#sustrainability

[elladastinkardiamou]

Athens Marathon

Video by United Nations

[mattdunne1]

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[studio-borough]

Holistic Appraoches to Architecture

A more philosophical approach to architecture from "Ecological Living: What architecture for a more sustainable city?"

Phenomenology:

“the quest for “essences” and the wish to “re-achieve a direct and primitive contact with the world, and endowing that contact with philosophical status.”

from wiki:

“In phenomenology, the environment is concretely defined as "the place," and the things which occur there "take place." The place is not so simple as the locality, but consists of concrete things which have material substance, shape, texture, and color, and together coalesce to form the environment’s character, or atmosphere. It is this atmosphere which allows certain spaces, with similar or even identical functions, to embody very different properties, in accord with the unique cultural and environmental conditions of the place which they exist. Phenomenology is conceived as a “return to things,” maneuvering away from the abstractions of science and its neutral objectivity. Phenomenology absorbs the concept of subjectivity, making the thing and its unique conversations with its place the relevant topic and not the thing itself. The man-made components of the environment become the settlements of differing scales, some large - like cities, and some small - like the house. The paths between these settlements and the various elements which create the cultural environment become the secondary defining characteristics of the place. The distinction of natural and manmade offers us the first step in the phenomenological approach. The second is to qualify inside and outside, or the relationship of earth-sky. The third and final step is to assess character, or how things are made and exist as participants in their environment.”

Genius Loci:

In classical roman religion this relates to the protective spirit of the place. In Western society, it is thought of as the principle that landscape designs should always be adapted to the context in which they are located.

Alexander Pope writing about landscape design:

“To build, to plant, whatever you intend, To rear the Column, or the Arch to bend, To swell the Terras, or to sink the Grot; In all, let Nature never be forgot. Consult the Genius of the Place in all That tells the waters or to rise, or fall.... Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades Now Breaks, or now directs, th'intending Lines; Paints as you plant, and as you work, Designs.”