SIMON GUY

The University of Manchester

Sustainable Architecture and
STEVEN A. MOORE
the Pluralist Imagination
University of Texas

In our review of the literature concerning sustainable architecture, we find a remarkably diverse
constellation of ideas that defy simple categorization. But rather than lament the apparent
inability to standardize a singular approach to degraded environmental and social conditions, we
celebrate pluralism as a means to contest technological and scientific certainty. At the same time,
we reject epistemological and moral relativism. These twin points of departure lead us to propose
a research agenda for an architecture of reflective engagement that is sympathetic to the
pragmatist tradition.

Introduction approaches with some emphasizing performance want to explore, even celebrate the diversity of
over appearance, and some appearance over per- contemporary debate about sustainable architec-
Imagine ourselves as architects, all armed with formance.’’2 This situation often provokes deep ture.5 We want to develop the thesis that the
a wide range of capacities and powers, depression among some architects. For example, challenge of sustainability is more a matter of sit-
embedded in a physical and social world full of James Wines despairs that ‘‘A major proportion of uationally specific interpretation than of the setting
manifest constraints and limitations. Imagine the architectural profession has remained oblivious of objective or universal goals. This is not to sug-
also that we are striving to change that world. to the magnitude of its irresponsible assaults on the gest, as radical relativists might, that environmental
As crafty architects bent on insurgency we have land and resources,’’ while contemporary architec- problems are merely imaginary or that they are no
to think strategically and tactically about what tural practice tends to ‘‘confuse, rather than rein- more important than any other social problem. As
to change and where, about how to change force, a progressive image of earth friendly Steven Yearley has argued, to ‘‘show that a social
what and with what tools. But we also have architecture.’’3 Of course, other architects disagree. problem has been socially constructed is not to
somehow to continue to live in this world. That Harry Gordon argues the opposite that undermine or debunk it,’’ and even more impor-
is the fundamental dilemma that faces everyone tantly, ‘‘The detachment required from social sci-
interested in progressive change.1 After decades of intense effort by designers, ence should not become an excuse for cynical
architects, individuals, and organisations, inaction.’’6 Instead, we wish to engage the search
The diversity of images of what sustainable archi- a tectonic shift in design thinking has occurred: for more sustainable architecture with debates
tecture might be—that is, what it might look like, sustainability is now becoming mainstream. about culture and nature in the social sciences.
where it might be located, what technologies it Some might even say it has become a societal The key question for David Harvey, and for us,
might incorporate, what materials it might be con- design norm.4 is ‘‘what kind of architecture do we collectively
structed from, and so on—is quite bewildering, and want to create for the socio-ecological world in
rather than diminishing over time appears to be So, the debate rages on between what are which we have our being?’’7 While Harvey is talking
accelerating. Three decades of debate about sus- often called light green and deep green architects. here about architecture ‘‘in the broadest possible
tainable architecture and a search for some form of In this essay, we want to take a different stance. sense’’ about how we organize our societies, the
consensus around universal best environmental Rather than argue that we need revolution or ref- question resonates just as strongly for building
practice appear to have failed. As Hagan puts it, ormation, more or less technology, more or less design. The challenge then is both conceptual and
‘‘environmental architecture, in other words, is pious behavior, to embrace or abandon the city, or practical: how to become ‘‘insurgent architects,’’
environmental architectures, a plurality of to develop clearer definitions or standardization, we bent on creating alternative futures, while also

