spazio liquido
(a project by. A. Grassini, G. Minuto, E. Galatolo)

Nowadays, ecology has become a key issue in architecture. It takes a central role in the cultural debate, supported by literature, standards and regulation constantly updated. Even considering the interest in the topic, the ecological design process is often both too technical and too superficial on the significant “values” of the ecology itself.

Indeed, ecology is frequently approached by designers as reduced to mean environmental sustainability. This leads to an indifferent performance approach during the design stages, pushed by trivial mitigation of the environmental impact (often in terms of CO2 footprint) of the building in its life cycle.

This shift from ecology to a technical issue, also entails the fragmentation of competencies. An increasing number of engineers and experts are responsible for specific aspects, which must be checked against regulated parameters. The result of “conforming to the will of Technique” consists in the transition of the ecological culture into a regulated process and of the ecologist (architects in our case) into bureaucrats.

In this context, the architect switches roles from design ethically with a view to serve a purpose, to simplify carrying out a task for which he does not even feel an ethical responsibility. This leads every architect-bureaucrat to lose the overall view of the process, focusing only his 'tasks' without asking why (disturbingly similar to who, accused of terrible crimes, found a justification in being 'a simple executor of superior orders').

Moreover, another problem related to the shifting of the project's focus from ecological culture to targets and certificates, regards the so-called “architectural greenwashing". Innovations, certificates and "green" devices are used as an alibi to allow any project, even the short-sighted and speculative ones to be legitimate, hiding them under a thin but shiny “ecological film”.

In doing so, essential matters like the relationship between architecture and environment, can be missed (or ignored). Relevant aspects of the project, like "if", "how" and "how much" to build, together with the social ecosystem evaluations all fade out. These aspects remain hidden behind the huge number of sustainability certifications of the building's components (which in the meantime is being built, consuming more and more land).

In other words, today the ecology is not seen as a means of revising paradigms and values of designing, building and living in the world, but merely as an operational tool, a technical framework of regulations allowing for the construction of shiny new greener, better insulated and equipped buildings.

Moreover, the technical approach has not always characterized the ecological theme. Ecology emerged from a completely different root, it is indeed a reaction to the industrial civilisation. The ecology of the “first generation” (such as Rachel Carson) stood as an antidote to a technology-driven society that was losing its relationship with nature and the ecosystem.

The first ecological culture was a philosophical reaction, derived from existentialism and broadly, from philosophical movements who opposed the escalation of technological progress between the 19th and 20th centuries. Ecology was born therefore as a "philosophical movement of reconciliation with nature", not as a "bureaucratic system for energy saving" or an "aestheticizing movement of garden terraces".

It was born with nobler reasons than the LCA and CO2 assessment or the installation of high- performance technical gadgets of dubious usefulness, sold as a “panacea” by eclectic sustainability specialists.

Through its diffusion - and intertwining at the same time with the urgent issue of climate change - the first ecological movement seem to have generated two different interpretations. Paraphrasing Luciano Valle, we could identify them as:

The way of Fear: oriented towards a better technical management of resources to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change.

The way of Beauty, which recognises the intrinsic value of nature, pursuing an ontological, ethical and even spiritual redefinition of human action.

This distinction is reflected in the following two concepts: cultural ecology and sustainability. The former realises that to achieve the ecological balance is necessary a radical change in the perception of our role on earth, which requires a new philosophical, religious, and ethical foundation. The second one is only about a more efficient management of the natural environment for the sake of human beings.

Sustainability is the most common approach now. It lost over time the initial purpose of the ecological movement, and today, from being a reaction to globalised technological world, it has become purely a technological culture with the pretence of globalisation.

Cultural ecology, instead has been reduced to a narrow movement with tones of resistance to the technological society, symbol of a desire to refund the way of thinking. It has become an aid to the most practised sustainability. Every system after all needs a counter-system to balance it, provided this one is controllable and marginal.

