Architectural Design and Ethics

Thomas Fisher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781136428944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Architectural Design and Ethics offers both professional architects and architecture students a theoretical base and numerous suggestions as to how we might rethink our responsibilities to the natural world and design a more sustainable future for ourselves. As we find ourselves on the steep slope of several exponential growth curves – in global population, in heat-trapping atmospheric gases, in the gap between the rich and poor, and in the demand for finite resources, Fisher lays down a theory of architecture based on ethics and explores how buildings can and do provide both social and moral dimensions. The book also has practical goals, demonstrating how architects can make better and more beautiful buildings whilst nurturing more responsible, sustainable development. Architectural Design and Ethics will prove an invaluable text not only to those in the architecture field, but to anyone simply interested in the ethical issues surrounding our built environment.

Chapter 1 Our Collapsing Global Bridge

DOI: 10.4324/9780080569321-1

I write these words a few days after a highway bridge a few miles from my house fell unexpectedly into the Mississippi River, taking with it 100 vehicles, while killing 13 people and injuring over a hundred more. People who survived the collapse, passers-by who saw it, and nearby residents and students who heard it, all rushed to the aid of others, helping people out of the river and off of the collapsed structure. The rescuers did this without being asked and without expectation of reward, and the survivors of the collapse have expressed their gratitude at the help they received and at their simply being alive, shrugging off the loss of their vehicles or other property into the river. The tragedy has attracted attention all over the world, in part because of the millions of people who travel over similarly high bridges every day and who are justifiably worried about their own safety. But the collapse of that bridge has also come to symbolize for many people the sense of vulnerability and uncertainty just below the surface of our lives right now. The whole superstructure of modern civilization, seemingly so stable and secure, has started to feel as shaky as that bridge just before it collapsed. We may think that there is no way our civilization, with all of its technological might, could crumble, but as we have learned from that Mississippi River bridge, dismissing the possibility of collapse and not paying attention to signs of distress is the surest route to failure.

Bridge structures can fail for many reasons, but once the stresses in a structure pass a certain point, they often increase exponentially to the point where fracture or collapse occurs. Like a bridge, our planet has begun to show similar strain, and the stresses on it have begun to increase exponentially. We have seen the exponential growth of the human population, which has gone from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to an expected 9.3 billion people by 2050, with the greatest increase expected in the last decade of that 100-year period ¹. We have also seen an exponential growth in the gap between wealth and poverty, with 2 per cent of the global population now controlling 50 per cent of household wealth and with 50 per cent of the population controlling barely 1 per cent of it ² . Another exponential curve has occurred in the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, going from just over 300 parts per million (p.p.m.) in 1950 to an expected 500 p.p.m. by 2050, again with the most rapid rise occurring in the final few decades ³ . And growth in demand for oil has also grown exponentially, with world demand in 2001 at around 76 million barrels per day (Mbd) having grown at a rate of 8 Mbd over three years, leading to an expected 94 Mbd by 2008, outstripping the maximum annual production capacity of the planet ⁴.

It is hard to predict what effect this exponential growth will have on the stability of our civilization or the habitability of our planet, but it has become clear to most observers that we cannot continue moving at these exponential rates without some very unpleasant results. The biologist David Suzuki described exponential growth recently to the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects: Imagine, he said, that you had a vial in which there was a nutrient and one microbe, whose progeny divided once every minute, doubling the population every time. At 60 minutes, the microbes will have filled the vial and consumed all their food, but at 59 minutes, the vial is only half full of microbes and half of the food remains. Indeed, at 57 minutes, with only a few minutes left, the vile is mostly empty, only 1/8 full of microbes and with 7/8 of the food still there. Were the microbes aware of their situation, said Suzuki, at the 59th minute they might say to themselves that there is plenty of food and plenty of room in the vial and that there was nothing to worry about. Many microbes might even mock those few who seemed alarmed or said that something needed to be done. Then, in the next minute, the vial fills, the food disappears, and the microbes die. ‘We humans’, warned Suzuki, ‘are in our 59th minute’⁵.

The metaphor of the 59th minute translates into about 50 years, which is about how long the environmental historian Jared Diamond, in his book Collapse, estimates that we have before we see the effects of the dramatic declines in natural habitats, fish populations, biological diversity, and farmable soil, before we begin to reach a ceiling on inexpensive fossil fuels, accessible fresh water, and plant growth per acre, and before we start to be overcome by toxic chemicals in the air and water, invasive plant species devastating ecosystems, ozone-depleting atmospheric gases, rapidly growing human populations, and unsustainable levels of consumption ⁶ . We do not know which factor will prove most critical or cause the greatest disruption, but Diamond reminds us that addressing a few of these dozen problems will not be enough. Any one of the factors on Diamond’s list could trigger a tectonic shift in human affairs.

