier (p. 85). For him,
sustainable design is an emergent process, in the sense that it has enhanced the
creative processes felt critical for his own happiness by allowing for a growing
awareness of deeper existential concerns about sustainability.
While many of the interviewees spoke of their upbringing in providing content to
intuition, Honman provides genuine insight into its power. Through her own
self-reflective practices she reveals how the creative, wilfulness she experiences
(and which Webb speaks of in Section 9.2.2) is powered by an aspirational need
over which she has only limited control.
I mean you’re a product both of your time and the place where you grew
up, and the family situation you grew up in and the family situation you
find yourself in now, and all of that, so you’re tied up with other people so
much. I think what you do, what you become is also part of it. I mean I
find when I go and look for books or listen to music or whatever, you’re
drawn to certain things, and you don’t know why you’re drawn to them,
you don’t have either the vocabulary or the knowledge of those artforms
or whatever to say why you like them, you can’t be particularly critical,
but you’re drawn to them. What is it that draws you to them? Having
then been drawn to them, you then find out more about them and then you
find that, “yes I really do like the way this is composed, or the way this is
written”, or whatever, and it puts you in touch with a whole movement, a
whole array of thinking, a whole way that other people have thought. So
again, you’re putting yourself out there to discover what other people
have previously discovered, but you find you identify with it intuitively.
So you have to trust your intuition a lot and it’s very easy when you’re
working with other people to question it, because they will question it,
because they have a different way of operation, but I think there’s a lot in
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intuition that we don’t use and don’t value highly enough. Because I
think there’s something that just attracts you to certain things, and that’s
what you are, and you almost want to identify yourself with that group of
people who can do those things, and you wish you could do it as well as
they could. You construct [yourself] through identifying with other
groups. (Honman 2006:10/11.150-162)
Honman appreciates that she is drawn to a certain expression of self. While she
may be influenced by upbringing, Honman realises that there is an attractive force
beyond upbringing through which she realises her aspirations. Her insight is to
take a process-oriented view towards this relationship. Honman realises she is
not the instigator of her propensities; she is the condition it expresses. Wilfulness
is played out as an aspiration to identify herself through others. While she may
appear as a wilful interpreter of her lifelong instruction, intuition actually guides
her aspirations and decision-making processes. Intuition channels an existential
need for self-expression. This signifies the need to look beyond upbringing for
deeper insights into self-motivation.
9.3.5 Suffering
Burgess makes it clear that genuine self-transformation requires experiences that
engender feelings of suffering. For him, one of the tasks of the designer is to
understand, empathise and experience suffering as fully as possible in order to
connect to real-world situations.
It’s not easy I think to just read and do something just because you read
something either. It’s like things happen when a client is particularly
sensitive to toxicity or something and so that becomes an extremist
situation because somebody is in some sort of danger. What you and I
might cope with in terms of breathing stuff in, they break out in [reaction]
or go into paroxysms of coughing. They make you more conscious and
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make you think it’s a very real underlying [condition] of how serious say
that particular thing is. (Burgess 2006:5.109-121)
I went to China at the end of last year and gave a talk in Shanghai. One of
the big things there for me was … the density and the contact is far more
pressing, and the quality of the air and the quality of the water and all
these things, which in Australia you come back and take for granted. …
Therefore, the next level of suffering, whether it’s bronchial or brain, that
all becomes much more real … there’s no substitute for being there
yourself and feeling affected … bodily and psychologically and
emotionally and even then you have to experience it probably many
times. (Burgess 2006:3/4.56-77)
… things that happen like international climate disaster that result in
widespread humanitarian disaster is just uncomfortably unbearable from
your comfortable couch to watch really. (Palich 2006a:10.136)
If I had time and looked into where my clothes come from I’m sure I’d be
horrified. If I looked into where my food comes from I’m sure I’d be
horrified. But I happen to be an architect. I happen to be able to focus on
this stuff so I can be horrified about being on a deck that is from a
Victorian forest. It depends I guess on what you’re prepared to be
horrified by. And so it’s all real personal stuff. It’s the sort of thing you
need to experience really. … And if you haven’t really gone through that
thought process or experienced that you’re not going to make a decision I
think, or it’s a real decision for me anyway. (Palich 2006a:8/9.117)
Palich reveals what it takes to make a real decision: suffering and passion. These
experiences drive her outlook, her stance and her actions. Through her own
behaviour, Palich embodies and activates Vesely’s (2004) understanding of the
‘real possibilities’ for design.
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9.3.6 Passion, courage and humility
Palich demonstrates the level of passion that accompanies suffering. It is a
passion for others as well as a passion about how to live that powers a mixture of
urgency, purpose and despair that underlies many of the interviewees’ strategies
of engagement.
I think actually that because I’m so passionate about it and because I am
interested in learning about all this stuff, I read about it over and over
again that it becomes ingrained. As you say it’s intuitive. And there’s no
decision to make but I know with some people there would be a decision
to make. (Palich 2006a:7.87-89)
I know that if I think about this too much I actually get overwhelmed by
the fact that we’re all doomed. However, (I do think that we’re all
stuffed, but that’s okay), I prefer to go down fighting.
(Palich 2006a:9.125)
Toner is well aware that while suffering is a crucial response to other’s suffering,
it must not be turned into despair. This is a deliberate choice she can and does
make. Toner turns it into a positive critique of the status quo, which at the same
time, sates her own existential need for self-expression.
… there’s the knowledge and there’s the despair. You can very swiftly go
off into despair and not do anything but the real trick is to stay away from
the despair knowing that it is potentially there. But if you can be engaged
in working away from that despair, for one you’re making the outcome
less severe perhaps, hopefully. For another, action and doing it makes
you feel better about yourself that it is transforming [something]. “Well
here’s what I’m doing. It’s all like that but here’s what I’m doing.”
(Toner 2006:23.476-478)
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Honman is also reflecting upon the emotive power which drives existential need
when she talks about what she likes and dislikes and what she sees as her
personal challenge:
I hate seeing waste, I hate seeing poor design, I like to think that
everything you do makes things better, that you repair what is bad, and
that you try and make it better. Even if you’re working with something
that’s really awful, your challenge is to improve it. (Honman 2006:4.64)
For Pearce, engaging in battle forges many useful qualities. It forges purpose
with humility. It also improves communication skills through the need for clarity
in getting across one’s message as effectively as possible.
You have to fight for something you want. You’ll never get there without
a struggle, so you must be prepared to really battle for it. And in the
battle, that gives you the focus, and the clarity. I mean clarity is very
important. I’m very bad at writing, and talking but I’ve learnt to make it
more and more simple by using simple language, actually. Because you
get it across much better. So communication is vital, so talking is just as
important as listening but you need to try and use very simple language to
get [your message] across and that keeps your thinking clear. And then
you must expect a battle. (Pearce 2006:43/44.1545-1549)
It’s not a game; it’s a real fight. And the other thing is that you have to be
prepared to accept failure with humility. And you know, accept that
failures are strengthening occasionally. I mean there’s strength in failure,
and weakness in success (you rest on your laurels).
(Pearce 2006:45.1585-1601)
The preceding two passages from Pearce reinforce the importance of humility as
the key that unlocks the self-transformation process. But it is a humility forged
through real experiences and real engagement in battle. Humility becomes a form
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of courage as well; courage in never being too sure and in having the confidence
to make change.
I sort of drifted away from my earlier political activity, which was pretty
violent, to a much more passive position when I realised it didn’t work (in
Africa, that is). So I’ve changed there. I’m beginning to think that we
completely misinterpret other cultures. So there’s a change. I’ve changed
from somebody who’s pretty arrogant, to somebody who’s less arrogant
and more accommodating, so that’s a change there, as I get older. You
realise that - and I think that’s very important - never to be sure that
you’re right and have the confidence to change. It’s very important.
(Pearce 2006:35.1242-1254)
Passion and courage are the critical emotions that drive a determination to take up
the challenges to be met through ecologically sustainable design. One of those
challenges is to avoid over-confidence so as to have the confidence to change.
This requires humility. It allows Pearce to reflect, to note changes and to learn
from his mistakes.
9.3.7 Critical reflection
Keeping up-to-date and double-checking one’s understanding is crucial to staying
critically informed.
You know, it’s so important to try things out and follow them right
through to the end and be involved in the re-assessment of them. It’s very
important. … The goal of course is eventually to try to get as many
people aware of the problem, to raise consciousness. And to keep
involved at the front line. I regard myself as having to. Education has to
go on all the time, right through your life. (Pearce 2006:34.1198-1218)
But to practice it properly I think it’s just a decision and then a
commitment to research it. … the best way of gaining this expertise or an
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expertise in anything is actually trying it and working through it.
(Palich 2006a:3.24)
If you’re at all interested in it [architecture], it becomes much more than
just your job. [It requires] complete feedback [which] you do
independently just by the shear extent of the stuff that you deal with and
the amount of time and effort that goes into it. So yeah, there’s a constant
feedback there. (Webb 2005:9.82)
There’s masses of information. You have to keep crosschecking. … I
think that is essential. You have to keep up with what’s going on and
cross check. (Pearce 2006:37.1304-1320)
Webb, when asked to reflect on the nature of commitment, brought up his own
critical reflection of beliefs. He noted that ultimately his stance reflects his beliefs
but with the proviso that this, too, be subjected to critical reflection.
