Conditional Constructions: Environmental Discourses on Natural Ventilation Graham Farmer and Simon Guy School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape University of Newcastle Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU United Kingdom Tel: +44 191 222 6027 / 5408 Fax: +44 191 2226115 E-mail
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Abstract The critical potential of the concept of sustainability may depend on its ability to provide a space for a meaningful dialogue about the possible appropriate relationships between technology, nature and society. However, the contemporary interpretation of sustainable building reflects a process in which a global, consensual and technocratic vision of environmental change has tended to dominate the debate. The example of natural ventilation serves to highlight this process. Whilst potentially providing an opportunity for a wider questioning of the nature and extent of technological intervention, natural ventilation has become predominantly and narrowly associated with resource efficiency. This paper suggests an alternative understanding and re-presents natural ventilation as a social expression of contrasting and often contradictory environmental values. Through an analysis of competing discourses around natural ventilation the paper emphasises the interplay of distinct design logics and the contested nature of environmental innovation. In doing so the paper illustrates the possible diversity of technological pathways towards sustainable architecture.
Keywords: sustainability, natural ventilation, environmental technologies, consensus, social construction, design logics, competing pathways.
Introduction
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What might be the appropriate measures of sustainability, economic parameters, resource efficiency, carrying capacities, ecological footprints or social and cultural factors? According to Hatfield Dodds the difficulty in answering this fundamental question stems from the fact that “sustainable development, like all of the most important ideas, is a contestable concept; a widely affirmed principle open to a wide variety of interpretations”[1]. In the case of sustainable buildings these competing interpretations are manifest in the myriad of articles, reports and books on the subject, where we find a bewildering array of contrasting building types, employing a great variety of different technologies and design approaches, each justified by a highly diverse set of interpretations of what sustainability might represent and how it might be achieved. Whilst this notion that sustainability is contested is nothing new, within many contemporary mainstream building environmental research programmes and policy practices there is a tendency for this diversity and contingency to be ignored, played down or alternatively identified as a significant barrier to the need create consensus around what are often considered to be the very real and self-evident problems such as global climate change. Often, the underpinning premise of these attempts at ‘gaining agreement’ or ‘consensus building’ is the desirability of a singular vision of sustainability in which particular pathways of building design and technological innovation can be shown to be more objectively preferable than others. In this sense sustainable buildings tend to be portrayed as merely differently configured or more efficiently performing technical structures.
This paper develops an alternative analytical approach which views technology as a sociotechnical process. It draws upon science studies literature to explore how sustainable technologies such as natural ventilation differ not simply by their performance characteristics alone, but more importantly by the wider social assumptions and visions inscribed within their development and use [2]. Our approach also draws on the growing literature on policy discourses to help illuminate how environmental concern is a locus of differing viewpoints and how particular directions of environmental innovation are contingent on the ways in which particular social actors define both the nature of environmental problems and possible solutions [3]. In doing so we offer a sociological contribution to the debate about sustainability, technological change and environmental innovation in
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the built environment [4]. The paper is in three parts. Firstly we problematise a singular, consensual, and policy-oriented interpretation of the environmental benefits of natural ventilation. Secondly, we introduce and explore four alternative logics of natural ventilation each of which are founded on competing conceptions of sustainability. Finally we discuss the implications of the contested nature of sustainable design for building research, policy-making and practice
Constructing consensus - The case of natural ventilation
The concept of natural ventilation has come to occupy a prominent position in contemporary architectural discourse. The growing mechanisation of the indoor environment of buildings and the proliferation of environmental technologies such as air conditioning which Reyner Banham referred to as a “breath of intelligence”[5] have now come to be questioned to varying degrees and with differing motivations. This questioning has been stimulated by a growing recognition of the detrimental impact of mechanical servicing techniques on both the internal and external environment of buildings. The concept of natural ventilation, like the notion of sustainability, therefore potentially provides a framework for a wider critique or questioning of the well-meaning technological interventions which have accompanied modernisation. However, the mainstream promotion of the environmental benefits of technologies such as natural ventilation has become predominantly and narrowly associated with resource efficiency. This emphasis, highlighted by many contemporary environmental research programmes and policy practices can be understood to reflect a wider process in which a predominantly global interpretation of sustainability has come to dominate environmental debates. This singular concern for resource efficiency has been founded on International conventions and national policy commitments dating from the 1973 energy crisis and the resulting enhancement of energy policies due to a widespread acknowledgement of the finite nature of fossil fuel resources. The main result of this recognition in terms of building production has been an increased emphasis on physical performance and in particular the reduction of energy consumption associated with heating, ventilation and air conditioning technologies. A further impetus to this primary concern for energy efficiency has provided by the shift in register in environmental concerns following the 1987
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Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future’ and the subsequent Kyoto Protocol where the framing of the environmental problem has been conceptualised in the mainly global terms of greenhouse gas emissions and ozone layer depletion. As a result the minimisation and avoidance of technologies such as air conditioning has now become a research priority and a key component of this research is a recognition that one of the most effective ways to reduce building services energy consumption is to “exploit natural means and depend less on mechanical techniques”[6]. Natural ventilation, at least in the relatively moderate climates of Northern Europe is being promoted through policy and research programmes as an effective means by which the physical performance of buildings can be improved.