15 GUY AND MOORE Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 15–23 ª 2007 ACSA
recognizing the heterogeneity of and contestation from broader sociological or philosophical ques- bipolar oppositions between different paradigms
over strategies and tactics of sustainable design. tions or merely indulge in the narrow ‘‘how-to’’ of thought, the light versus dark green architects
This essay, then, critiques the notion that we debates that characterize so much of the green or the social versus natural scientists. Instead, we
can solve the grand problems of environmental architecture literature. By exploring sustainable can recognize researchers and practitioners as
degradation and social injustice by simply applying architectures in the plural, as competing interpre- reflecting a constellation of values—differing,
a ‘‘best practice’’ technological fix.8 In response to tations of our environmental futures, we can begin often competing, modes of knowledge developed
a world of ‘‘Khunian’’ paradigm shifts about the to ask new questions and perhaps introduce some by different ‘‘epistemic communities.’’17 Jamison
ways in which architects conceptualize social and fresh thinking about sustainable design. puts it this way:
ecological issues, we think that, while more and In order to do so, we must draw upon a wider
better building science is certainly needed, it might set of disciplinary sources and begin to connect There have emerged a number of competing
be more productive to explore what architects architectural debate to theory and practice in the academic, or analytical, responses to the new
actually do in the everyday context of the studio humanities and social sciences. A good place to environmental challenges . . . based on different
and on site—to explore the cultural framing of begin is with the proposals of anthropologist ideals of scientific knowledge, different
what Bruno Latour calls ‘‘science in practice.’’9 Clifford Geertz who has argued that; ‘‘epistemic’’ criteria, as well as different varieties
However, to favor a more contextual, reflective of scientific practice.18
building science is not to abandon all hope of . . . the shapes of knowledge are always
tackling environmental challenges. Like Richard ineluctably local, indivisible from their Jamison draws on Jurgen Habermas to suggest
Rorty, we argue that the process of achieving social, instruments and their encasements. One may that the natural, social, and human sciences are all
political, and environmental change is not veil this fact with ecumenical rhetoric, or blur it underpinned by differing ‘‘knowledge constituting
advanced by developing universal claims about with strenuous theory, but one cannot really interests’’ whether it be, respectively, one of control
progress (as do many modernists) or by endlessly make it go away.14 over nature, the management of nature, or a better
deconstructing our language and actions (as do understanding of nature. To complicate matters
many postmodernists).10 Following John Dewey, Geertz argues that to comprehend the com- more, environmental advocates of every persuasion
Rorty calls on us to abandon ‘‘the attempt to find plex relationship between knowledge, action, and are adept at creatively drawing upon these different
a (single) theoretical frame of reference within local culture necessitates replacing ‘‘thin descrip- disciplinary traditions to support their respective
which to evaluate proposals for the human tions’’ that focus on the narrowly empirical with visions. As Ulrich Beck remarks, ‘‘The observable
future.’’11 The effect of this stance, Rorty argues, is ‘‘thick descriptions,’’ explorations of local contexts consequence is that critics (i.e. environmentalists)
to change our understanding of the meaning of which look across a ‘‘multiplicity of complex con- frequently argue more scientifically than the natural
progress. That is, ‘‘Instead of seeing progress as ceptual stories, many of them superimposed upon scientists they dispute against.’’19 Everyone it
a matter of getting closer to something specifiable or knotted into one another, which are at once seems is involved in making what Michel Foucault
in advance, we see it as a matter of solving more strange, irregular, inexplicit . . ..’’15 It is the called ‘‘truth claims,’’ each seeking to frame envi-
[local] problems’’ one at a time.12 ‘‘strange, irregular, inexplicit’’ ways in which people ronmental responses in relation to a particular
So while we encourage critical engagement interpret the world, and how these competing problem definition. Seen this way, appeals to facts
with abstract theory about environmentalism, we approaches reflect the cultures of people who are and figures, or aesthetics, or experience, or spiri-
are not interested in simply playing language involved in this process of architectural making, tuality, all represent alternative forms of knowledge
games. Like Macnaughton and Urry, we are keen to that is our focus. which should be treated symmetrically. As Beck
go beyond the ‘‘rather dull debate between ‘real- As is Geertz, Andrew Jamison is interested in again puts it, the ‘‘claims of different expert groups
ists’ and ‘constructivists’’’ and instead identify what he terms the ‘‘making of green knowledge,’’ collide with one another, as well as with the claims
‘‘specific social practices, especially of people’s that is, the ways that ‘‘different producers of of ordinary knowledge and of the knowledge of
dwellings, which produce, reproduce and transform knowledge . . . take their point of departure, their social movements (thereby opening) up a battle-
different natures and different values.’’13 Our hope problem formulation, from different aspects of ground of pluralistic rationality claims.’’20 More-
is to encourage a deeper engagement with sus- reality.’’16 By focusing on the process of environ- over, given that, ‘‘Except for the name of ‘ecology’
tainable architecture, one that does not shy away mental knowledge making, we can avoid setting up itself, virtually nothing unites the bioregionalists,