[Commitment] conjures the aspect of a future and thinking beyond the
short term whatever that’s in. It also for me ties back into having some
sort of integrity about what you think of to start with, because you can’t
use the word commitment without accepting that there are fundamental
things that you accept to believe in. So to me it’s more of an
acknowledgement of your own attitudes to things rather than necessarily
buying into or accepting a particular way of looking at something. It’s
not a word that I’ve used that much actually. (Webb 2005:10.92)
Webb’s comment about ‘fundamental things’ raises a fine distinction between
beliefs and acceptance of beliefs. This is a clear case of meta-self-awareness.
Webb has been able to step back from his beliefs and to view them more
objectively. This view has allowed him to clarify what drives him and to make
some choice in the matter.
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Phenomenology, moral values, emotional qualities and critical thinking represent
a range of personal strategies valued by the interviewees in their aspirations to
practice design that is both meaningful and ecologically sustainable. These
strategies generate a dynamic compromise in both encouraging and tempering
efforts to live through those standards they have chosen to believe in. This
dynamic powers their public behaviour as architects. But again, the dynamic is
iterative in that the public domain exerts an influence upon the individual that
both reinforces and challenges personal attributes. The following section
examines how designers utilise these personal settings within the public domain.
9.4 Self-transformation through interpersonal dynamics
Public self-awareness is the process of self-consciously conducting oneself under
public scrutiny. The interviewees reported on a wide range of strategies that
reveal the importance of reinforcing personal values and agendas through group
dynamics. These strategies provide deliberate feedback between design
intervention and designer self-transformation. The interpersonal strategies
presented in this section have been chosen because they are deliberately
provocative in challenging current practices. They illustrate Sen’s (2002) call to
celebrate protest and activism as a necessary mechanism for human freedom of
expression (Section 2.1). Feedback loops are activated through office culture,
Participatory Design, advocacy, opportunism and leadership.
9.4.1 Office culture
Transforming office culture through active feedback loops is critical to delivering
sustainable design. The spectrum of approaches discussed by the interviewees
aligned with their personal understanding of, and commitment to, sustainable
design. Burgess discussed his office practice in terms of hiring employees and
engaging sub-consultants with a commitment to sustainable design. Webb took a
more pro-active and structured approach in recognition that sustainable design
needed to be integral to the firm’s own sustainable business model of service
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delivery. He considers the real test of personal commitment to sustainability is to
deliver it in his professional capacity and as part of a business plan. To this end,
Webb was personally engaged in overhauling the office’s design delivery process
to reinforce sustainable design thinking at every stage. To this end, Webb was
personally engaged in overhauling the office’s design delivery process to
reinforce sustainable design `thinking at every stage.
... its [sustainable design] been bubbling in the background and probably
only become quite a integrated or more overt part of the design practice in
the last 2 or 3 years ... [in] that we’ve actively tried to draw from previous
projects and gather information for the next project ... we’ve actually got
at least one person now dedicated to just doing that as opposed to being
involved in projects. So she’s just physically interviewing, researching,
collating lessons learnt on previous projects. The biggest gap at the
moment is getting everyone in the office to a certain level in terms of
knowledge. ... we also in the last couple of years formalised a lot of that in
terms of check lists and matrixes and QA systems ... [and we] have a
library that is set up via the Greenstar rating … and it’s a wish to not lose
the information that we’ve gained so it’s…in a lot of ways a business
decision as well as an environmental design decision.
(Webb 2005:3.29-35)
When asked as to who initiated these processes Webb replied:
Its probably director driven, me and one or two others. (Webb 2005:39.4)
However, it was Oppenheim’s office that offered the most extreme example of
double-loop learning. Oppenheim’s approach was to vet potential employees for
their commitment to the bigger battle for cultural change within which
architecture sits. This approach to being a designer confirms the iterative nature
of self-transformation practices.
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I mean, the staff here … some of them were eco-terrorists … I mean they
come here they’ve got to be committed to the environment, be part of an
environmental organisation and bring a skill that makes money. We’re
getting an increasing number of people who want to come and work for us
… because we appear to be doing the current “in” thing, and so that they
see ESD as a skill that they need to acquire to work in the market place,
which is terrific. … but from our point of view, we can’t employ those
people because a lot of our staff have had to suffer the slings and arrows
of dispute and because we try and take as radical an expression of it.
(Oppenheim 2006:10/11.305-321)
Look, the fit-out of the office is important … there was a commitment by
everyone to have nothing new in here, and to have the right attitude. …
And you can’t sort of direct staff to do that, I mean there’s an attitude of
staff, “Oh okay I’ll do that” and that’s part of the ethos of the firm. … So
when you talk about this internal reflection, I suppose it’s a view that
we’ve all taken and we all support as a group; this is the way things are
done. (Oppenheim 2006:12.365-377)
Say if there was an anti-nuclear protest, [it] would be known within the
firm by everyone, that that activity would be supported in terms of going
off and protesting. … If they wanted to go and protest against say, anti-
animal, that would not be seen as part of our core business. … But if it’s
to do with the built environment and how the energy’s supplied to the
built environment … yes it’s seen as something that would be supported.
Because I suppose from a management point of view, that all of the
knowledge that they gain, and the experience and the street ‘cred’ and all
that sort of stuff is important to lay on the table.
(Oppenheim 2006:11/12.345-357)
It is worth noting the limits of support for activism Oppenheim has put in place to
separate out issues he sees as specific to his business involvement in the built
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environment from those he considers less applicable. This reflects an approach to
ecological sustainability pursued within the architectural profession that may be
too narrow to adequately accommodate interdependency (Section 2.2). It
underscores the pragmatic difficulties of defining boundaries for activism in an
interconnected world of complex problems all requiring critical levels of
engagement.
Double-loop learning theory and phenomenology both claim to offer legitimacy
to ways of experiencing and transforming reality. They fundamentally challenge
the distinct strategies toward ecologically sustainable design Palich raised as of
real concern (Section 9.2). Within architecture, Participatory Design workshops,
with their emphasis on community empowerment, come closest to employing
Action Research methodology in activating double-loop learning as a
community-learning exercise (Sanoff 1990; 2006; Sutton and Kemp 2006).
9.4.2 Participatory Design
All design is profoundly interactive, involving many parties in the process.
Participatory design is deliberately practised at a higher level of interaction for
community empowerment. Expertise and commitment is shared beyond the
office and built up within the wider community. This approach to design is seen
as an ideal way to practice ecologically sustainable design. It gives recognition to
a fuller complement of people and processes that enable the ‘real possibilities’ of
the design process to be met. But it challenges the architect to personally address
normative patterns of behaviour in the process.
I think the will of everybody participating in the project needs to be there.
I think that requires quite a lot of skill and requires quite a lot of
compassion and a generosity of spirit. And also to a certain extent a
suppression of ego I guess. And there are certainly some architects that
would find that difficult. (Gunn 2007:19/20.186-190)
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The other thing that I find is that architects mustn’t be afraid to step out of
their cocooned existence. It’s something that everyone should be engaged
with. It’s a public thing. If you try to build your own monument and
become better and better at selling it to the corporates, I think you’ve lost
your way. (Pearce 2006:23/24.843-871)
Pearce reveals the challenge of participatory design to be a balancing act of
control and ownership while always mindful of cost. This balancing act is central
to managing the design process and makes public and accountable the delicate
balance between wilfulness and letting-be. The significance of the outcome is in
its power to create habitat as an extension of the psyche; the ultimate expression
of sustainability according to Pearce. He argues that such an outcome is
measurable in terms of productivity and well-being.
… the more participation you get from the wider users, from other
experts, the better the product I think, if you can control it. It gets
expensive – workshops - very expensive but they’re good. They’re good
things to do. And the more you can pull people in, the more people own
the ideas. (Pearce 2006:25/26.915-923)
It goes back to that extension of the psyche. The whole idea that that’s
what the building is. By doing that, if you can get a building that people
can really belong to in that very holistic way like an animal’s burrow,
there’s no question about their productivity and bottom line, it’s more
healthy, it’s an environment which they enjoy working in.
(Pearce 2006:24/25.883-887)
Whereas Pearce’s understanding of participatory design may be regarded as
ecological, both Honman and Burgess express two humanist perspectives.
Honman sees the process as one of empowerment through critical engagement
with the design process.
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… the belief that I have is that everyone should be able to design … It’s
not the realm of experts, professional people to do that. Everyone has
within them the ability to do it and a lot of people do not have the
confidence. And I see trying to give people that confidence as an
important thing, but also the confidence to reject what’s out there that
they’re told they should buy or build. And so what you’re trying to do is
really change people’s attitude. And sometimes it works and sometimes it
doesn’t … Sustainability is important and increasingly becoming more
and more urgent and people will turn around for different reasons. But
you need to be able to give them the power and the confidence to do so, I
think. (Honman 2006:4/5.68-78)
Burgess considers the process in terms of its phenomenology. The experience is
enriching because creativity emerges as the vehicle of communication between
the participants. That this creative process is also a “rubbing against one-
another” reveals the interactive nature of creativity in its rawness.Participatory
design, while a non-mainstream design methodology, can be seen to encourage a
more direct focus on attitudinal and behaviour change that has found its adherents
among the interviewees. A problem noted with this method is that it requires
time and high levels of interpersonal skill that challenge self-image as well as
professional imagery.