In terms of building related environmental policies this largely physicalist image of sustainability and technologies such as natural ventilation has stimulated the development and structuring of a series of largely technical, resource saving initiatives epitomised by the concept of ‘best practice’. These best practice initiatives tend to be conceptualised individually and placed alongside each other in a wideranging technical programme of exemplary environmental measures covering energy, water, material and land-use. Each provides a set of “standardised, universal and transferable guidelines or strategies aimed at directing technologies along a particular, pre-defined technical development pathway” [7]. In terms of policy implementation, having gained agreement or consensus on the importance of resource efficiency the strategy is simply to provide information which proves the efficacy of particular technologies, “whilst also applying political and commercial pressure on development professionals to act sustainably” [8]. This process has supported a widespread commitment to technologically instrumental tools such as life-cycle analysis, integrated environmental assessment methods, environmental management systems and building performance prediction methods.
Whilst we do not discount the importance of physical performance we should also recognise that this linear model of research and development is founded on a limited and ‘realist’ interpretation of the environmental problem in which both appropriate ends (sustainability) and means (technology) are either directly linked or simply assumed. This “environmental realism” is premised by the notion that “rational science can and will provide the understanding of the environment and the assessment of
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those measures which are necessary to rectify environmental bads”. Further implicit in this model of consensus is a “process of standardisation” which means that “particular local conditions” and competing “forms of local knowledge” tend to be ignored [9].
Contesting consensus
Whilst the technical, performance approach to understanding natural ventilation has brought undoubted benefits in terms of highlighting the importance of energy consumption of buildings it also tends to detract from a situated understanding of the social context in which the nature of the environmental ‘problem’ is both defined, constructed and addressed. As Maarten Hajer points out, to analyse environmental questions in terms of “quasi-technical decision-making on well defined physical issues misses the essentially social questions that are implicated in these debates”[10]. The importance of adopting a contextualised understanding of natural ventilation is highlighted by a whole set of awkward and often contradictory analytical questions which accompany natural ventilation techniques, concerns about location, pollution, occupant health and comfort, building form, flexibility and appropriate technologies. Rather than being easily and narrowly confined to technical and performance criteria, the concept of natural ventilation raises fundamental questions about the relationship between technology, nature and society which can be understood to mirror and reflect wider debates about sustainability. Crucial to this understanding is a recognition of the way in which differing aspects of the environmental agenda are prioritised and addressed and the way in which specific forms of environmental innovation are privileged. This suggests the importance of an alternative interpretative model for understanding natural ventilation and technological innovation which recognises the contrasting 'visions' or competing pathways employed by development actors, each “pathway embodies quite different assumptions about the form, design and development of future buildings”[11]. From this perspective, the concept of natural ventilation has to be understood within a much broader argumentative context about alternative definitions of sustainability. Here, “the notion of a set of best practices is simply too narrow and static” and “instead a notion of competing
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environmental logics is required to acknowledge the variety of pathways of [technological] innovation in turn reflecting the diverse context of environmental action” [12].