Sustainable Architecture and the Pluralist Imagination 16

Gaians, eco-feminists, eco-Marxists, biocentrecists, Sierra Club, Earth First!, the Rocky Mountain The Challenge of Relativism
eco-anarchists, deep ecologists and social ecolo- Institute, the First Nations of Canada, and former
gists,’’21 any attempt to neatly categorize or Vice President Al Gore as sitting uncomfortably in ‘‘You have to choose,’’ roar the guardians of the
‘‘essentialize’’ forms of environmentalism along the same category. Each of these actors and insti- temple. ‘‘Either you believe in reality or you
a scale of light and dark, or deep and shallow, as tutions possesses a particular way of thinking and cling to constructivism.’’29
some authors have attempted, seems fatally talking about environmental politics, reflecting the
flawed. As David Schlosberg suggests, ‘‘There is no rather different social and cognitive commitments To be absolutely clear, we categorically reject epis-
such thing as environmentalism. Any attempt to which become reflected in the story lines each actor temological or moral relativism—the notion that all
define the term in a succinct manner necessarily develops about what a green building is or is not.24 claims are equally true or just. It seems necessary to
excludes an array of other valid definitions.’’22 As Schlosberg summarizes in relation to the make this bald statement as reception to our argu-
Departing from an understanding founded on strongly related challenge of environmental justice, ment has been met with the accusation that ‘‘. . .
a predefined conception of the environmental ‘‘An environmental justice movement can be uni- everything is equally valid, nothing is wrong, all
problem in which appropriate ends (sustainability) fied, but it cannot be uniform. An insistence on seems worthy of taking on board, no judgment
and means (technology) are simply assumed, we uniformity will limit the diversity of stories of ensues, and we learn nothing.’’30 Horrified by any
argue that it will be more productive to explore the injustice, the multiple forms it takes, and the variety deviation from a design script, often written by an
ways in which individuals, groups, and institutions of solutions it calls for.’’25 industry of paid consultants with a vested interest in
embody widely differing perceptions of what envi- So, from this analytical standpoint, we cease to the dominance of one set of solutions over another,
ronmental innovation is about. As Marteen Hajer view green buildings as merely differently config- such critics claim that we must close down debate
argues, ured technical structures but as pluralist practices, about sustainable design and leap into action. This
often competing and contested, of design and fundamentalist backlash can mean, as Latour has
. . . the present hegemony of the idea of development. As Hajer points out, to analyze joked, that ‘‘in order to show that one is not a dan-
sustainable development in environmental environmental questions in terms of ‘‘quasi- gerous outcast, it seems compulsory to swear
discourse should not be seen as the product of technical decision-making on well defined physical a pledge of allegiance to ‘realism’—now meaning
a linear, progressive, and value-free process of issues misses the essentially social questions that the opposite of constructivism.’’31 We prefer to
convincing actors of the importance of the are implicated in these debates.’’26 Analyzing dis- concur with Latour that ‘‘constructivism may be our
Green case. It is much more a struggle between courses of environmentalism ‘‘as a specific only defence against fundamentialism.’’32
various unconventional political coalitions, each ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorisations One way to avoid the perils of relativism, yet
made up of such actors as scientists, politicians, that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in remain tolerant of diversity, is to look to the epis-
activists, or organisations representing such a particular set of practices and through which temology of Donna Haraway. She has rejected the
actors, but also having links with specific meaning is given to physical and social realities’’ seemingly objective ‘‘god’s eye view’’ of worldly
television channels, journals and newspapers, or allows us to view green buildings as representations phenomena, a view favored by traditional science,
even celebrities.23 of alternative ecological visions, or material in favor of ‘‘situated knowledges’’ in which we
embodiments of the competing discourses that interact from particular vantage points with a world
We have only to think of the tensions and make up the green buildings debate.27 Tracing the of interactive subjects. In Haraway’s view,
interlinkages between the various contributors to resonances and dissonances between each of these
the urban environmental debate to spot the discourses supports John Dryzek’s argument that . . . only partial perspective promises objective
opportunity for contestation. In the United King- ‘‘. . . language matters, that the way we construct, vision. All western cultural narratives about
dom, we could think of Prince Charles, Energy interpret, discuss, and analyze environmental objectivity are allegories of the ideologies
Saving Trust, Friends of the Earth, British Council of problems has all kinds of consequences.’’28 But governing the relations of what we call mind
Offices, Royal Institution of British Architects, if ‘‘language matters,’’ how is it possible to accept, and body, distance and responsibility.33
Alternative Technology Centre, Building Research let alone celebrate, the existence of diverse
Establishment, etc. In North America, we can sim- sustainability discourses without collapsing into Haraway reconstructs the modern Cartesian
ilarly think of the U.S. Green Building Council, total relativism? assumption that scientists who objectively study