9.4.3 Advocacy, opportunism and leadership
The pursuit of sustainable design has led many of the interviewees into advocacy
and the wider public domain. If architecture and architects are to be relevant in
an era of transformation, these practitioners see it as imperative that architects
transform their own profession and extend their sphere of influence into the
political domain.
The most worrying thing I think is the almost complete failure to grasp
how serious the situation is at a community level. Not at a technical or
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expert level. It really doesn’t matter if you or I understand that perfectly
… its whether you can generate the political will. … Public advocacy
becomes a part of that mission and Natasha [Palich] is presiding over a
number of initiatives in the Institute [AusIA] at the moment, as you well
know. One is a public advocacy and clear commitment that the Institute
ought to take a proactive role either directly with the community but also
as an advocate to government and to business and [to be] much more
proactive than they have been in the past. (Rodger 2006.108-112)
I reckon that you can create your own opportunity. It is really difficult if
you’re working as a full-time architect to actually get out there and absorb
all this information. I was fortunate enough that when I was at the
Institute [AusIA] to be involved in a lot of industry activities. Then, as a
member of the committee and Chair of the Committee and now at the City
of Port Phillip, in these advocacy roles you have time to go out to
conferences. … You have to make the time and it’s mostly on my own
time obviously, when I’m asked by the Institute. (Palich 2006a:3.33)
You do what you can where you can - entirely opportunistic. I suppose
my effort has been to create a context in which sustainability becomes a
kind of respectable, reputable arena for discussion and therefore
subsequently for adoption. (Rodger 2006.262-266)
… you build up credibility as you go, you have a track record and that’s
worth power. That’s worth power and persuasion. You also have to take
risks you see. You have to keep taking risks with people as well. I mean,
I’m not a corporate person at all, and I don’t obey those rules, and that
doesn’t get me any power, but I think that you get into a powerful position
by seizing an opportunity. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,
you’ve got to seize the opportunity. You’ve got to find the opening and
always take it. I never actually don’t take up an offer. I always listen to
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an offer. Whether I take it or not is another matter, but I think it’s very
important to always be open to change, to seize an opportunity.
(Pearce 2006:36.1272-1286)
… you’ve got to lead the way and the local authority is the best vehicle
for that at the moment because the local authority is at the interface
between people and politics. (Pearce 2006:21.753-757)
Webb gives voice to the cultural barriers against engaging in public advocacy.
There is a real tension between architecture and city planning in Australia.
Planning is seen as a pragmatic, regulatory exercise rather than an urban-design
exercise.
[Advocacy leads to] architects being involved in broader planning at
government level. And there’s a lot more precedent in Europe for
architects being very much involved at local authority level in terms of
reviewing and approving processes. One of the huge problems in
Australia is the way that the planning system works – the lack of training
for planners. They basically have no formal design training at all. And
the fact [is] that design architecture is not actually a valued part of
Australian culture. (Webb 2006:9.104)
Webb’s own understanding of good urban design is something he sees as so
fundamentally at odds with the current situation it has led him to despair of
achieving it within an Australian setting. Therefore, he feels his energies should
not be swallowed up in pursuit of what he sees as fundamental change but to
remain focused on insertions and incremental change. This is the dilemma faced
by all who engage in transformation. It underscores the need for activism. But
Webb’s predicament must also be juxtaposed against Rodger’s comment that
architects not become too isolated from public understandings. This reinforces
Vesely’s (2004) understanding that architecture remain in the realm of real
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possibilities as a genuine service to cultural change. The art of activism is to
activate change through push-and-pull strategies.
Quite often when I think about the bigger realm it’s probably why I have
yet or maybe will never take a step beyond architecture into an urban or
city design type role (although I think it’s an absolutely critical one). My
current view and understanding of what is a sustainable model or the way
that we should live in the city is with a very medium to dense quite small
core with lots of natural environment, landscape – I mean it’s a little bit of
a Dutch model; you only have to go a couple of kilometres out of
Amsterdam and you’re into the farming. So it’s much more a series of
dense satellites. It’s quite well documented that it by far, in our current
way of living, the most sustainable way to live. So what I’m really saying
is that somewhere like Australia and indeed much of the world,
particularly the developing world, is so far beyond achieving that model
and ever getting back to that model that the best we can do from a
strategic point of view is to improve on what we’ve got. And I find it
very hard to work from the bottom up. I think [engagement] in city
planning, urban design that’s the only way forward unless you’ve got the
opportunity to look at new towns or cities. So therefore, I feel my biggest
difference I can make and also have the most satisfaction myself is to look
at examples and models of things within the current system that are really
good if that makes sense. It can be viewed as a fairly selfish approach.
It’s not to say that I’m not constantly advocating better ways to be in the
city, but in terms of putting the rest of my life energies and efforts
professionally, I don’t think the way I think and the way my brain works
is suited to having to deal with the complexities and particularly politics
of trying to make a better city fabric within what we’ve got.
(Webb 2006:7.80-84)
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You make it reflective and you engage the community in a continuing
education process and of course Greg Burgess would say (almost) the role
of the designer is (a quality architect) is to engage the community in an
educational way. (Rodger 2006.69)
As Rodger sees the problem, self-transformation is not something that can or
should be restricted to one party or another. He advises that it is an iterative
affair.
… you really can’t have one without some level of the other because
simply the smart learning professional who learns from their mistakes if
you like, but stays isolated from say, client or community or whatever,
isn’t going to get anywhere because the communities’ ego (coming back
to the psychiatrist’s model), their self image of who they are is rattling
along undisturbed by the evolving ego of the architect.
(Rodger 2006.250-258)
The final say is given to Palich and Oppenheim in summing up what is required
of the designer and what to expect of the many challenges engagement in
ecologically sustainable design delivers.
In my experience people that emerge as leaders are the ones with the
passion, that’s the most important thing, combined with knowledge and
they don’t compromise. (Palich 2006b:12/13.421-429)
Look I couldn’t be happier I’m a pig in mud it’s just fantastic, just
working with or from my perspective, it’s just fantastic to be surrounded
by really young active intelligent people, and it’s just fantastic.
(Oppenheim 2006:18.527)
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9.5 Conclusion
The art of dwelling has been identified in this chapter through a narrative about
existential need. Sustainable design is seen to provide the vehicle through which
this need can be channelled. Three different expressions of existential need
representative of the status quo were used to measure the success of sustainable
design both as a task-oriented and designer-oriented transformation strategy.
In Section 9.1 under-development and over-development pressures were seen to
inhibit and distort various expressions of existential need. Having lived in Africa,
Pearce understood under-development pressures in terms of a person and a
community knowing about and aspiring for what was available, but which at the
same time was not being provided for. Needs of the most basic kind are not
being met. The current model of human development through urbanisation
requires enormous amounts of energy to make it work. Whether the provision of
energy and its distribution is equitable as well as sustainable is seen by Pearce to
be the two greatest challenges to the success of this model.
Over-development was defined as a state of not needing the need to the point of
denial. Pearce saw escapism as a deliberate choice to remove oneself from the
suffering of others through denial. It is motivated by a deep-seated fear of
suffering that was recognised as a major problem of over-development.
Burgess identified denial of suffering as the status quo in Australia. Honman
noted how denial has given rise to another need. This is denial of one’s
vulnerability to psychological alienation as more and more connections to nature
are broken. She sees this as one of the great dangers of urbanism. It’s a form of
hubris in not recognising one’s biophilic needs. These reflections led to the
conclusion that the over-developed world has lost much in terms of a common-
sense, embodied knowledge about how to dwell with nature.
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Rodgers noted the squandering of time as humanity wrestles with its collective
conscience. This situation has been reviewed in the literature as a problem tied to
outmoded socio-economic decision-making frameworks that are too narrow and
short-sighted to deal with the unsustainable pressures upon the Earth’s
ecosystems. Time is the most important resource that can never be reclaimed and
Palich sums up the urgent action needed in addressing the current situation. The
conclusion drawn from this critique of development pressures is that denial,
alienation and apathy define over-development. The escapism and hubris they
foster are the real human problems in the over-developed West that must be
addressed through ecologically sustainable design.
Through a critical stance towards ecologically sustainable design in Section 9.2,
hubris and escapism were found operating within strategies currently favoured.
Webb is looking to move away from the hubris of just working with nature. He
revealed a dissatisfaction with the exploitative, functionalist mindset through
which the natural world is valued. Pearce notes that the hubris Webb critiques is
deeply grounded in the need for humankind to make the most of technology to
take advantage of nature and rise above its constraints. Both Webb and Pearce
regard biomimicry and biophilia as scientific approaches toward ecologically
sustainable design that allow for a more respectful relationship with nature.
However, there is no guarantee that attitudes will change (Section 2.2). A closer
look at Palich’s concerns about current efficiency-through-technology measures
revealed a resistance to change that these approaches alone cannot address.