Competing visions of ventilation
Environmental concerns are both contingent and multidirectional in character, they are also time and space specific and are shaped by a particular image and interpretation of sustainability. That is, the concept of sustainable building can be understood as a social construct. In order to more fully understand sustainable technologies such as natural ventilation, we must account for the social structuring of both the identification of environmental problems and their resulting embodiment in built forms. Our analysis would suggest that a more appropriate approach would be to treat these competing views as environmental discourses which take material form in particular design logics that re-shape buildings [13]. Understanding a concept like natural ventilation as a social construct does not deny that there are serious environmental problems in urgent need of addressing, or to dispute that the wide range of technological approaches are not valid, environmentally, socially or technically, in their own terms. The premise is that individuals, groups and institutions embody widely differing perceptions of what environmental innovation is about, each possess a particular way of visualising the nature of the environmental problem which is reflected in differing commitments, design approaches and technological strategies. From this perspective, we can begin to view technological innovation as a social representation of differing ecological and ethical values, or a material embodiment of the logic's that make up the green buildings debate [14]. In this sense, logic, with Hajer, is “here defined as a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorisations that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities” [15].
Our analysis is based on studies of completed buildings and an extensive literature review of books, articles and reports covering issues relating to the design, servicing and ventilation of buildings. Each of the four design logics presented in figure one, and briefly explained in the following text, highlight
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the way in which the debate about natural ventilation is framed differently depending upon competing constructions of the ‘environmental problem’. In particular, each logic is underpinned by a distinct interpretation of sustainable technologies and alternative forms of environmental value which are indicative of the way in which differing notions of the ‘environment’ have been broken up and reinterpreted by development actors as they pursue design strategies. These differing concerns encourage contrasting criticisms of conventional building service technologies and shape a particular attitude to natural ventilation, thereby resulting in a subsequent diversity of possible technological strategies whose environmental ‘benefits’ can be evaluated in a number of ways. These logics, whilst presented as autonomous are not meant to be in any way exclusive, that is, in the design of any particular development logics may collide, merge or co-inhabit or simply be absent in debate about form, design and specification. The main point is to develop an interpretive framework which reveals the meta-discourses shaping the sustainability debate and to highlight the fact that environmental concepts like natural ventilation are hardly ever considered or discussed in their full value complexity. Figure 1 - The competing logic's of natural ventilation
Logic
Commercial
Ecological
Health
Localist
Sustainability indicators
economic
environmental
social
cultural
Image of sustainable technologies Source of environmental knowledge Rhetoric
efficient
sufficient
responsible
appropriate
objective
holistic
subjective
relational
financial
ethical
medical
experiential
Building related concerns
profitability
ecological footprint
sick buildings
authenticity
Comfort definition
scientific
physical
psychological
perceptual
Criticisms of conventional servicing technologies Risks associated with conventional technologies Benefits of natural ventilation Technologies
inefficient
polluting
health threatening
alienating
market survival
planetary survival
individual well-being
cultural identity
reduced running costs high -tech hybrid
reduced technological intensity low-tech autonomous
control rich environment occupant controlled responsive
harmonious technology local place-specific
Evaluation
cost benefit
eco-system health
individual health
truth to place
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The Commercial Logic - Natural ventilation as efficient technology
The Commercial logic is a techno-rational, policy oriented discourse which represents a belief in incremental, techno-economic change and that science and technology can provide the solutions to environmental problems. As Cook and Golton put it, “technocentrics recognise the existence of environmental problems and want to solve them through management of the environment” putting their trust in “objective analysis and a rational scientific method” [16]. In the field of environmental policy these ideas have been expressed in terms of “ecological modernisation” which “indicates the possibility of overcoming the environmental crisis without leaving the path of modernisation” [17]. Sustainable development therefore involves “a process of integration to ensure better management, and thus better outcomes, through balancing ascribed goals across biophysical, economic and social systems” [18]. In practice, these ideas are characterised by a consensual, top-down view of environmental and technological change in which a “progressive process of innovation mitigates the adverse effects of development” [19]. The assumption is that existing institutions can internalise and respond to ecological concerns and what is required is an integrative approach in which science, technology and management take account of the fragility of nature. The source of environmental problems stems from past practices not taking sufficient account of environmental concerns and what is required is the “development, inauguration and diffusion of new technologies that are more intelligent than the older ones and that benefit the environment” and that “the only possible way out of the ecological crisis is by going further into industrialisation” [20]. Here it is the global environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions and ozone layer depletion which are the predominant issues and in the case of buildings the aim is to maximise the environmental efficiency of development.