17 GUY AND MOORE

nature at a distance have no immediate responsi- expansive one. We mean by it not only the artifacts category would be to deny that ‘‘. . . from an
bility for what they see through their instruments. associated with sustainable architecture—solar experiential standpoint these two dimensions—
She continues, ‘‘Feminist objectivity is about lim- collectors, wind generators, biomass boilers, and device and meaning, technical and life-world
ited location and situated knowledge, not about the like—but also the knowledge required to con- practice—are inextricably intertwined.’’44 While we
transcendence and splitting of subject and object. struct and use these artifacts, as well as the cultural acknowledge how a technical, performative
It allows us to become answerable for what we learn practices that engage them.39 This stance echoes approach to understanding environmental design
how to see.’’34 In other words, one can acknowl- that of Andrew Feenberg, who has similarly has brought undoubted benefits in terms of high-
edge the existence of competing views of reality explored these approaches and emphasized the lighting the issues of energy efficiency in buildings,
that emerge from other perspectives without need to avoid the essentialist fallacy of splitting our aim is to fundamentally revise the focus and
abdicating one’s responsibility to act upon what technology and meaning and to focus instead on scope of the debate about sustainable architecture
one has learned to see from one’s own particular the ‘‘struggle between different types of actors and to reconnect issues of technological change
perspective. Seen this way, ‘‘accounts of a ‘real’ differently engaged with technology and meaning.’’ with the social and cultural contexts within which
world do not, then, depend upon a logic of ‘dis- For Feenberg, the contexts of technology include change occurs. To be clear, this is not a plea to
covery’ but on a power-charged social relation of such diverse factors as ‘‘relation to vocations, to relieve architects of yet more responsibility and
‘conversation.’’’35 Relativism, for Haraway, is only responsibility, initiative, and authority, to ethics and render it up to social scientists as another in the
the flip side of modern totalizing objectivity aesthetics, in sum, to the realm of meaning.’’40 long list of consultants employed to solve problems
because both positions deny the stakes shared by Wrapped up in each technological artifact, or in the external to design. It is, rather, a plea for architects
humans and nonhumans. In this way, she argues case of our architectural interests, each building, to expand the variables of design practice itself. It is
that relativism constructs barriers to ‘‘seeing well.’’ are an assembly of ideologies, calculations, dreams, a plea for both designers and building scientists to
The obstacles constructed by our distance from political compromises, and so on. Seen this way, design and develop environmental futures that are
phenomena, or by their overwhelming scale, arise not only technologically possible but also socially
only when one adopts a ‘‘god’s eye view’’ of real- . . . technologies are not merely efficient devices desirable.45
ity.36 Seeing a single truth ‘‘out there’’ and seeing or efficiency orientated practices, but include
all interpretations of reality as equally true are, in their contexts as these are embodied in design Reflections and Engagements
the end, the same Cartesian attitude. and social insertion.41 To this point, we have identified and critiqued
David Schlosberg has argued that Haraway’s singular models of sustainable architecture and
epistemology ultimately stands on the shoulders of Feenberg usefully gives us an example of begun to reconstruct an alternative theoretical
the ‘‘radical empiricism’’ proposed by the American a modern, Western house which on the one hand framework for better understanding the plurality of
pragmatist William James at the turn of the twen- has increasingly become an ‘‘elaborate concatena- sustainable architecture. However, there remains
tieth century.37 Drawing upon similar sources, tion of devices,’’ the center of ‘‘electrical, commu- the task of escaping from the trap of endless
Richard Rorty usefully describes this analytical nications, heating, plumbing, and of course, speculation and interpretation. Recalling the
approach as ‘‘antirepresentationalist,’’ one that mechanized building technologies.’’42 For builders, admonition of Richard Rorty to stop theorizing and
‘‘does not view knowledge as a matter of getting houses are often little more than this. On the other get on with the business of solving the real prob-
reality right, but rather as a matter of acquiring hand, houses are much more than ‘‘an efficient lems of women and men, we must think about
habits of action for coping with reality.’’38 Learning device for achieving goals,’’ and as home dwellers, engagement with the design process and how we
‘‘how to see’’ from the limitations of a particular we are all skilled at creating a domesticated envi- might connect our theoretical flexibility with the
place is, then, the only way to appreciate human ronment, which has ‘‘little or nothing to do with materiality of design in particular contexts.46 Or to
complicity in and responsibility for constructing and efficiency.’’43 Feenberg acknowledges that a dis- put it another way, how do we connect debates
reconstructing the world. tinction between the technical (the electric circuit) about pluralism with both critical theory and
Our approach is then to analyze sustainable and the social (the experience of warmth and light) pragmatism. This tension between practices of
buildings as sociotechnical artifacts constructed has a certain validity, in that it influences the interpretation and engagement, contemplation and
and reconstructed in situationally specific contexts. development of professional technical disciplines. action, or reflection and emancipation is not
Our use of the term ‘‘technology’’ here is an However, to treat each as an essentially distinct a recent challenge. These debates have a history,