Action Research theory promotes double-loop learning as both a personal and
interpersonal dynamic for change. Personal transformation is a recognised
prerequisite for structural change. Focusing on technical and institutional change
alone without deliberate techniques for personal change is not enough. Therefore
efficiency-through-technology measures, while necessary, are not sufficient in
that they do not directly challenge personal transformation. This critique revealed
petty status anxieties and egocentricity as real problems that remain un-addressed.
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Hiding behind these conditions is fear of change itself, especially when directed
at one’s life-long habitual thinking. Palich sums up the difficulty through her
own meta-self-awareness. She knows that in spite of being ‘way fit’ to make the
changes, she still embodies a way of life that is unsustainable. Action Research
theory holds that part of Palich’s problem is that personal efforts at self-
transformation require support from wider social and professional structures. The
conclusion that can be drawn from this is that self-transformation needs to be
directly addressed and then directly supported. Self-reflective practice is a
recognised method directly aimed at self-transformation. Any attempts to include
it as part of design methodology would require active support from the
architecture profession by recognising it as professional development practice.
In Section 9.3 real possibilities were critiqued for transforming petty status
anxieties and egocentricity through a review of personal and public levels of self-
awareness pursued by the interviewees. The review of personal strategies started
with phenomenology as the most extreme and under-appreciated critique of
current approaches to ecologically sustainable design. Phenomenology offers a
means of breaking through self-boundaries while remaining grounded in the real
experience of design. The significance of this approach is in providing for a
richness of connectivity that is normally overlooked in a Western cultural mindset
that devalues subjectivity. Phenomenologists consider current cultural settings
encourage a subtle form of disengagement that their methodology addresses.
Self-awareness was next discussed in the more familiar terms of moral values and
emotional qualities. These attributes were critiqued through an exploration of
intuition that was found to be informed by them but also to guide them.
According to Honman, while she appears as a wilful interpreter of lifelong
instruction, it is more a process of being guided by her intuition which channels
her existential need for self-expression. Sating one’s existential need becomes
one’s vocation in life. Practising one’s vocation with care defines the art of
dwelling and illuminates a fundamental precept of sustainable design.
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Happiness and suffering, humility, passion and courage were all shown to act as
filters upon self-interest and in maintaining careful pursuit of one’s vocation.
Happiness provides a register of Honman and Toner’s successes in practising
their vocation with integrity. Suffering acts to extend Burgess towards others and
identify with them in their suffering. Suffering combined with passion allows
Palich the courage to take up the fight to make things better. Humility was
explained by Pearce as a form of courage, in never being too sure and having the
confidence to change. This led to the further requirement to keep engaged
through critical reflection. Phenomenology, moral values, emotional qualities
and critical thinking represent a range of personal strategies valued by the
interviewees in their aspirations to practice design that is both meaningful and
ecologically sustainable. These personal strategies power public behaviour and
are in turn reinforced and challenged in the public domain.
In Section 9.4 those interpersonal strategies that are deliberately provocative in
challenging current practices were discussed. They concerned office practice,
participatory design, and advocacy, opportunism and leadership. They were
chosen as positive examples of double-loop learning that explain its power at
both the personal and interpersonal level. Oppenheim demands from his staff
pro-active engagement in environmental groups and the skills to make money for
the business of ecologically sustainable design. Participatory Design challenges
architects to rise above their egos and the tendency to expropriate knowledge. By
engaging in real service to the community, architects are being challenged to give
back to the community the confidence to co-create their own habitat. Advocacy
at government level and through the profession’s representative organisations
provide another challenge for architects to build into their professional practice
the capacity to leverage change outside the office.
Four questions were asked at the beginning of this chapter. What do the
interviewees think is the transformative agenda of ecologically sustainable
design? What are the attitudinal barriers to this agenda? What are the personal
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settings the interviewees already have that have drawn them to take up the
challenge? Do they also see the challenge in terms of their own self-
transformation?
The target of the transformative agenda of ecologically sustainable design within
the Australian context is over-development. The attitudinal barriers to this
agenda are denial, alienation and apathy that afflict over-development and
underlie the escapism and hubris it fosters. This also includes the emotionally
barren and controlling functionalist hubris of ‘just working with nature’ that
powers current socio-economic development practices. The interviewees are
explicitly concerned at better design outcomes enriched from lived experiences of
respectful engagement.
The other barrier to the transformative agenda is the deep fear of change itself.
Action Research theory refutes the efficacy of current strategies that favour a
‘distinct strategy’ based on efficiency-through-technology techniques. This
approach conforms to the technologist-in-us-all explanation that Pearce offers,
but the problem is that this approach, while fundamental and necessary, is not
sufficient for real change. What is needed is double-loop learning. Through self-
reflective practice, double-loop learning can be used to bring under control the
runaway technologist-in-us-all urge that Pearce appreciates has led to climate
change and the functionalist hubris accompanying this that Webb notes is further
distorting the human / nature relationship.
Personal transformation is a prerequisite to technical and institutional change.
The double-loop dynamic must occur as a personal self-awareness dynamic as
well as a public self-awareness dynamic. Systematic critiquing of personal self-
awareness levels becomes important. As a disciplined inner feedback
mechanism, this is as important as systematic critiquing of public self-awareness
methods. Public self-awareness methods set up an interpersonal feedback loop
to bring about technical and institutional change. This approach would allow the
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designer to engage in the transformative agenda of sustainable design through
two feedback mechanisms.
It has been argued throughout this thesis that self-reflective practices offer a
systematic, double-loop method of self-critique for personal transformation. The
findings from the interview analysis indicate a need exists within sustainable
design for the inclusion of such a mechanism to better facilitate its transformative
agenda.
But what types of self-information are to be critiqued through double-loop
learning? They are the personal settings the interviewees already have that have
drawn them to take up the challenge of ecologically sustainable design. Personal
settings have been moulded through phenomenological practices, moral values,
emotional qualities and critical thinking. These dynamics represent an expression
and satiation of existential need. They are guided by intuition. Intuition has been
found to be a powerful dynamic that, while informed by upbringing, also guides
self-expression through the mechanism of propensity. This leads to another
finding. Self-reflective practice, as a method for gaining knowledge of the mind
and consciousness, provides the opportunity for coming to a better appreciation
of intuition and with this, a revaluing of subjectivity. Self-information and the
levels of self-awareness it accords becomes the focus of study as well as the
dynamic through which the study is made. This is the true purpose and nature of
self-reflective practice.
Self-information and awareness levels power public behaviour and are in turn
reinforced and challenged in the public domain through double-loop learning.
Double-loop learning opportunities for the interviewees were located in office
practice, in design practice and in leveraging for change outside the office within
the public domain. It was noted by the interviewees that change is hard-won and
the battle is ongoing. Because the dynamic is an iterative one, this observation
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can be said to pertain to both the task-oriented aspect of sustainable design as
well as to its self-transformative aspect.
Conclusions can now be drawn from the discussion of the art of dwelling and the
art of building. In Chapter 10 they will be presented in terms of their contribution
to new knowledge about sustainable design practice as self-transformative
practice.
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Chapter 10
Conclusions
10.0 Introduction
This thesis has investigated the synergies between design and self-reflective
practice in order to extend knowledge about design as self-transformative
practice. Three preliminary understandings about the nature of design were
advanced. First, design is both a task-oriented and a self-oriented practice and is,
therefore, self-transformative in nature. Second, the designer embodies the
transformative process, which re-emerges as his/her intuitive ethical know-how or
praxis. Third, while some self-transformation naturally occurs, this is of a limited
nature when self-reflective practice is neither a deliberate part of design practice,
nor practised as a full-bodied process.
From the literature review, it was established that design is a third way of
knowing, different from both the humanities and the sciences for its stimulation
of creativity through game-play. Because of this, design as praxis can be
characterised as more intuitive and accommodating than deliberative and wilful.
As a consequence, design as praxis is highly dependent on the quality of the
designer’s ethical know-how.
The principal guidelines for engaging in sustainable design, as set out in the
UIA/AIA Declaration of Interdependence for a Sustainable Future (1993) and
adopted by the profession (here) in Australia, call for value-change and offer a list
of virtues to be inculcated into design practice, but go no further in their
recommendations for embodying such value-change. The expectation is that such
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virtues will be inculcated into the designer’s praxis as a natural consequence of
acquiring the necessary technical skills through which to practice sustainable
design.
Yet, the phenomenological literatures devoted to design and cognition, establish
that praxis actually guides logic and technical know-how. It was also established
that self-transformation can be enhanced through rigorous methods of self-
reflection encapsulated within meditation practices. That these considerations are
missing from the discourse on sustainable design reflects a lack of research into
deliberative self-transformation techniques. It was found that, within the techno-
rational paradigm of modernisation through which human development is
pursued, the trend is towards greater autonomy and self-expression, yet, self-
expression is criticised as suffering from a distorting mix of individualism and
hubris.
Sustainable design has risen to prominence within the techno-rational paradigm
through a focus on transforming the built-environment via the environmental
sciences. The need for certainty is pursued through an evidence-based approach
to design. However, it was found that within this particular approach, there is a
tendency to overlook how design as praxis actually happens. The concern raised,
pursued and presented within this thesis is that such an oversight tends to
undermine sustainable design as a rigorously holistic practice of transformation.
