Abstract:
In the contemporary built-environment the focus is very much on environmentally conscious design or
so-called ‘sustainable’
design- or even the generic labelled ‘green’ architecture. Despite this popular
and supposedly informed preoccupation with the importance of the role of ecology in architecture,
‘green’ architecture is
usually fixated on energy efficiency within the envelope of an individual building.
This dissertation questions this limited, and often artificial and technologically driven, relationship
between man and ecology. Fundamentally it questions the role of architecture as negotiator in this
relationship. The author proposes an alternative way of viewing ecologically conscious architecture,
where the intent of the
architectural intervention is to respond directly to a given environmental issue
and where its existential impact relates to its surrounding situation and the tension between man and
ecology existing within
the landscape, instead of turning its focus inwards to achieve isolated ‘environmental’
efficiency. Examples of such a specific issue, context and program with a collective goal of
achieving these aims are hence forth elaborated on in the content of this dissertation.