Sustainable Architecture and the Pluralist Imagination 18

a politics, and even a geography, as we noted in an So, where critical theorists reduced American emphasizing how ‘‘everywhere, building, creating,
edited collection of essays on sustainable archi- pragmatism to a simple ‘‘philosophy of action,’’ laboring means to learn how to become sensitive to
tecture from European and American authors.47 Hickman retorts that pragmatism is a ‘‘philosophy the contrary requirements. To the exigencies, to the
Andrew Jamison, an American environmental aca- of production.’’ He means by this that ‘‘. . . the goal pressures of conflicting agencies where none of
demic who has lived and worked in Europe for thirty of inquiry is not action, but the construction of new them is really in command.’’56 Which brings us back
years, similarly finds ‘‘. . . a huge difference and more refined habits . . ..’’50 to William James and his claim that knowledge ‘‘is
between American writings, with their patriotic Richard Rorty has also responded to the criti- made by relations that unroll themselves in time.’’57
enthusiasms and their sticking to the ‘facts’, and cal theory characterization of American pragma- For Rorty, these ideas come together in John
European writings, with their cosmopolitan tism. Rorty begins his response, however, by Dewey’s call to treat ideas of right and wrong, ‘‘. . .
sophistication and speculative theories.’’ Jamison is acknowledging that critical theory and pragmatism not as signifying a relation to some antecedently
‘‘. . . struck by the discursive dissonances, the share two key assumptions: First, that the Enlight- existing thing . . . but as expressions of satisfaction
interpretive imbalances, between the hemi- enment substituted faith in human reason for faith at having found a solution to a problem.’’58 In this
spheres.’’48 We have found that Jamison is not the in supernatural guidance, and second, that human way, we move from being what Rorty, referencing
first to categorize Europeans and North Americans reason is still not capable of describing nature as it Dewey, calls ‘‘spectators’’ to being ‘‘agents’’ of
in this way. Critical theorists, Max Horkheimer is.51 As important as these shared assumptions may change, committed to ‘‘protocols of social experi-
principal among them, have tended to paint be, any further agreement between Horkheimer ments whose outcomes are unpredictable.’’59 Seen
American engagement in the world as dangerously and Dewey then seemed unlikely. Where critical this way, the endless assessment of sustainable
naive. Horkheimer and his colleagues were critical, theorists find Americans generally naive, Rorty architectures in terms of their ideological purity
not just of American political and business interests finds the American optimism to be courageous that might help us to distinguish ecofeminists from
but found the cultural attitudes of American politics because they have been the first society to ‘‘. . . deep ecologists, ecosocialists from Earth-firsters!,
and business to be exemplified by the writings of renounce hope of justification from on high—from or gaias from Sierra Club members is not produc-
American pragmatist philosophers, John Dewey in a source which is immovable and eternal.’’52 From tive. As Schlosberg argues, ‘‘plurality is not a phe-
particular. Horkheimer describes pragmatists as Rorty’s partial perspective, the advocates of critical nomenon to be categorized, but rather needs to be
Enlightenment positivists overly impressed with the theory have come ‘‘. . . to prefer knowledge to the concept at the centre of the analysis.’’60 It is to
‘‘institutions and goals of industrial technology.’’49 hope,’’ and as a result, their ‘‘disengagement from the development of a pragmatic architectural
Dewey, a contemporary of Horkheimer, was char- practice produces theoretical hallucinations.’’53 practice that embraces a critical pluralism that we
acterized as simply too unsophisticated to recog- According to Rorty, the pragmatists Whitman and finally turn.
nize the degree to which modern technology is Dewey felt that modern Europeans tried much too
complicit with the underlying values of liberal hard to produce knowledge and authority as a pre- A Case of Pluralist Practice
capitalism. cursor to action.54 To this point, we have constructed a theory for
In response to this line of criticism, the phi- Our geographical frame, however, must not be practice drawn from the literature and empirical
losopher Larry Hickman argues that Horkheimer’s applied too rigidly as there are other European study. Naturally skeptical practitioners will, of
critiques are themselves deluded by the myth of traditions of thought that connect strongly to course, want to understand how such theory can be
elite objectivity and distanced from community- American pragmatism. Rorty points to Wilhelm Von operationalized or put to use. It will, then, be useful
based inquiry held accountable by adequate checks Humboldt’s argument that any form of social to briefly consider an exemplar of pluralist practice
and balances. Dewey himself argued the reverse of organization must pursue ‘‘human development in that we have fully investigated elsewhere—the
Horkheimer—that it is not the fault of technology its richest diversity,’’ while David Schlosberg high- Commerzbank tower of Frankfurt61 (see Figure 1).
if it is imagined and controlled by the few for their lights the pluralist philosophy of Isaiah Berlin and As architects, we tend to think of the Com-
own benefit. Rather, the fault lies with a more his argument that recognition of multiple points of merzbank tower as a work of Sir Norman Foster, or
general failure to employ technology in solving real view and the incommensurability of values is not perhaps of Sir Norman Foster & Associates. The
problems. For Dewey, the problem was not too relativistic.55 Bruno Latour has also sought to dis- distinction here is whether or not we choose to
much democracy or too much technology as tinguish the productive effects of ‘‘constructivism’’ recognize the many junior members of the firm who
Horkheimer proposed, but too little of both. from the destructive effects of ‘‘deconstructivism,’’ contributed to the project’s apparent success. Some

19 GUY AND MOORE

1. Commerzbank tower seen from the Alte Bridge over the Main authorship. To consider the person Norman Foster degenerated into street violence, and it took
River. (Courtesy of Steven A. Moore.)
to be the singular author of such a large project another twenty years of patient planning, more
is naive at best. Yet, this observation, however, debate, design, and redesign before the so-called
should not diminish the firm’s very significant red/green coalition of the liberal Social Democratic
accomplishment. Party (SDP) and the German Green Party, itself
Our argument is that the Commerzbank tower a coalition of Fundis (environmental fundamental-
can be considered a major work of architecture, ists) and Realos (environmental realists), managed
even a significant new building type, not only to forge a banking district plan acceptable to all
because of Norman Foster’s skill in the design of parties. Unlike the prior low-rise plan supported by
artifacts but also because the design team as the conservative Christian Democratic Union
a whole was capable of first hearing, and then (CDU), the red/green banking district plan was not
materializing, the story line articulated in the long a conventional compromise. Through public talk,
history of public talk about urban form in the City of the coalition government managed to transform
Frankfurt. The story line of banking in Frankfurt how they themselves, and Frankfurters in general,
goes back at least to the eleventh century but understood the skyscraper as a building type.
became a dominant public focus after the devas- In the 1970s, virtually all Frankfurters, Left or
tation of World War II (see Figure 2). In the revived Right, rejected the skyscraper as a degenerate
German economy of the 1960s and 1970s, conflict American architectural form associated with urban
between a banking industry (starved for space) and decay. By the late 1980s, however, that perspective
an emergent environmental movement (fearful of had been transformed by citizens who could
American-style urbanization) reached epic propor- imagine an ‘‘ecological skyscraper’’—a concept
tions in what locals refer to as the Häuserkampf, or that had previously existed for locals only as an
housing struggle. The first round of this struggle oxymoron (see Figure 3). The unexpected outcome

2. The nearby Römer district—the reconstructed, faux medieval context into which the Commerzbank was thrown. (Courtesy of Steven A. Moore.)