In-depth interviews were undertaken with nine practitioners of sustainable design
in order to pursue how this oversight affects sustainable design as transformative
practice. Architect’s understandings of praxis, paradigms and value-change can
inform a model of sustainable design that is holistic in its transformative agenda.
Of the nine architects interviewed, six were acclaimed nationally and
internationally by the profession as leading practitioners of sustainable design.
Two architects are known to engage in formal self-reflective practices and
another engages in deliberate but informal practice as part of design practice.
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Four have strong affiliations with the Australian Institute of Architects (AusIA)
with two agreeing to be interviewed as representatives of AusIA. Targeting a mix
of designers with and without affiliations to AusIA or self-reflective practice, but
all committed to practising sustainable design, captured a number of different
perspectives on praxis, paradigms and value-change. These views were elicited
through Motherhood Statements about expertise, commitment, spirituality,
familiarisation, happiness and value-systems.
Two major themes emerged from the interview analysis: the art of building and
the art of dwelling. These themes reference Heidegger’s seminal ideas regarding
the phenomenology of Dwelling through Being and the linking of Dwelling with
Building through Care. The art of building was discussed through three sub-
themes that together form an integrated picture of architectural design knowledge:
the art of scenario-building, the articulation of meaningful spaces, and the
employment of the architectural sciences. The art of dwelling was discussed
through four interpretations of existential need, which emerged as the compelling
dynamic behind engagement in sustainable design and strategies for self-
transformation. These four interpretations were discussed, first, in the context of
human development pressures, second, as a hidden limitation of sustainable
design, and finally as two iterative strategies for self-transformation oscillating
between the personal and interpersonal.
This final chapter presents the significance of the research findings in terms of
how they advance a more holistic approach to sustainable design. Five major
contributions have been identified:
1) Design as praxis provides a means for experiencing
interdependence;
2) Attitudinal change is linked to deeply existential needs;
3) Scrutinising moral certainty requires virtues that have particular
feeling tones attached to them;
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4) Self-transformation is a personal and interpersonal dynamic that
needs to be directly addressed and then directly supported;
5) Certainty in design actually relies on a number of immiscible
certification methods. This finding necessitates a broader base to
evidence-based design in order to incorporate, not just physical
and social measures of wellbeing, but phenomenological and
psychological ones as well that come through intuitions and
feelings.
The major theme running through these research findings is that empathy and
certainty exemplify the essential dynamic between design as praxis and design as
technical know-how. In order to capture this essential dynamic and incorporate
it into sustainable design, a recommended model – the techno-psychosocial
model – is presented as a contribution to current techniques for practising
sustainable design as a holistic practice.
10.1 Interdependence and design as praxis
The interviewees reveal, to varying degrees, how an intense experience of
interdependence can be generated and expressed when designing. The quality of
the experience is described, most forcefully by Mick Pearce, as love. Love
conveys the passion and empathy that make the experience of interdependence
possible. Pearce has insights into interdependence and habitat creation. He
understands that people create habitat by extending their psychic boundaries into
the surrounding environment and he uses this insight in designing for the built
environment. While his knowledge is scientific, he also has a feeling for these
concepts, derived especially from his lived-experience of the Zimbabwean
landscape and its people. These experiences not only provide direct evidence for
his understandings, but, most importantly, it is through the power of love that he
too feels conjoined to the landscape and its people. The experience of
interdependence he can only describe as something he can’t give up. His ability
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to synthesise his feelings and knowledge of interdependence and habitat-creation
into his design responses underscores his contribution to sustainable design. The
lesson to be drawn from Pearce is that, for interdependence and habitat to be
more than abstract concepts, they must be somehow experienced. Love provides
that opportunity for Pearce.
Greg Burgess, in particular, was able to describe in detail the experiential quality
of interdependence when designing. The critical lesson offered by Burgess is to
trust in design as a spontaneous and intuitive process of association. Through
trust, he deliberately generates an experience of being open and gathered; a
mindful receptiveness made possible, again, through an attitude of love. The
power of love is purposefully used by Burgess as an antidote to wilfulness. It is
his strategy for engaging in sustainable design over and above any technical
knowledge that also informs design. Burgess identifies love as the necessary
mode for articulating creative associations generated with participants in the
design process. Burgess experiences this as an extension of his psyche beyond
his limited self-concepts and into the greater associative space of habitat. Habitat,
for Burgess, is a dynamic, information-rich space of ‘real possibilities’ generated
by all the participants in the design process. Burgess’ own experiences reinforce
the concern raised in the literature review that design as praxis be respected as an
intuitive process reliant on an absence of wilfulness for its success.
10.2 Attitudinal change and existential need
All of the interviewees were critical of the status quo. Under-development and
overdevelopment pressures were both seen to distort the expression of existential
need. Whereas underdevelopment pressures distort self-expression in terms of
degradation and suffering, overdevelopment pressures distort self-expression in
terms of escapism and hubris. Escapism and hubris emerged as the real targets
for sustainable design strategies within the Australian context.
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Most importantly, escapism and hubris were found hidden within an uncritical
acceptance of current approaches to sustainable design. First, a functionalist
hubris hides within an unquestioning attitude towards nature as simply a resource
to be exploited, albeit sustainably. When such an attitude goes unquestioned,
complicity in a will to power over nature also remains hidden. Second, the
sustainable design strategy most endorsed by the interviewees - the strategy of
efficiency-through-technology – hides a tendency to conflate effectiveness with
efficiency. Natasha Palich, in particular, sees in this an uncritical stance towards
existing technologies and techniques, which she worries undermine progress
towards sustainability.
The conclusion to be drawn here is that sustainable design falls short of its
transformative potential while the will to power over nature remains hidden
within it. Yet, the will to power is also a deeply existential need in humankind.
A balanced approach in dealing with this tension needs to be achieved. Design
has been shown to harbour its own strategy for achieving balance. As a praxis, it
can generate an attitude of accommodation as opposed to wilfulness. All that is
required is that this propensity be properly inculcated as part of sustainable
design’s self-transformative agenda. Mick Pearce and Greg Burgess both reveal
techniques for dissolving the will to power over nature, with love providing the
essential dynamic for achieving this.
10.3 Personal self-transformation strategies
All the interviewees rely upon a sense of moral certainty to maintain their
commitment to sustainable design. Their strategy for scrutinising such certainty
is to rely upon a range of virtues that act as filters upon self-interest and reinforce
their commitment to sustainable design as a vocation. Such virtues as integrity,
love, courage, passion, humility, happiness, suffering, opportunism and
leadership were considered essential in challenging and monitoring both personal
and interpersonal agendas of self-expression. The major findings are:
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• Integrity comes with living according to the moral imperative of
sustainable design. The more embedded the learning, the more intuitive
the thinking and more confident the interviewees were of their stance in
light of the cultural milieu of denial, apathy and hubris characteristic of
the response to sustainable design initiatives they encounter in
architectural practice.
• Neither the facts nor intuition alone could achieve certainty without
immersion through love. Love has been found to be an important
characteristic of the subjective domain of design practice.
• Fostering an attitude of accommodation (described by Burgess as being
open and gathered) requires real courage in trusting in one’s intuition
within an intellectual environment that preferences rational modes over
intuitive modes of understanding. Courage was also found to be
necessary in resisting the powerful forces generated through techno-
rational thinking that devalues design. Passion and courage are the
critical emotions behind a determination to take up the challenges to be
met through sustainable design. One of those challenges is to avoid over-
confidence so as to have the confidence to change. This requires humility
which allows for reflection.
• Humility is the key that unlocks the self-transformation process. But it is
a humility forged through real experiences and real engagement in battle.
Humility becomes a form of courage as well; courage in never being too
sure and in having the confidence to make change.
• Emotional wellbeing underpins vocational activity. All the interviewees
direct their happiness and self-interest toward hopeful activity. Directing
them towards the service of others is seen as a moral act that is also self-
interested even to the point of selfishness.
• Effective self-transformation requires feelings of suffering. One of the
tasks of the designer is to understand, empathise and experience suffering
as fully as possible in order to connect to real-world situations. Through
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the experience of suffering comes a passion for others, as well as a
passion about how to live, in that it powers a mixture of urgency, purpose
and despair that underlies many of the interviewees’ strategies of
engaging in sustainable design.
• To attain a position of power to bring about effective change through
sustainable design requires the architect to seize every opportunity so as to
build up credibility and establish the necessary track record.
• Leaders are the ones with the passion.
The conclusion to be drawn from this discussion is twofold. First, a sense of
moral certainty is relied upon for commitment to sustainable design; therefore
methods for scrutinising moral certainty are of paramount concern for the
interviewees. This leads to the second conclusion: that the range of virtues
developed by the UIA/AIA and AusIA can be added to from the list above and
refined to include the feeling tone that accompanies them. It has been noted that
training of the emotions is not directly referenced in the major documents
outlining value-change. Self-reflective practices such as those developed within
psychotherapy that utilise meditation, offer techniques for value-change through
training of the emotions.