The Commercial logic is most familiar in the world of property development where market survival and commercial shifts are the over-riding factors shaping technological innovation. Commercial organisations are increasingly concerned to reduce overheads and 'sweat their assets' in order to
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compete effectively in the global marketplace. After human resources buildings tend to represent a companies main overhead. As Johnson puts it, "some will see greater concern for environment as a way of reducing costs and the most obvious vehicle for this is energy saving"[21], while others will perceive that "buildings with better than average environmental performance will be more desirable and therefore more valuable and perhaps easier to sell"[22]. As Frank Duffy suggests, "For many firms green issues were expressed through a discussion of energy efficiency. Avoiding waste of resource and minimising occupancy costs are closely related"[23].
The justification for such
innovation is strongly commercial. Thus, effective environmental innovation can proceed without upsetting sensitive development equations and investment criteria, thereby allowing commercial development actors to make "new kinds of decisions about design, management and the environmental standards of their workplaces"[24].
In terms of building services, this emphasis on efficiency has stimulated a whole range of innovations in building fabric and service systems. These form a hierarchy of levels of technological change and substitution, in which the technological intensity of building services specifications is transferred into other areas of design, such as the building envelope to maintain flexibility and achieve pre-defined, scientific notions of occupant comfort. Here, natural ventilation techniques are not seen as a radical alternative to conventional technologies but take their place amongst a variety of more efficient air conditioning, comfort cooling and mechanical ventilation systems each applied pragmatically according to the varying demands of client, occupant and location. A wide range of often hybrid approaches are employed, from seasonal and spatial mixed mode ventilation through to ‘intelligent’ double skin walls. The rhetoric of the Commercial approach tends to be over-whelmingly quantitative, the benefits of natural ventilation is expressed in the numerical reduction of building energy consumption, efficient resource use and improved productivity, all understood through commercial cost-benefit analysis in a positive-sum game of environmental protection.
The Ecological logic: Natural ventilation as sufficient technology
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In sharp contrast to the Commercial logic with its emphasis on incremental technical change and an optimism in the adaptability of institutions to accommodate environmental demands, the Ecological logic is founded on a need for a radical reconfiguration of values. According to Victor Papenak the “beneficial connection between economics and ecology has been systematically misrepresented by industrial and governmental apologists” [25]. Here the assumption is that “the challenge of sustainable design is too big, too complex, and too uncertain to deal with as a technical problem, or even as an exercise in institutional design” [26]. The role of sustainable architecture is therefore not simply the improvement of environmental performance as this approach “belongs to an instrumental paradigm that is in itself complicit in our environmental problems” [27]. This radicalism implies a fundamental re-orientation of anthropocentric values, combined with social, political and technological change. Here, what is required is not only the development of more efficient technologies but a wider questioning of what constitutes sufficient technology, it is the latter which must define the boundaries of the former [28].This is a deeply ethical argument which "views humankind as part of a global ecosystem, subject to ecological laws. These, and the demands of an ecologically based morality are seen to constrain human activity"[29].