It is not hard to see what such a shift might entail. A global pandemic, in a matter of weeks, could kill hundreds of millions of unsuspecting people, with the first to feel its effects being those who live in the largest cities or who travel the most ⁷ . Intense tropical storms like Katrina, combined with an overall rise in sea levels, could flood seaside cities and heavily populated coastal areas, turning as many as 200 million people into environmental refugees ⁸ . Or persistent drought, mixed with growing populations in areas without readily available fresh water, could cause famine and dehydration affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide ⁹ . And the on-going turmoil in the Middle East, along with hostile oil-producing countries elsewhere in the world, could lead to a sudden and dramatic decrease in the availability of oil, which in turn would send prices soaring and economies into depression ¹⁰.

Some might rightly observe that we have faced such problems before. We have survived pandemics, dealt with storms and droughts, and undergone transitions in our fuel sources. The difference is that the problems now exist at a global, rather than a local or even national scale, and they have come at a time when we also have a much larger population, a more interconnected economy, and an already highly stressed natural environment – all giving us much less room for error. Any of these events could happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and any of them would, in turn, affect us all. While we would no doubt muddle through, the threats to human civilization have never been greater and never been at a global scale, as they are now. While individual societies and cultures have collapsed, usually because of some combination of an over-taxed natural environment, a rapidly growing population, and a short-sighted political culture, we may be seeing, for the first time, a possible worldwide collapse caused by those and other factors.

No one likes to contemplate such things. It is human nature to want to keep the windows up, the air-conditioning on, and the radio blasting as we cruise across our global bridge, telling ourselves that we are safe and secure and hoping that we can get across before the whole thing gives way. But we have to resist our great skill of self-denial. We have a moral responsibility to ourselves, as well as to every other person and species on this planet, to do everything we can, from this moment on, to change our behaviour in ways that will keep the social and environmental structure supporting our civilization from collapsing. There are, of course, many who have already advocated that position and many more who have begun working to make it happen. This book has another purpose: to talk about the skills we will need if a collapse occurs. As happened with that bridge over the Mississippi, the people who survived drew upon skills that were both practical and ethical in nature. They got out of their crushed vehicles or swam to safety, using their knowledge of the designed environment – how to escape a submerged car, for example – to save themselves. And many of those who were unharmed went to the aid of others, exhibiting a sense of duty, as well as virtues such as compassion and courage, that come from the habit of being ethical, of helping others as we would want them to help us were we in their position.

Think of this book, then, as a kind of survival guide for a global collapse, a collapse that I hope we will avoid, but one that we need to prepare for in case we can’t. The book addresses the two main areas that I believe will be most critical if things start to fall apart: ethics and design. Ethics offers us tools in dealing, psychologically, with the hardships that will ensue, and design gives us the means to address our physical needs when many of the supports we now depend on for that may be gone. A post-collapse world will look and be very different from our own, with many fewer material comforts and physical resources at our disposal. But, if we prepare properly for it, it can also offer a higher quality of life, one in which the inner riches of an ethical life can compensate for the decline in material resources. Such a topic may sound grim to some, but I see it as just the opposite. The best way to address a major threat is to be ready for it. Indeed, emergency preparedness may well become a primary part of what ethicists and designers do: helping people envision alternative futures that take into account all possible threats and that show how we can construct environments that enable us to live better lives.

That role all may seem far removed from the practices of designers, most of whom remain busy creating and making the things we use and inhabit daily. Indeed, designers, unintentionally, often contribute to the very problems that may lead to a collapse. Architects, for example, design only about 2–5 per cent of all that gets built and most of that for the wealthiest individuals, organizations, and governments, while remaining largely uninvolved in the ‘design for the other 90 per cent’ who need shelter and the creative ideas of the design community far more than the wealthy ¹¹ . Architects, engineers, and designers have also created the very the superstructures and infrastructure – the skyscrapers, bridges, and tunnels – that have become the unintentional symbols of global inequities and the intentional targets of terrorists as a result ¹² . Meanwhile, the designed environment contributes most of the human-generated greenhouse gases, almost 50 per cent of which comes from the construction and operation of buildings, and over 25 per cent more from the operation of cars and other vehicles ¹³ . And the design and planning of many cities and suburbs as low-density developments has forced millions of people to become increasingly dependent upon a finite supply of fossil fuel ¹⁴.