may even choose to recognize the contribution

made by the project’s very creative engineers, Ove
Arup & Partners. Yet, still others, depending upon
their vantage point, may choose to recognize the
designer and manufacturer of the innovative facxade
system, the interior designers, the landscape
architects, and the city planning agency of Frank-
furt. But this list of contributors should not end
with those who contributed only to the physical
realization of the project. What about the bankers
themselves and those activist citizens who shaped
the competition brief to which the design team
responded? The point is, of course, an old one and
questions how tightly one draws the circle of

Sustainable Architecture and the Pluralist Imagination 20

3. The Frankfurt Skyline following twenty years of public talk about how citizens want to live and the nature of tall buildings. (Courtesy of Simon Steiner.)

of this long public conversation is what Bryan Through this article, we argued for diversity in ways vague label for an amazingly diverse array of ideas
Pfaffenberger calls a ‘‘technological drama’’—a of seeing and practicing sustainable, green, that have grown around the contemplation of the
discourse in which there are ‘‘technological state- regenerative, or ecological architecture. In doing so, relationship between human beings and their
ments and counter-statements’’ that eventually we have been influenced by David Schlosberg’s surroundings.’’65 Drawing upon a pragmatic logic
reconstitute norms as new ways of living—in this proposal for a ‘‘critical pluralism.’’64 For Schlosberg, similar to the above, Schlosberg argues, therefore,
case, new modes of constructing and inhabiting tall ‘‘Environmentalism’’ is simply a convenience—‘‘a that ‘‘pluralism demands engagement.’’66 Critically,
buildings.62 The technological drama enacted in the ‘‘dilemma’’ of difference will not be overcome
Frankfurt articulated tools like absorption simply by liberal tolerance but by what he calls
4. The Commerzbank atrium which provides daylight and natural
chilling, diurnal thermal mass storage, stack effect ventilation to the building interior. (Courtesy of Steven A. Moore.)
‘‘agonistic respect,’’ which makes it tactically
atrium ventilation, and daylighting, but these possible for those who may hold thoroughly allergic
technological tools were employed not in the metaphysical beliefs—deep ecologists and eco-
name of efficiency itself but in the name logical modernists, for example—to act together in
of how Frankfurters said they want to live achieving a particular limited goal, if not a totalizing
(see Figure 4). utopian order. By responding to Schlosberg’s call to
Pluralist practice is, then, seeking out the ‘‘acknowledge’’ and ‘‘recognize’’ the diversity of
synthetic opportunities that are latent in the con- practices that might point to alternative sustainable
flicting imaginations of citizens. futures, we may begin to chart an agenda for future
research that would challenge the orthodox iso-
Sustainable Architecture in a lated categories of building design, building sci-
Pluralist Universe ence, social science, and industrial ecology and
‘‘engage’’ in critical transdisciplinary research.67
As pluralism indicates that no one perspective Our agenda, preliminary as it is, includes four
may lay claim to epistemic, moral or rational proposals for action.
authority, the task of theory is to examine what First, as must be clear by now, we find
each perspective provides, how to adjudicate significant resources of salient theory in the
among them, and how to reconcile conflicting writings of those who are productively blurring the
perspectives in democratic practice.63 distinction between critical theory, pluralism, and