10.4 Interpersonal self-transformation strategies
Methods for undergoing double-loop learning, as identified within the Action
Research literature, were evident in office practice, in participatory design
practice and in leveraging change outside the office within the public domain. It
was noted by the interviewees that these undertakings are challenging, ongoing
and often a real battle requiring a fighting spirit.
Action Research theory holds that personal efforts at self-transformation require
support from wider social and professional structures. The interviewees confirm
that self-transformation is an iterative process between personal and interpersonal
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dynamics. Within (the late) David Oppenheim’s firm in particular, its ethos is
built through staff members such as Jane Toner, who are committed to both
sustainable design and to the bigger battle for cultural change outside the office.
This strategy enabled the formation of a cohesive unit that was self-reinforcing.
Participatory design, as another well-regarded technique for sustainable design,
was seen to give recognition to a fuller complement of people and processes that
enable community-level ownership of the ‘real possibilities’ of the design
process. This approach was seen from a number of perspectives. For Greg
Burgess and Mick Pearce, it allows for an extension of the collective psyche in
the creation of habitat, as opposed to more objectifying or functionalist space-
making agendas. Louise Honman, in particular, sees it as giving people the
power and the confidence to engage in sustainability initiatives and as an
opportunity for encouraging them to take a critical attitude towards normative
behaviour. For Seona Gunn, it challenges her to personally address normative
patterns of behaviour and to suppress ego in the process. For these architects,
participatory design is seen to require compassion and a real generosity of spirit.
Thus, self-transformation needs to be directly addressed and then directly
supported. Action Research is a recognised method aimed at structural change
through self-transformation. It is significant that it recommends engaging all the
senses to bring about self-awareness and self-reconciliation. This is a model
moving increasingly toward a confluence with meditation. Any attempts to
include it as part of the transformative methodology of sustainable design would
require active support from the architecture profession by recognising it as
professional development practice.
10.5 The need for certainty
The reorientation of the design agenda towards ecological sustainability is seen as
a necessary initiative by all the interviewees, in that it bolsters the undermined
authority of architecture. Greg Burgess is the only architect to add the caveat that
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the current approach is too ‘fundamentalist’ in not engaging in a more esoteric
understanding of design.
High levels of certainty are seen as crucial to the credibility and reputation of
sustainable design and, therefore, an evidence-based approach to design is
embraced. However, certainty is also seen as problematic, for differences
between the certification methods of the physical and social sciences are well
recognised. Accommodating this is seen as the most pressing problem (Section
8.4). For Stephen Webb, the reductionist model of the physical sciences is
inadequate for taking account of the human priorities and complexities
represented by the social sciences. Yet, the general expectation from among the
interviewees is that certification should be undertaken through a universal method
and that this method should be the one developed for the physical sciences. For
Greg Burgess, however, certainty ultimately rested upon reflections of self.
Burgess is able to articulate this clearly through his own meta-analysis of his
design experiences. It was found that design as an intuitive process is generally
not well understood, except by Burgess and, therefore, not purposefully
developed, even though it is widely utilised. Significantly, Burgess alone out of
the interviewees, admitted to practising meditation as an aid to his design praxis.
Because the interviewees experience design as a dialogue among truly different
and equally valid ways of knowing, various techniques, whether drawn from the
physical sciences, social sciences or from meditation, are relied upon for
achieving certainty.
Design has been seen to depend on a range of certainties that accommodate
physical/technological, social and intuitive agendas. However, the various
certification methods practised by the interviewees are not only specific, but
immiscible in their specificity. Without an overarching philosophy to
accommodate this, resolution of design thinking into a formal design is
problematic for designers. Therefore, an overarching philosophy is required in
Conclusions
123
order to develop a model of sustainable design that formally recognises this
problem.
10.6 The dynamic between empathy and certainty
A major theme can be identified running through these research findings. The
essential dynamic between design as praxis and design as technical know-how is
an iterative dynamic between empathy and certainty. This dynamic is revealed in
various ways:
Empathy and certainty are necessary to develop the designer’s trust in design as
praxis. Through trust, it can be practised as a mindful receptiveness to the
spontaneous and intuitive powers of association that arise. Design practised like
this requires an attitude of empathy as an antidote to wilfulness. Through
mindful receptiveness, interdependence and habitat can be experienced as more
than abstract concepts. Empathy provides that opportunity, for it is identified as
the essential dynamic for dissolving the will to power over nature and extending
the psyche beyond limited self-concepts; two expressions of existential need that
are seen to distort the living relationship between the designer and the ‘other’.
The iterative dynamic between empathy and certainty is also seen in the
relationship between virtues and moral certainty. Empathy is identified as part of
an extensive list of virtues relied upon for critiquing both personal and
interpersonal settings of moral certainty considered necessary for commitment to
sustainable design. Complementing this dynamic are the more explicit and
technical critiques and certainties provided by the physical and social sciences.
The iterations between the personal and interpersonal dynamics of self-expression
and self-transformation evident in office practice, in participatory design practice
and in leveraging change outside the office within the public domain also reveal
the dynamic is one between empathy and certainty.
Conclusions
124
10.7 The techno-psychosocial model of sustainable design
Now that the essential dynamic between design as praxis and design as technical
know-how has been identified as an iterative dynamic between empathy and
certainty, a model for sustainable design that promotes this dynamic can be
advanced. It is based on four separate concepts: the philosophy of consilience,
the biopsychosocial model, meditation and Action Research. Together, they
address the logic for attending to design as praxis, provide a rigorous method of
self-reflective practice specifically designed to enhance praxis and provide a
method for practising it within daily professional practice that is ongoing and
transformational in targeting both personal and interpersonal dynamics.
10.7.1 Consilience
From within the literature review, the philosophy of consilience has been
identified as a possible overarching philosophy for design (Section 5.1).
Consilience can take account of the complex nature of the design process, where
emergent principles predominate, where contingency reigns and where
immiscibility is a factor. Therefore, consilience highlights design as praxis and
in so doing, avoids the danger of subsuming praxis within technique which is its
temporal extension. If the design process can be better practised as an
accommodation of multiple ways of knowing, it could better respond to the
various international and national calls to widen upon utilitarian ethics and enter
the more unfamiliar moral territory of sociocultural and intrinsic valuations of
worth (Section 2.1.3 and 2.3.1).
10.7.2 The biopsychosocial model
By highlighting praxis, the need arises to bring rigour to praxis in order to
accommodate the wider call for rigour in practising sustainable design as a
credible and reputable architectural practice. What is missing, however, is a
suitably rigorous method that is oriented towards design as praxis. This need has
already been addressed outside of the architecture profession through the
Conclusions
125
biopsychosocial model of clinical practice. The biopsychosocial model of
practice is a holistic approach to daily professional practice that highlights the
importance to praxis of self-reflective practices such as mindfulness meditation.
By incorporating mindfulness meditation into clinical practice, praxis is
recognised as the coping skills of the practitioner. Research indicates that this
approach helps make explicit what are normally tacit forms of awareness
regarding knowledge and feelings. It also helps the practitioner to identify
personal biases and to remain mindful of them in the normal course of daily
activity. By enhancing self-awareness skills, outcomes include reduced stress,
increased coping, and improved empathy.
10.7.3 Meditation
Meditation can be used to specifically address design praxis at a number of levels
and for a number of reasons. First, it can bring about value-change by literally
changing brain architecture and turning fleeting states into structural traits, thus
addressing habitual thinking and recidivism. Second, it can be used to improve
the coping skills of the designer in conducting the design process on a daily basis.
Third, meditation can be used to refine design as an intuitive practice. Fourth,
because meditation is practised as a logical and rational approach to mental
training, it can be seen as a rigorous approach to refining intuition as both a
coping skill and a design practice.
10.7.4 Action Research
Action Research recognises self-transformation as the critical first step in its
bigger agenda of institutional change through double-loop learning. The methods
that have evolved for self-transformation are moving increasingly towards a
confluence with meditation techniques. They are person-centred, experiential and
creatively co-operative and are aimed at transcending ego-awareness and
instrumental rationality.
Conclusions
126
10.8 Recommendations
A range of personal self-transformation strategies that rest on an interplay
between empathy and certainty were identified as critical to sustainable design
practice. This dynamic influences design as both a praxis and a decision-making
process, yet praxis, as the intuitive dimension of design is overlooked for its
strategic importance to this dynamic. Because praxis guides design as a
decision-making process, the techno-psychosocial model is recommended as a
rigorous approach to sustainable design as self-transformative practice. The
techno-psychosocial model can contribute to the momentum towards evidence-
based design by encouraging rigour through meditation and Action-Research
methods. As a model that can incorporate such methods within its overarching
philosophy of consilience, the techno-psychosocial model can focus the
architectural profession on what is currently an under-researched aspect of the
transformative agenda of sustainable design: design as praxis.
In order to advance research into the techno-psychosocial model of sustainable
design, the recommendation is to take the model into the design studio to be
tested and refined in practice. This can be undertaken in studios at both
university undergraduate level and in the workplace as a long-term Action
Research project. The objectives of the research will need to be developed
through a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods within an
overarching philosophy of consilience. The development of the research plan
will require a consolidation of interdisciplinary research interests, some of which
have been introduced and considered in a preliminary sense throughout this
thesis. They include measuring for cognitive, haptic, attitudinal and behavioural
change at a personal and interpersonal level while also measuring for building
performance and urban responsibility from a professional and community
perspective. Such a development constitutes a truly interdisciplinary and holistic
research model for sustainable design.