This radicalism implies a wider questioning of the environmental consequences of modernity and in particular the growing mechanisation and technological intensity of buildings promoted by an “industry-based approach to creating thermal comfort....through power operated mechanical means”[30]. In the evolutionary development of buildings this approach "could probably imply a trend away from (human) self adaptation toward adaptation of the surrounding context"[31] to the extent that "physical and even psychological comfort have become equated with the burning of fossil fuels"[32]. According to this view, the use of technologies such as air conditioning “cannot be derived from physiologically grounded essential human needs but must be explained instead by a selfreinforcing process of cultural signification and addiction” [33]. Air conditioning is symptomatic of a dominating attitude to nature, in which the concept of needs has replaced necessity. It is the commercial need to maximise rentable values, flexibility and occupancy levels together with the promotion of a prestigious identity that creates the artificial demand for air conditioning. Air
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conditioning may therefore be convenient, but in terms of its performance and its impacts on natural eco-systems it is “ecologically, financially and ultimately morally expensive to run” [34]. The rhetoric of the Ecological logic emphasises the negative impacts of built form, “an enormous price has been and is being paid for the ‘power operated’ operated approach...There is ample evidence implying that the pace and magnitude of man's impact has most probably surpassed the maximum adaptation rate of the eco-systems” [35]. Technological change is set within the context of the need for a fundamental reassessment of the notion of progress in which “both long term ecological thinking and ethical considerations prevail” [36]. This logic suggests the creation of more environmentally benign, ‘soft’ technologies that have a non-exploitative relationship with nature. Here, buildings are conceived of as ecological systems and passive ventilation systems offer the possibility of directly reconnecting occupants with nature as part of a holistic approach which tends toward a lack of faith in large scale technology. Natural ventilation offers the possibility of reducing the technological intensity of buildings, a key component of small scale, autonomous techniques which allow the reduction or dependency on centralised infrastructure services of energy. Design strategies would tend towards the use of low-technology systems with an emphasis on utilising renewable, natural and local materials which reduce the overall ecological footprint of the building.
The Health logic: Natural ventilation as responsible technology
The Health logic shifts attention from global concerns and the health of eco-systems to that of individual health, thereby relating “the health of the individual to an increasingly important condition: a healthy environment” [37]. This logic utilises a medical rhetoric to focus attention on the adverse impacts of the built environment and causes of stress that engender health problems, chemical, physical and psychological and links are drawn between the environment, pollution, economic and social conditions and individual ‘well-being’ and ‘quality of life’. Medical discourse has highlighted the environmental hazards which are associated with mechanisation and which accompany the risk society [38]. Here the application of technology is not considered to be a risk-free operation and importantly this discourse has served to highlight that reducing the technological intensity of buildings
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(or society) does not necessarily “lead to a shrinking well-being: on the contrary even a growth in well-being can be imagined” [39]. The Health logic tends to focus a critical attention on the interior of buildings and in particular the work environment, where the concept of ‘sick buildings’ is a familiar issue. Here the image of buildings as a technological barrier to hostile, natural world that allows people to live and work in otherwise uninhabitable places has been transformed. Instead we have a new image of buildings as potentially hostile environments themselves in which individuals are put at daily risk from a variety of hazards.
In the case of building services it is the link between comfort and health which is the central concern. The quest for comfort in buildings, defined by well-meaning professional interventions has tended to shape increasingly complex environmental technologies with resultant negative impacts on occupant health and well-being. Critics utilising this logic point to the “statistical association of chronic, building related ill-health symptoms with larger buildings leading to wider speculation about the role of air conditioning as a cause” [40]. According to Mahdavi & Kumar this “dissatisfaction with certain indoor climatic conditions is in part due to negative views of mechanical equipment” [41]. These concerns have stimulated the questioning of the whole notion of the conventional scientific approach to thermal comfort which despite an “increasing number of comfort-related environmental indices and an increasing refinement in their description” [42] still fail to capture the differential personal parameters and the dynamic nature of the interaction between occupants and their environment. The promotion of passive technologies such as natural ventilation has been based on a recognition of the importance of differential stimuli both for occupant comfort and health, and that the wider variations of internal conditions experienced by passively conditioned environments may actually promote health “by positively changing the indoor microclimate” [43]. Thus, whilst natural ventilation techniques cannot achieve the narrowly defined comfort parameters of mechanical systems, Kuno suggests that health should be used as an argument, and that “it is better for healthy people to experience a little discomfort” [44]. As a result new design principles of “environmental diversity are emerging” [45]. This approach suggests the importance of individual control over technology and a wider form of well-being in a more natural environment, envisaging “a sense of dynamics of the
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natural climate, the proper condition of mankind” [46]. Natural ventilation is seen as providing a more natural environment in which the technical complexity and intensity of building services is minimised whilst also maximising outside contact and increasing the opportunities for individual control over their immediate environment. As Leaman and Bordass suggest, people prefer "a control rich, naturally ventilated environment" where the technology allows "many opportunities for personal control, providing a background for healthy, comfortable and safe operation as well as adaptive comfort"[47].