21 GUY AND MOORE

pragmatism—James, Dewey, Hickman, Feenberg, fluid terms are needed: dialectical, open-ended 6. S. Yearley, The Green Case: A Sociology of Environmental Issues,
Arguments and Politics (London: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 186.
Haraway, Latour, Schlosberg, and Rorty in terms to characterize the ebbs and flows, nuances
7. Harvey, Spaces of Hope, p. 14.
particular. Unfortunately, these authors have writ- and subtleties and the ambiguities of environmen- 8. Simon Guy, ‘‘Designing Urban Knowledge: Competing Perspectives on
ten relatively little on the topic of architecture and tal politics.’’73 There is a need for ‘‘statements that Energy and Buildings,’’ Environment and Planning C: Government and
even less on the topic of sustainable architecture. are open rather than doctrinaire’’ and statements Policy 24 (2006), pp. 645–49.
9. Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
The absence of research in this area provides a call that ‘‘conscript’’ rather than alienate.74 We must 1987).
for architectural theorists, such as Joan Ockman encourage a debate in which ‘‘discourse is never- 10. Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-
and Daniel Friedman, to continue investigating any ending, and solidarity is forever creating new Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
affinity between pragmatism and architectural networks and mosaics.’’75 As we have argued 11. Ibid., p. 20.
12. Ibid., p. 28.
production.68 It also creates a demand for symposia elsewhere, public engagement in the design of 13. P. Macnaughton and J. Urry, Contested Natures (Cambridge: Polity
and other dialogic spaces that would initiate sustainable communities includes the social con- Press, 1998), p. 2.
dialogue between interested practitioners, struction of urban ‘‘story lines’’ which are ‘‘some- 14. Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge (London: Fontana Press, 1993),
architectural theorists, philosophers, and p. 4.
thing like a meta-conversation—a shared way of
15. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (London: Fontana
the public. making sense of the past and speculating about Press, 1973), p. 10.
Second, proposals for critical pluralism are also what might become true in the future.’’76 It is by 16. Andrew Jamison, The Making of Green Knowledge: Environmental
coming out of the discourse concerning ‘‘civic exploring these stories, through ‘‘public talk,’’ that Politics and Cultural Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University
environmentalism’’ initiated by Dewitt John, Press, 2001), p. 32.
we will better guide the making and remaking of
17. P. Haas, Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International
William Shutkin, Andrew Light, and Craig Hanks.69 sustainable cities. Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
This literature recognizes the relationship between And finally, practice is itself a topic for 18. Jamison, The Making of Green Knowledge, pp. 27–28.
democratic participation and the resolution of research. We need to investigate how the social 19. Ulrich Beck, Ecological Politics in the Age of Risk (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1995), p. 60.
environmental problems. Alternately called systems of reward and penalty that now isolate 20. Ulrich Beck, Democracy without Enemies (Cambridge: Polity Press,
‘‘ecological citizenship,’’ such proposals have in practice from research, and research from practice, 1998), p. 91.
common the belief that environmental problems can be modified to stimulate new modes of archi- 21. R. Ross, The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life: Natures Debt to
will not be solved without substantial civic tectural production that might alternately be Society (London: Verso, 1994), p. 5.
22. D. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism (Oxford:
participation. Related concepts have been explored described as reflective practice or grounded Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 3.
for some years in the European Union by Lucien research. In this way, debates about sustainable 23. Marteen Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological
Kroll, Peter Hubner, Peter Blundell Jones, and architecture may be constantly reshaped by the Modernisation and the Policy Process (London: Oxford University Press,
others.70 In North America, Donald Schön’s experience of practice, while practice might be 1995), p. 12–13.
24. Ibid., p. 13; See also Steven A. Moore, Alternative Routes to the
proposal for ‘‘reflective practice’’ pioneered this reframed by the public talk advocated above. Sustainable City: Austin, Curitiba, and Frankfurt (Lanham, MD: Rowman
direction.71 Introducing the related discourses of & Littlefield, 2007).
critical pluralism and participatory design into Notes 25. D. Schlosberg, ‘‘Reconceiving Environmental Justice: Global Move-
architectural education is, then, a way of 1. David Harvey, Spaces of Hope (Berkeley: University of California Press, ments and Political Theories,’’ Environmental Politics 13, no. 3 (Autumn
2000), p. 233. 2004): 534–35.
renovating practice itself over time. The
2. S. Hagan, Taking Shape: A New Contract Between Architecture and 26. Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse, p. 18.
pedagogical practices of Sergio Palleroni, Bryan Nature (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2000), p. 4. 27. Ibid., p. 44.
Bell, and Sam Mockbee demonstrate the 3. James Wines, ‘‘The Art of Architecture in the Age of Ecology,’’ 28. J. Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses
growing linkages between environmental in D.E. Brown, M. Fox, and M.R. Pelletier, eds., Sustainable (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 9.
Architecture: White Papers (New York: Earth Pledge Foundation, 2000), 29. Bruno Latour, ‘‘The Promises of Constructivism,’’ in Don Ihde and
sustainability and civic engagement.72 Alternative
pp. 11, 12–18. Evan Selinger, eds., Chasing Technoscience: Matrix for Materiality
modes of engaging citizens in architectural 4. H. Gordon, ‘‘Sustainable Design Goes Mainstream,’’ in D.E. Brown, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 27, 27–47.
production are, then, a second agenda item for M. Fox, and M.R. Pelletier, eds., Sustainable Architecture: White Papers 30. Anonymous. ‘‘Reviews’’ of Sustainable Architectures: Cultures and
further research. (New York: Earth Pledge Foundation, 2000), p. 34. Natures in Europe and North America, Simon Guy and Steven A. Moore,
5. The argument about the diversity of sustainable architecture was eds. (London: Spon Press, 2005); in The Future Cities Project, http://
Third, we need to open up and explore the
developed in an earlier JAE article: S. Guy and G. Farmer, ‘‘Reinterpreting www.futurecities.org.uk/archive/arch_rev/4.html (accessed July 17,
language we use to talk about sustainable archi- Sustainable Architecture: The Place of Technology,’’ Journal of Architec- 2006).
tecture. As Andrew Jamison has suggested, ‘‘More tural Education 54, no. 3 (February 2001): 140–48. 31. Latour, ‘‘The Promises of Constructivism,’’ p. 27.