127
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Appendix A1: Practitioner interview request
Dear
My name is Susan Mellersh-Lucas and I am conducting research towards a PhD
at School of Architecture and Building, Deakin University. My supervisor is Dr
Ursula de Jong. The title of my thesis is Including the Designer in Ecologically
Sustainable Design (ESD). My particular concern is to investigate how
designers become engaged in ESD, develop their effectiveness and enhance their
commitment to the practice of ESD. In this manner I hope to critique the
orthodoxy of strategies current within the profession aimed at encouraging
engagement to ESD.
May I take this opportunity to ask you if you would be interested in participating
in a research project which I am currently building around a number of exemplars
within the architecture profession? I would like to question you about your
personal insights into your own journey; the stratagems you devise for your own
self-motivation and the structures you rely upon or have put in place to support
your sense of purpose. Practitioners such as yourself who have made the
commitment and can demonstrate this through your output are a very important
resource for helping others to engage in ESD.
I expect the initial interview to take an hour, and that there will probably be
follow-up communications with you in which your time will be needed for
review and comment on the interview report. You are welcome to withdraw
from the interview process at your discretion and without any need to declare
your reasoning at any stage. You will also have the opportunity to review a
transcript of the interview and make any changes which you feel are required.
The interview data and consent form will be secured in accordance with Deakin
University guidelines for their confidentiality to be maintained, and will be
disposed of after a minimum period of 6 years.
Appendix A1
141
The reporting of the interview will be published as a separate chapter of the
thesis in the form of edited highlights attributed to you. For this reason I am
asking for your permission to identify you and your project in the thesis.
The interviews will be used in a critique of both the research findings from
outside the architectural profession and of current strategies promoted by
the RAIA as the representative body of the profession.
In focusing on how you have developed and maintained your commitment to
ESD my questioning will be as follows:
• What does sustainability mean for you?
• How do you pursue sustainability?
• What does ESD mean for you?
• How do you pursue ESD?
• What does reflective practice mean to you?
• How do you pursue reflective practice?
If you would like further clarification of my authenticity and research mission I
would be most happy to supply you with supporting evidence.
My supervisor Dr. Ursula De Jong can be contacted at: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>.
My email address is: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Yours sincerely,
Susan Mellersh-Lucas
Should you have any concerns about the conduct of this research project, please contact the Secretary, Ethics Committee, Research Services, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, BURWOOD VIC 3125. Tel (03) 9251 7123 (International +61 3 9251 7123).
142
Appendix A2: RAIA interview request
Dear
My name is Susan Mellersh-Lucas and I have been introduced to you through
Rob Stent the Victorian State President of the RAIA. I am conducting research
towards a Ph D in the School of Architecture and Building, Deakin University.
My supervisor is Dr Ursula de Jong. The title of my project is Including the
Designer in Ecologically Sustainable Design (ESD).
This is to invite you as a committee member of the RAIA to participate in my
research project. I wish to investigate the thinking behind the RAIA call to place
commitment at the core of professional practice. My research is into the
implementation of ESD but with the focus upon why the designer commits to
ESD and how that commitment is sustained. In an effort to design for ecological
sustainability the architecture profession is incorporating a variety of new
knowledge into building design and procurement processes. My particular
concern is to investigate how designers become engaged, develop their
effectiveness and enhance their commitment to the practice of ESD. In this
manner I hope to critique the orthodoxy of strategies current within the profession
aimed at encouraging commitment to ESD.
It is already known that psychological processes impact upon daily decision-
making. There is evidence to suggest that engaging in reflective practice is a skill
to be learned and is as critical to an ecologically sustainable outcome as grappling
with the more overt social-environmental challenges. A large part of this new
thinking about reflective practice is being generated within the behavioural
sciences and a matrix of scientific disciplines collectively referred to as the
science of consciousness.
Appendix A2
143
My research programme aims to track this momentum to see how it is understood
and applied within the architecture profession. In this manner I hope to critique
the orthodoxy of strategies current within the profession aimed at encouraging
commitment to ESD.
If you agree to participate, I would like to interview you about this aspect of ESD.
I expect the initial interview to take an hour, with follow-up communications for
review and comment on the interview report. You are welcome to withdraw
from the interview process at your discretion and without any need to declare
your reasoning at any stage. You will also have the opportunity to review a
transcript of the interview to ensure its accuracy. The interview data and consent
form will be secured in accordance with Deakin University policy guidelines and
will be disposed of after a minimum period of 6 years.
The interview process is intended to provide the RAIA with an opportunity for a
considered response to my research agenda. The reporting of the interview will
be published as a separate chapter of the research project in the form of edited
highlights attributed to the RAIA. Accordingly, I would like your permission to
represent RAIA thinking and I have also requested permission from Rob Stent as
Victorian President of the RAIA for this. The interviews will be used in a
critique of both the research findings from outside the architectural profession
and of current strategies promoted by the RAIA as the representative body of the
profession. In eliciting your understanding of the thinking behind the RAIA call
to commit my questions will refer to the following documents:
RAIA Strategic Plan 2001 – 2006
RAIA Environment Policy
Sustainable design strategies for Architects
Appendix A2
144
From my reading of these public documents, the RAIA recognises the critical
importance of sustainability and the imperative of architects to educate
themselves about this. In bringing to bear the profession’s collective influence
upon the wider community, an ‘integrated approach to … sustainability …
(through) … individual practice’ (RAIA 2003) is called for. Within the call to
commit there is recognition that it is the quality of individual practice which
sustains ecological, social and economic viability and which needs to be exported
out into the wider community. Practice is an outcome of behaviour. Therefore it
is behaviour as expressed through practice which is to be addressed. The RAIA
in placing the call to commit to ESD at the core of professional practice
acknowledges this dynamic.
I wish to clarify how this dynamic is understood and fostered. I will be asking
you to express your understanding of the RAIA policies as well as your personal
opinions about your professional practice. The theme of my questioning will be
as follows:
• Environmental design is promoted by the RAIA as an approach to
ecological sustainability. Why?
• What is the difference (if any) between Ecologically Sustainable Design
(ESD), Environmental Design and ecological sustainability?
• What is the RAIA approach to engendering commitment to ecological
sustainability and where does this approach come from?
• Which of these measures (if any) are designed to directly affect
behavioural change?
• Is the RAIA able to measure the success of this approach?
• If so, how successful is this approach to engendering commitment to
ecological sustainability?
If you would like further clarification of my authenticity and research mission I
would be most happy to supply you with supporting evidence.
Appendix A2
145
My supervisor Dr. Ursula De Jong can be contacted at: [email protected]
My email address is: [email protected]
Yours sincerely,
Susan Mellersh-Lucas
Should you have any concerns about the conduct of this research project, please
contact the Secretary, Ethics Committee, Research Services, Deakin University,
221 Burwood Highway, BURWOOD VIC 3125. Tel (03) 9251 7123
(International +61 3 9251 7123).
146
Appendix A3: Consent Form
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE
CONSENT FORM:
I, of
Hereby consent to be a subject of a human research study to be undertaken by
Susan Mellersh-Lucas, PhD candidate, Deakin University School of
Architecture and Design
I understand that the purpose of this research is into the implementation of ESD
but with the focus upon why the designer commits to ESD and how that
commitment is sustained.
Appendix A3
147
I acknowledge
1. That the aims, methods, and anticipated benefits, and possible
risks/hazards of the research study, have been explained to me.
2. That I voluntarily and freely give my consent to my participation in such
research study.
3. I understand that the results of the study will be used for research
purposes and may be reported in scientific and academic journals.
4. That I am free to withdraw my consent at any time during the study, in
which event my participation in the research study will immediately cease and
any information obtained from me will not be used.
5. That I will be given the opportunity to check the interview transcripts
before publication of any information attributed to me.
I agree that
5. I MAY / MAY NOT be named in research publications or other publicity
without prior agreement.
Signature: Date:
148
Appendix A4: Motherhood Statements
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 1
Within my thesis I argue that the act of design is processed through two different
strategies which satisfy two basic orientations:
design intervention strategies that satisfy public / professional needs and which tend to be
task-oriented.
designer transformation strategies that satisfy private / personal needs which are
primarily self-oriented.
I also argue that within the architectural discourse on designing for ecological
sustainability, the emphasis is far more overt on techniques for design intervention than
on techniques for designer transformation. Yet for real change to occur it is a known fact
that personal transformation is the key. So the purpose of this interview is to discuss with
you your thoughts about design as a transformative process and your own strategies to
bring about commitment to ecological sustainability.
Do you find yourself working on the two different orientations?
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 2
Within architectural practice, while there are many barriers to ecological sustainability,
there is also a growing awareness of the need to develop expertise in ecologically
sustainable design.
Expertise is understood to come down to attitude. Improving capability relies on
continual improvements that challenge beliefs, abilities and knowledge base2
What sort of society do you believe yourself to be part of?
2 Guest, Cameron B., Glenn Regehr and Richard, G. Tiberius, 2001. The life long challenge of expertise. Medical Education. v14 (3), pp. 433-442
Appendix A4
149
What role do you believe you provide?
