ABSTRACT
When applied to architecture, the term ‘sustainable’ currently refers to environmental sustainability. Swept up in the concern for the environment, however, is an accompanying concern for social sustainability, as this implies public health and a fairer distribution of physical resources and physical risks. Economic sustainability, in the sense of value for money or return on investment, is also implicit within environmental sustainability, and increasingly easy to demonstrate with built examples. Unpacking some of the meanings in the first half of the term ‘sustainable architecture’ does not render it transparent, however, as it refers not to one, but to a spectrum of architectures, from the traditional vernacular (which tends to be environmentally sustainable by default), to existing-architectures-made-more-sustainable, to environmental determinism, to those few architects who are pushing environmental design into reflexivity, that is, into self-conscious expression of its more symbiotic relation with the natural environment. Though all these architectures are party to a new contract between nature and architecture, only those at the reflexive end of the spectrum are concerned with representing, as well as enacting this.