The Localist logic: Natural ventilation as appropriate technology
The Localist logic departs from concerns for both individual and eco-system health and instead stresses the need to create a sense of place specific identity. The concern here is with authenticity and the notion that truly sustainable buildings need to more fully relate to the concept of locality and place. This emphasis on place, or ‘genius loci’ is intended to counteract the deficiencies of modernist, abstracted space and is a reaction to the globalism of the International Style. Our responsibilities as building designers is to resist the phenomena of universalisation prevalent in modern culture and sustainability means adapting to, and living within the constraints and possibilities imposed by the characteristics of a particular region. This logic “is opposed to the tendency of ‘universal civilisation’ to optimise the use of air conditioning” [48]. The criticism of large and complex industrial technologies such as air conditioning stems from their inability to relate to the particular qualities of place and a concern that their universal application, regardless of location has had a profound effect on building production. The widespread application of imported air conditioning techniques has both enabled the construction and use of similar building forms anywhere in the world regardless of climate. As Reyner Banham suggests these technologies have achieved "the ambitions of the International Style Modernists to deliver mankind, all over the world, from the inadequacies of vernacular buildings"[49]. This notion of universality is also implicit within thermal comfort indices as embodied in International Standards (ISO 7730) whose hypothesis “has been extrapolated as equally applicable to human beings around the world regardless of race, culture or climatic experience” [50].
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According to Steven Moore, as a technology; “air conditioning acts to universalise local space. It does so by reducing the quality of experienced coolness to a universalised equivalency measured in tons. Rather than utilise local sources of coolness - the breezes, the river, locally available minerals, or the ground itself - mechanical air conditioning acts to convert all spaces to a mathematical and universal measurement of cubic volume” [51]. In contrast, passive servicing techniques, require technical decisions which are grounded in an understanding of place, these approaches are therefore “the antithesis of mathematised space as they depend on the understanding of very particular conditions” [52]. In addition to promoting a place based design strategy this discourse also highlights the political issue of democratic control over technology and expertise. Here, natural ventilation is also seen as a potentially ‘democratic’ or ‘appropriate technology’. According to David Pepper, appropriate technologies “are democratic [because] unlike high technology they can be owned, understood, maintained and used by individuals...not just a minority of ‘expert’ men” [53]. This contrasts to the anonymity of complex technologies such as air conditioning, where “to all but the mechanical engineer, air conditioning has become a classical ‘black-box’ that is rated in tons of output capacity. One need not know how the contents of the black-box transform conditions as long as the box continues to operate” [54]. In contrast passive technology “is democratic in principle because it requires local consideration and distribution of available natural forces.......The distributive justice of natural forces is necessarily local and democratic because the conditions of their production are local and particular” [55]. Here the vision of natural ventilation is one of a transparent, appropriate technology which is adapted to, and grounded within particular local ecological conditions. As a design strategy there is also an emphasis on cultural continuity as embodied in traditional building forms and typologies. Inspiration is drawn from vernacular and indigenous building approaches which are viewed as indicative of the ways in which rooted cultures have necessarily adapted to the climatic conditions and environmental constraints of a particular context. Here natural ventilation is a key component of a place-based design strategy which acknowledges the importance of climate as a key constituent of locality. The assumption here is that it is only approaches to technologies which are
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grounded within a specific tradition of locally based production that will coincide with the social and cultural values of a particular place or people.
Conclusions: Pathways to natural ventilation
In highlighting the contested nature of debates around natural ventilation this paper has problematised those analyses of sustainable technologies which start from a predominantly realist, standardised and objective interpretation of the environmental 'problem'. Our argument is not to deny that these approaches are important, or even essential, but that we should also recognise that in methodological terms they often fail to capture both the broader social context of development and the way in which the sustainability question gets caught up and reinterpreted in a whole range of debates about the future development of buildings. The four design logics briefly sketched out above each suggest a differing interpretation of sustainability and emphasise a range of possible solutions available to us. Critically, they raise wider questions about sustainability, should we simply emphasise the development of more efficient technologies or engage in a fundamental reassessment of technological intervention or explore how technologies are socially or culturally sustained?