What abilities do you believe are necessary for ESD?
Where do you gather your knowledge from?
What sort of an understanding have you come to about sustainable design?
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 3
To commit - place sustainability at the core of (architects’) practices and professional
responsibilities - is the first principle upon which the RAIA Environment Policy is based.
Examples given on how to do this involve the practitioner in ‘actively encouraging
clients to include sustainability as an integral principle…’ of their project and to
‘maintain(ing) commitment to the delivery of sustainable outcomes…’.3 These directives
encourage the outward-bound efforts of the practitioner to influence others. They are not
directives aimed at the prior step of forging practitioner commitment.
Where have you turned to and what have you sourced to forge your commitment to
ESD?
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 4
There is a lot of discussion about spirituality and its importance to living harmoniously
with the world. Architects are drawn to designing habitats that respect this need.
Buildings are discussed in terms of energy transfer potential eg ‘harmonising / energising
/ vitalising / refreshing / regenerating / respecting / relaxing. Space and form are seen as
opportunities to enhance psychic as well as environmental energies.
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 5
The thrust of human development is to satisfy human needs.
In acknowledging this the UN Bruntlandt Report definition for ecologically sustainable
development is: “A sustainable society meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’
‘Long-term societal and cultural transformation is only possible when individuals take
responsibility for their own development, transformation and engagement in the larger
social and ecological complex on which they depend’4.
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 6
3 RAIA Environment Policy - Appendix. 2001. B.D.P. Environment Design Guide, Gen 1. R.A.I.A. Australia. 4 Maiteny Paul. 2000. The psychodynamics of meaning and action for a sustainable future. Futures, Volume 32, Issues 3-4 , Pp 339-360
Appendix A4
150
Happiness is considered our ultimate goal; when asked, people overwhelmingly support
this as self-evident fact and requiring of no further justification5. It is our ultimate self-
oriented need in that it is considered both our highest aspiration and our most
fundamental need.
A further understanding of happiness coming out of the cognitive/behavioural sciences is
that we experience it on a continuum of ‘constant struggle’ that moves unbroken between
extreme misery and extreme joy6. This approach has spawned a number of clinical
programmes and professional development techniques within the health disciplines
influenced by or concurring with Buddhist philosophy that see suffering as common to
all sentient beings.
MOTHERHOOD STATEMENT 7
1.2 The need for an environmental ethic
Systems thinking within the sciences has developed through a number of theories
such as Gaia Theory within the biological sciences, Chaos Theory and Quantum
Mechanics within the physical sciences; and Autopoiesis and Structural Coupling
within the cognitive sciences. These ideas have broken down the distinction
between phenomena and their environmental conditions such that separation
between object and subject, mind and matter, and even living and non-living is
now understood as a much more graduated affair. Through these theories the
role humans play in bringing a lived world into being is seen as a co-creative one
of interdependence. This has spawned urgent calls to respect the complex logic
of the earth’s living systems as a unique and irreplaceable phenomenon within the
universe.
Does systems thinking have any bearing on your design strategies?
How does ecologically sustainable development fit into this scenario?
5 Layard Richard. 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a new Science. Allen Lane, Penguin Books. 6 Eifert, Georg H; Forsyth John P; Hayes; Steven C. 2005. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders. New Harbinger Publications. Retrieved 13.09.05 http://www.newharbinger.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=4275
151
Appendix D1: Figure 7.2a (detailed view)
Professional practice
Art of Building
Sustainable DesignArchitecture Design
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
scope
Practice typologies
Empirical
Traditional
Experiential
Value typologies
Private
Public
reflectiveleadership
connectednesscommitment
self-reflectiveopportunism
RAIAprofessional development
advocacyethics
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
art v science
Practice typologies
Empirical
Traditional
Experiential
Value typologies
Private
Public
theory v practice
feedback opportunities
trace of the dance design
clientsethical practice
Knowledge typologies
Empirical
Experiential
building type
Practice typologies
Empirical
Traditional
Experiential
Value typologies
Private
Public
holistic practicegood design
Personality driven
Professional developmentRAIA
precautionary principlechallenging the status quo
Knowledge typologies
Experiential
Practice typologies
Empirical
Traditional
Experiential
Value typologies
Private
Public
connectedness
commitmentself-reflective
as a service
ethics
knowledge bases
art v science
spiritualitymagic v control
sacred connections
professional v private need
conscience v comfortconscience driven
connectednesscommitment
self-reflective
definition
engineering energy
numeracy
TBL technology v sociology
economy of scale
meaning-making lived-world
Empirical
expertise Group v individual
reflective Sociology of space
logic v intuitionintuition
self-reflective
152
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Appendix D2
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Appendix D3: Figure 7.2b (detailed view)
Personal settings
Art of Dwelling
Existing conditions
Meta self-awareness
self-reflective practice
Financial / economic
Political
Professional
euphemism for survival
Cultural / social
denial / inertia
improvement through
technology
Individual
conscience v comfort
sacred connections v
alienation
arrogance
RAIA
practice constraints
being aware of being self-awarePrivate self-information
goals / aspirations
sustainable lifestyle
beliefs / attitudes
Buddhism
Humanism
emotionsself-memories
propensity
make things better
Christianity
Atheism
happiness
Suffering passion
standardsinterests
art integrity commitmentvolunteering
important
attitudesValues / opinions
ethics humility couragesacredness of life
sensationsperceptions
phenomenologySacred connections
love
Public self-information
social relations
other’s opinions
abilities / skills
behaviours / actions
choosing to believe
propensity
Sangha / likemindedness
narrow / broad
opportunistic
good listener
be a good example
165
Appendix D4: Art of Dwelling Summary Report
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\knowledge v understanding
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\scenario building
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\self reflectively
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\strategies for sustainability
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\thru critical thinking
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\DWELLING\widening the scope of architecture
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\ECOLOGY
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\HAPPINESS - productivity
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\IMPORTANT
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SACREDNESS OF LIFE
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUST. WORK PRACTICES
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\barriers
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\community empowerment
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\ethics of sustainability
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\quality of the built environment
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\satisfying need
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Tree Nodes\Appendix D4_the ART of DWELLING\SUSTAINABILITY\self transformative
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Appendix E1: Art of Building Narrative Report
Nodes\Appendix E1_Art of Building\Knowledge domains\Generative domain\art of scenario-building
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Appendix E1
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Tree Nodes\Appendix E2_Art of Dwelling\human development scenarios\overdevelopment
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Appendix E2: Art of Dwelling Narrative Report
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Tree Nodes\Appendix E2_Art of Dwelling\self-transformation practices\group dynamics\participatory design
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Tree Nodes\Appendix E2_Art of Dwelling\self-transformation practices\personal dynamics\propensity
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Glossary
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Glossary
Creativity Creativity denotes a non-instrumental openness to discovery
through an absence of wilful consciousness akin to game-play.
Consilience Consilience provides a suitable explanation of the resolution of
different and often immicible ideas (or ‘aha’ moments) in design,
as well as for accommodating the contingency that is characteristic
of complex systems like human/built environment interactions.
Design Design is considered a third way of knowing, different from both
the humanities and the sciences for its stimulation of creativity
through game-play. Design as game-play involves deliberative
visioning typically developed through haptic processes such as
drawing and modelling.
Design intervention
This refers to an orientation of design practice and its effect upon
the built environment. This orientation is explicit, outward- and
task-oriented.
Designer transformation
This refers to the effect of design practice upon the performance of
the designer. This orientation is implicit, inward- and self-
oriented.
Intuition The definition of intuition is taken from the field of experimental
psychology wherein intuition is considered a complex set of
cognitive, affective and somatic processes with no apparent
intrusion of deliberate, rational thought.
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Meditation Meditation is an overarching term for a formal approach to self-
transformation characterised by a four-step programme of
preparation, concentration, meditation and dedication developed
within Buddhism that targets critical thinking and emotional
sensibility to bring about value change.
Praxis Praxis is a concomitant preferencing and choicemaking based on
aesthetic judgement that is embedded in ethical know-how to
guide the flow of practical activity.
Self-reflection Self-reflection is an introspective mode of discursive thinking that
engages with concepts and feelings of self and ego.
Self Reflective Practice
Within the Buddhist tradition, SRP is promoted as a value-change
programme that leads to transformation. This definition is the one
used throughout the thesis.
Subjectivity Subjectivity emphasises the first-person perspective and the
embodied process of cognition that is both intuitive and reflective.
Sustainable design
Sustainable design refers to a design approach first articulated in
the UIA/AIA Declaration of Interdependence for a Sustainable
Future (1993) in response to the Bruntland Report (1987) that
fosters participation, protection and precaution in the interests of
both the wider earth community and future generations.
Sustainability Sustainability defines an ecological mindset based on Gaia theory
and a hierarchy of human development practices fostered by the
Glossary
179
Bruntland Report (1987) that explicitly promotes ecosystem
wellbeing as the context for interpersonal and personal wellbeing.
Transformation
Transformation refers to value change in terms of a gestalt or
wholesale change. This type of change is a profound change
beyond the natural state of openness to change derived from
everyday experiences.