Sustainable Architecture and the Pluralist Imagination 22

32. Ibid., p. 28. 49. Cited in Larry A. Hickman, Philosophical Tools for Technological Daniel Friedman, ‘‘Case Studies,’’ presentation at the Annual ACSA/AIA
33. Donna Haraway, ‘‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Teachers’ Workshop, Cranbrook Academy, Dearborn, MI, July 8–11, 2003.
Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,’’ in Andrew Press, 2001), p. 72. 69. The discourse concerning civic environmentalism includes: Dewitt
Feenberg and Alastair Hannay, eds., Technology and the Politics of 50. Ibid., pp. 80, 179. John, Civic Environmentalism: Alternatives to Regulation
Knowledge (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 51. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (New York: Penguin, in States and Communities (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993); William
pp., 175–94, 198. 1999), p. xvi. Shutkin, The Land That Could Be: Environmentalism and Democracy in
34. Ibid., p. 181. 52. Rorty, Achieving Our Country, p. 28. the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000); Andrew Light
35. Donna Haraway, ‘‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in 53. Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, pp. 36, 94. and Eric Katz, eds. Environmental Pragmatism (London:
Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,’’ Feminist Studies 14, 54. For an example of contemporary architectural theory that conforms Routledge, 1996); and J. Craig Hanks, ‘‘Cities, Aesthetics, and Human
no. 3 (Autumn 1988): 575–99, 593. to the European version of critical theory in its critique of American Community: Some Thoughts on the Limits of Design,’’ in Peter Kroes,
36. Haraway, ‘‘Situated Knowledges,’’ p. 182. naı̈veté, see Paul Shepheard, Artificial Love: A Story of Machines and Andrew Light, Steven A. Moore, and Pieter Vermass, eds.,
37. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism, p. 16; See Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003). By simplistically Philosophy of Design: From Engineering to Architecture (Berlin: Springer,
also Jozef Keulartz, Maartje Schermer, Michiel Korthals, and Tsjalling categorizing all environmentalists as ‘‘Twenty-first century Jesuits’’
2007). The topic was also the subject of an interdisciplinary conference,
Swierstra, ‘‘Ethics in Technological Culture: A Programmatic Proposal for (p. 193), Shepheard associates sustainable architecture with ‘‘American
The Civic Environmentalism Workshop, held at the University of Texas,
a Pragmatist Approach,’’ Science, Technology & Human Values 29, no. 1 tribal hegemony’’ (p. 194).
School of Architecture, Austin, Texas, November 12–15, 2003.
(2004): 2–29. 55. Rorty, Achieving Our Country, p. 23; David Schlosberg,
70. Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu, and Jeremy Hill, eds.
38. Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (Cambridge: ‘‘The Pluralist Imagination,’’ in John Dryzek, ed., The Oxford
Architecture and Participation (London: Spon Press, 2005).
Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 1. Handbook of Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),
71. Schön, Donald A., The Reflective Practitioner (New York: Basic Books,
39. Donald MacKenzie and Judith Wajcman, eds., The Social Shaping of pp. 142–60, 147.
1983).
Technology, 1st ed. (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1985), 56. Latour, ‘‘The Promises of Constructivism,’’ p. 33.
72. For publications that document examples of architectural
p. 3–4. 57. Cited in Schlosberg, ‘‘The Pluralist Imagination,’’ p. 152.
production that combine environmental and social agendas,
40. Andrew Feenberg, Questioning Technology (London: Routledge, 58. Rorty, Achieving Our Country, p. 28.
see Sergio Palleroni in collaboration with Christina Eichbaum
1999), p. xiii. 59. Ibid., p. 37.
41. Ibid. 60. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism, p. 38. Merkelbach, Studio at Large: Architecture in Service of Global
42. Ibid., p. xi; See also Ruth Schwartz Cowan, ‘‘The Industrial Revolution 61. The Commerzbank tower was first investigated by Steven A. Moore Communities (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006);
in the Home,’’ in Donald MacKenzie and Judith Wajcman, eds., The Social and Ralf Brand as ‘‘The Banks of Frankfurt and the Sustainable City,’’ Bryan Bell, Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service Through
Shaping of Technology (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999), pp. Journal of Architecture 8, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 3–24. A revised analysis Architecture (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004);
269–300. is being published in Moore, Alternative Routes to the Sustainable City, Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee
43. Ibid., Questioning Technology. pp. 117–52. and the Architecture of Decency (New York: Princeton Architectural
44. Ibid., p. xii. 62. Bryan Pfaffenberger, ‘‘Technological Dramas,’’ Science, Technology & Press, 2002).
45. Elsewhere, we have discussed this problem as one of the ‘‘system Human Values 17 (Summer 1992), no. 3: 282. 73. Jamison, The Making of Green Knowledge, p. 178.
boundaries’’ within which various disciplines consciously restrict the limits 63. Schlosberg, ‘‘The Pluralist Imagination,’’ p. 149. 74. For definitions of such ‘‘statements,’’ see Schlosberg,
of their expertise. See Peter Kroes, Andrew Light, Steven A. Moore, and 64. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism. Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism, p. 189; Kathryn Henderson,
Pieter Vermass, Philosophy of Design: From Engineering to Architecture 65. Ibid., p. 1. On Line and on Paper: Visual Representations, Visual Culture,
(Berlin: Springer, 2007), pp. 1–10. 66. Schlosberg, ‘‘The Pluralist Imagination,’’ p. 149. and Computer Graphics in Design Engineering (Cambridge: MIT Press,
46. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, p. 91. 67. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism, p. 4. 1999), pp. 53, 204.
47. Guy and Moore, Sustainable Architectures. 68. See Joan Ockman, The Pragmatist Imagination: Thinking about 75. Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism, p. 103.
48. Jamison, The Making of Green Knowledge, p. 90. ‘Things in the Making’ (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000); 76. Moore, Alternative Routes to the Sustainable City, p. 11.

23 GUY AND MOORE