These observations have particular implications both for environmental research and policy making. Our analysis has demonstrated through the relatively uncontroversial example of natural ventilation the social complexity of technical responses to the challenge of sustainability. This sociological perspective contrasts sharply with the conventional policy image of natural ventilation as simply a response to the issue of energy efficiency. The widespread acceptance of this narrow, and largely physical view, means that building research and policy-making tends to pursue an optimal technological pathway based on narrowly defined performance criteria [56]. As a result, we risk marginalising alternative design logics that suggest a different emphasis in design. In contrast, we argue that concepts like natural ventilation must be situated and interpreted within a much broader social and political context that recognises alternative definitions of sustainable architecture. Policymakers need to identify the largely pre-figurative nature of alternative logics of environmental
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innovation; how competing design strategies are characterised by quite different views of the environmental benefits of natural ventilation; and how they result in a variety of technological pathways towards sustainability. This way of seeing would highlight arguably the most fundamental issue currently ignored in the sustainability debate, that the environment is a contested terrain. Adopting this perspective we might begin to “recognise the influence of competing environmental visions, identifying their social biases [and] acknowledging implicit technological assumptions,.....and crucially highlighting the way in which these contrasting visions intersect” [57].
In beginning to understand the underpinning assumptions of these competing interests and by revealing the effect of power relations, we will also become “sensitive to the potential for a particular pathway to dominate policy debates, squeezing out alternative logics which have difficulty building a social context for themselves” [58]. For example, while policy-makers pursue energy efficiency as a goal, commercial developers evaluate building services by assessing the contribution of such a specification to investment performance and rental levels [59]. The result is usually to confirm the paramount importance of fully air-conditioned buildings to good investment performance and so to the continued interest of investors in property as an investment medium. Any suggestion that occupiers might be shifting towards a desire for naturally ventilated or even partially ventilated buildings would be discounted by reference to statistical evidence of letting and investment in fully air-conditioned buildings. Any debate about the desirability, efficacy or viability of natural ventilation systems must recognise and mediate the influence of these contrasting contextual frameworks. Finally, the future direction and success of sustainable architecture strategies critically depends upon researchers, policymakers and practitioners recognising these alternative trajectories of design and development. To this end “the next phase in environmental politics requires a repositioning of environmental issues to recapture the task of cultural critique transcending the search for efficient solutions” [60]. As part of this process it is vital that we learn to recognise competing design logics, and the alternative visions they express of sustainability. Recognising the interpretive flexibility surrounding environmental technologies such as natural ventilation is a good place to start.
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[15] Hajer, M. (1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Oxford University Press, Oxford. p.44. [16] Cook & Golton (1994) ‘Sustainable development: cocepts and practice in the built environment – a UK perspective’. Sustainable Construction CIB TG 15. Nov., pp 677-685. [17] Spaargaren, G. and Mol, A. (1992). 'Sociology, Environment, and Modernity: Ecological Modernisation as a Theory of Social Change', Society and Natural Resources, vol.5, pp. 323-344. [18] Hatfied Dodds, S. (1999). 'Pathways and Paradigms for Sustaining Human Communities',Open House International, Vol. 24, No. 1, p 7. [19] Blowers, A. (1996). 'Environmental Policy: Ecological Modernisation or the Risk Society?', Urban Studies, vol. 34, no. 5-6, p. 853. [20] Spaargaren, G. and Mol, A. (1992). 'Sociology, Environment, and Modernity: Ecological Modernisation as a Theory of Social Change', Society and Natural Resources, vol.5, pp. 323-344. [21] Johnson, S. (1993). Greener Buildings: Environmental Impact of Property. Macmillan Press, Hong Kong. [22] Ibid. p. 3 [23] Duffy, F. (1993) The Redesign of Work and Offices - The Responsible Workplace. Butterworth, London. [24] Ibid. p 6. [25] Papenak, V. (1995). The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture. Thames and Hudson, London, p. 46. [26] Hatfied Dodds, S. (1999). 'Pathways and Paradigms for Sustaining Human Communities',Open House International, Vol. 24, No. 1, p 7. [27] Braham, W. (1999). 'Correalism and Equipoise: Observations on the Sustainable', Architectural Research Quarterley vol. 3, no 1, pp. 57-63. [28] Sachs, W. (1999). 'Sustainable Development and the Crisis of Nature: On the Political Anatomy of an Oxymoron'. In (eds) M. Fisher and M. Hajer, Living With Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.23-41. [29] Pepper, D. (1996) Modern Enviromentalism: An Introduction. Routledge, London, p. 27.