So, one branch has become a secondary movement, while the remainder evolved in the transition from trial to standardisation - quoting Vattimo - from Kultur, the lively, creative and actively participated aspect of culture, to Zivilisation, the set of fixed structures that tend to degenerate into formalism and rigidity, hindering the free expression of the subject.

In an even valuable attempt to make this cultural proposal easy to adopt, its meaning has been trivialized and its contents deprived. This new approach has led to progressive trivialisation of any environmentalist culture and - in architecture - of the ecological design, which requires more and more bureaucratic skills instead of an “education to design”.

Philosophical arguments have been replaced by mean slogans, and technical problems have prevailed, turning into a structured and standardised set of requirements that paralyse the design process, reduced to a methodical fulfilment of orders.

In doing so the ecology, initially born with the aim of undermining the value system of industrial capitalism, fits into it, declining and bending its own nature according to the structure of this system, to the point of denying its own identity.

Consequently, ecology, from being an antagonistic movement to technology, has been somehow absorbed and "reshaped" by technology itself, which has adapted its premises, aligning and declining them according to its own schemes, transforming its opponent into a tool at its service.

Now that we have reached the point of non-return due to climate and environmental change, architecture and society should necessarily bring ecological culture back to the forefront. As a culture it should not be seen as a simply set of targets and standards, but as the result of a profound philosophical-architectural vision that guides its application.

In the context of ecological design, the implementation of specific measures concerning the use of materials, equipment, certifications or analyses, does not approach the problem at its very origin, but simply mitigate the most destructive effects (postponing them by a sufficiently comfortable period of time).

In this regard, it is necessary to break the technical approach, which leads to a lack of involvement on the part of designers, turning them back from executors to active and ethical participants in the design and decision-making processes. This, in order to rediscover the true essence of ecological design.

In this context, Heidegger's words sound prophetically; in his “letters on Humanism” writes: “The greatest care must be fostered upon the ethical bond at a time when technological human beings, delivered over to mass society, can attain reliable constancy only by gathering and ordering all their plans and activities in a way that corresponds to technology” [1]

It is through ethics that we can bring back the design process to a central role in the context of ecology. Aiming to rediscover a situation in which the design process gains back his ability of projection-forecasting, transcending from the mere calculation, bringing together all the relevant factors: sociological aspects, landscape, urban regeneration, etc.

In conclusion, it is fundamental today for architecture to bring back the ecological aspects to their deep essence and bring back the sense of responsibility that originally drove the design ethics.

We, as architects, need to emphasize the importance and the central role of the design process intended as the intellectual and speculative process that takes place well before the manufactured product. It concerns the evolution of places and the way to interact between humans, space, and nature. The design process needs to be conceived as a tool not simply focused on the building but that starts much earlier and answers question that doubt even the existence of the building itself.

After all, the building is simply an element of mediation through which man interfaces with and inhabits the environment. It is therefore clear that the project must go over the false focus of the building and return to investigate the link between man and environment, which is the true meaning of ecology (and hence the ontological origin of the discipline of architecture).

“I suggest then that a healthy ecology of human civilization would be defined somewhat as follows: A single system of environment combined with high human civilization in which the flexibility of the civilization shall match that of the environment to create an ongoing complex system, open ended for slow change of even basic (hard-programmed) characteristics.” [2]

[1] Heidegger, Martin. Letter on "Humanism". [trans.] Frank A. Capuzzi. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 239-276. (quote on p. 268)
[2] Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an ecology of mind. New York : Ballantine Books, 1972. p. 494

Bibliography

Heidegger, Martin. Letter on "Humanism". [trans.] Frank A. Capuzzi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 239-276.
Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
Giachetta, Andrea. La gabbia del progetto ecologico. Roma: Carocci editore, 2013
Valle, Luciano. Dall’ecologia all’ecosofia. Como-Pavia: Ibis, 2011
Vattimo, Gianni. Tecnica ed esistenza, Milano: Mondadori, 2002