Sustainable Architecture: sus- under + tenere, to hold, to keep in existence; maintain or prolong and archi-, chief + tekton, the science, art, or profession of designing and constructing buildings. Sustainable Architecture, from the Latin and Greek word origins, is in part, the enduring production of space, as described by Lefebvre. Architecture, to be retained from the past, must have value (perhaps beauty too), which distinguishes it from building, and defines its sustainability. The Par../MORE

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Sustainable Architecture: sus- under + tenere, to hold, to keep in existence; maintain or prolong and archi-, chief + tekton, the science, art, or profession of designing and constructing buildings. Sustainable Architecture, from the Latin and Greek word origins, is in part, the enduring production of space, as described by Lefebvre. Architecture, to be retained from the past, must have value (perhaps beauty too), which distinguishes it from building, and defines its sustainability. The Parthenon is an example of endurance. Sustainable Architecture includes: Vernacular Architecture (natural building and ecological design); and Environmental Design (architecture, landscape, urban design, and regional resource conservation conforming to the principles of environmental, social, and economic sustainability). A list of relevant issues in Sustainable Architecture begins with: 1. Though the classical architect strove for lofty autonomy, the future of architecture is more likely to be expressed in contingent vernacular and sustainable practices required by increasingly severe environmental, social and economic constraints. "This contingency might open up opportunities for the intentional reformulation of a given context." (Till, 2009); 2. A systems theory, or cybernetic approach is suggested as the most central concept to sustainable architecture is "integrating different aspects of sustainable development in thinking and acting." (Ahlberg, 2004); 3. Further illustrating the creative power of Sustainable Architecture, "To talk about ecology in architecture is not to bring the thinking of ecology to architecture. Rather, ecology is, from the beginning, a certain kind of thinking about or from architecture." (Wigley, from Recycling Recycling); and 4. The ethics of the ecological footprint or "The amount of biologically productive land and sea area an individual, a region, all of humanity, or a human activity requires to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the waste it generates." (Vanderheiden, 2008) Sustainable Architecture is then the enduring production of space with artistic, effective, and low cost and low or zero energy use architecture. It frees ecological, social, and economic resources from the illusory, and "black hole", surplus economies of consumerism, and effects a result that can, after Francoise Choay "accommodate pleasure and the unforseen."