If design is part of the problem, so too can it become part of the solution. The interest in sustainability and the ‘greening’ of products and environments is an indication of the design community’s readiness for change, although there remains the dilemma of our tinkering around the edges of a problem within a still-resistant context. More people use ‘green’ products, but so too do more products end up in landfills, and more companies have ‘greened’ their buildings, but most employees still drive long distances to work. The real changes will come with a rethinking of what we really need and how we should live – questions that can have a profound effect not only on our use of natural resources, but also on the quality of our own lives. Design offers a process with which to tackle such questions, a way of helping people sort through the pros and cons of different scenarios and evaluate the strengths and weakness of alternative future paths – positioning designers to take on that larger role and those broader questions is one of the subtexts in this book.

This book has three interwoven parts, each offering a different set of tools we will need if a global collapse occurs. The following chapters explore the psychological survival skills that ethics has to offer. While we typically think of ethics as an aid in deciding right from wrong and in determining what actions we should take in a conflicted situation, the history of ethics also provides us with a wealth of strategies to help us deal with the setbacks and disappointments in our lives, showing how attending to others in need is, in fact, in our best interest. In each chapter, related design principles offer thoughts of how ethical ideas about what we should do might translate into design ideas of what we could do. The principles remain broad in scope in order to encourage as wide a range as possible of creative interpretations. There may be few eras in human history in which we have needed more fresh thinking than we do now, and the design principles are offered in the hope of spurring new ideas. Each chapter also has several short essays about the kinds of places we all encounter in our daily lives. These pieces try to suggest what a more sustainable and equitable future might actually be like, and how our ordinary environment might change as a result. The future we face may not look that different from today, although certain aspects of our daily context may have a very different function or cease having a function at all. But there will undoubtedly be a profound change in the many details of our lives as we end up living in ways that might be closer to the way our ancestors did before cheap oil and global trade created the illusion that everything should be available to us all the time.

One of the areas of greatest resistance to the ideas in this book may come from those who believe that the marketplace can and will solve everything and that we only need to unleash its power and let the ‘invisible hand’ work its wonders. There is no question that the solutions to the challenges we face will involve the marketplace; humans have always traded goods and services in order to live and that may loom ever larger in a future in which meeting our needs may become harder than it is now. But whether the global economy will continue to grow and material prosperity will continue to expand is another matter, especially if we see a collapse in some of the key supports that have allowed that to happen in the past. Adam Smith, the ‘father’ of capitalism, has a lot to offer as we think about what a more sustainable and equitable marketplace might be like.

In addition to writing capitalism’s foundational text, The Wealth of Nations, Smith, a professor of moral philosophy, authored another, less-frequently read book – A Theory of Moral Sentiments – that makes the connection between ethics and economics in ways that will be quite useful if we have a collapse of some sort in the future ¹⁵ . One of the first things we might lose in such a scenario is some amount of material wealth, which Smith puts in perspective. ‘Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous … machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body … which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention … which threatens every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them’ . Smith thought that riches not only create anxiety, but they also distract us from virtues such as ‘humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit … the qualities most useful to others’, as he said. Smith also saw the trap of our seeking happiness through having more possessions: ‘In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for’.

It may come as a surprise to find the father of capitalism writing about wealth in this way, but he saw a paradox at the heart of capitalism that we will need to keep in mind. Near the beginning of The Wealth of Nations, Smith describes what has been known as the paradox of value: ‘The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water, but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use, but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it’ ¹⁶.

There were two dominant responses to this paradox in the subsequent centuries. On one hand, Karl Marx and other advocates of communism sought to eliminate the paradox by envisioning a society that distributed necessities with the greatest use value, while controlling luxuries that have almost purely exchange value. That functionalist approach to the problem had the advantage of being fair, but it made the mistake, like most functionalist design of the twentieth century, of assuming that people care only about usefulness. On the other hand, free-market advocates took Smith’s paradox in the opposite direction, wanting to convert almost everything into an exchangeable commodity, including water itself, as we have seen with bottled water. This creates the dilemma of what to do when there are no markets in which t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• Biography
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: Our Collapsing Global Bridge
• Chapter 2: How Nature Suffers in the Naturalistic Fallacy
• Chapter 3: Why Having Less is More
• Chapter 4: When Virtues are No Vice
• Chapter 5: Drafting a New Social Contract
• Chapter 6: The needs of Duty
• Chapter 7: The Consequences of Ignoring Consequences
• References
• Index