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[30] Mahdavi, A. and Kumar, S. (1996). 'Implications of indoor climate control for comfort, energy and environment', Energy and Buildings, vol. 24, pp. 167-177 [31] Ibid. p. 168. [32] Vale, B. & Vale, R. (1991) Green Design: Design for a Sustainable Future. Thames and Hudson, London. [33] Mahdavi, A. and Kumar, S. (1996). 'Implications of indoor climate control for comfort, energy and environment', Energy and Buildings, vol. 24, pp. 167-177 [34] Ibid. p. 176. [35] Ibid. p. 170. [36] Ibid. p. 176. [37] Lanthier, I. and Olivier, L. (1999) 'The Construction of Environmental Awareness', In (eds) E. Darier, Discourses of the Environment, Blackwell, Oxford, p. 65. [38] Beck, U. (1992). 'From Industrial Society to the Risk Society: Questions of Survival, Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment', Theory, Culture and Society, 9, pp. 97 - 123. [39] Sachs, W. (1999). 'Sustainable Development and the Crisis of Nature: On the Political Anatomy of an Oxymoron'. In (eds) M. Fisher and M. Hajer, Living With Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 23-41. [40] Leaman, A. and Bordass, B. (1999). 'Productivity in buildings: The Killer Variables', Building Research and Information, vol. 27, no. 1, p. 13. [41] Mahdavi, A. and Kumar, S. (1996). 'Implications of indoor climate control for comfort, energy and environment', Energy and Buildings, vol. 24, pp. 167-177 [42] Ibid. p. 170. [43] Dean, Y. and Warwick, S. (1998). 'Buildings, the suppression of seasonal response and the effects on health', Building Research and Information, vol. 26, no.3, pp. 152-153. [44] Kuno, S. (1995) 'Comfort and Pleasantness'. In Building and Urban Environmental Conditioning, Proceedings of Pan Pacific Symposium, Nagoya, Japan, vol. 2, part 2, pp 383 -392. [45] Hawkes. D. (1996) The Environmental Tradition: Studies in the Architecture of the Environment. E&Fn Spon, London, p. 17. [46] Ibid.
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[47] Leaman A. and Bordass, B. (1999). ‘Productivity in Buildings: The Killer variables’. Building Research and Information, 27(1), pp 4-19. [48] Frampton, K. (1985). Modern Architecture: A Critical History (2nd Edition), Thames and Hudson, London. p. 317. [49] Banham, R. (1969) The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment (2nd Edition), The Architectural Press, London, p 304. [50] Auliciems, A. (1989).'Thermal Comfort'. In (eds) N. Ruck, Building Design and Human performance, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, p. 16 [51] Moore, S. (1997) 'Technology and the Politics of Sustainability at Blueprint Demonstration Farm', The Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 51, no.1, p. 23. [52] Ibid. [53] Pepper, D. (1996). Modern Enviromentalism: An Introduction. Routledge, London, p. 36. [54] Moore, S. (1997) 'Technology and the Politics of Sustainability at Blueprint Demonstration Farm', The Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 51, no.1. [55] Ibid. [56] Guy, S. and Shove, E. (2000) A Sociology of Energy, Buildings and the Environment: Constructing Knowledge, Designing Practice. Routledge, London. [57] Guy, S and Marvin, S. (1999) 'Understanding Sustainable Cities: Competing Urban Futures', European Urban and Regional Studies, vol 6, no 3, p 269. [58] Ibid. p 273 [59] Guy, S. (1998) ‘Developing Alternatives: Energy, Offices and the Environment’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol.22, No.2, pp.264-282. [60] Hajer, M. and Fisher M. (1999) 'Beyond Global Discourse: The Rediscovery of Culture in Environmental Politics'. In (eds) M. Fisher and M. Hajer, Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 1-20.
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