Maria Carmela Frate – Conferenza Tel Aviv
I wrote this report, emotionally immersed in COVID 19 Pandemic. This situation can lead us to think about relationship (connection, link) between human being and environment. We could debate about many matters but it is difficult to summarize an articulated report in 15 minutes, so I have focused my attention on some topics.
1. W.S.D. – DISAMBIGUATION OF THE TERM “SUSTAINABILITY” (n.3 slides???)
The environmental system has a reticular geometry: there are hubs in which flow exchanges can take place (happen). Inside this lattice, the system constantly seeks its own balance (equilibrium).
When an environmental stress occurs, a poorly resilient eco-system comes across fragile; instead, an adaptable eco-system remodels itself. Since we know that our eco-system now is not very resilient, as architects, we have to use every sustainable strategy to enhance the state.
We have to disambiguate the word “sustainability”, it is necessary. Francesco Musco in his book Rigenerazione urbana e sostenibilità (2009) said that the word “sustainability” has been abused and even used as a buzzword; furthermore, many proposed solutions seem like eco-gadgets. This, in architecture too. So, no greenwhashing!
Sustainability derives from Latin “Sustineo”. Starting from the Brundtland report of 1987 “Our common future”, it has been used associated mainly with the term development as “sustainable development”. The two terms clash each other because the word development has always been perceived and used with an anthropocentric meaning. The term also requires to assume responsibility towards future generations (by Hans Jonas, Das Prinzip Verantwortung, 1979). Sustainability it is the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time. More recently, the opposite term is “degrowth” (by Serge Latouche, 2007).
Personally, I prefer to use the term eco-sustainability because it adds the prefix eco to the term sustainability. Eco derives from Greek “oikos” = home, environment and it is a part of the two terms eco-logy and eco-system[1]. Inside this systemic organization, with his activity, human being produces architecture for his living but he must necessarily relate to the other subjects who are part of the “system”. According this point of view, man is just one of the many subjects that are part of this system. He lives here, in the nature, with plants and animals.
The first definition of “sustainable architecture” dates back to 2004, and was given by the European Commission. According to its definition, architecture is sustainable if it carries out (makes) strategies able to recomposing the discrepancies between design and execution, minimizing the impact on the environment, also through technological innovations. Therefore, it is eco-sustainable everything that is sustainable from an ecological point of view, in other wards, everything we can make without damaging the environment, better yet everything can improve it (Yona Friedman).
[1] The eco-logy debates on (deals with) living conditions of living beings and their “surrounding” (in Italian “circostante” that I use like noun not like adjective); that is, it studies the economy of the environment / nature;
the eco-system is the systemic organization, structured inside the environment.
