An Architectural Language Shaped by Sustainability

With its quantifiable objectives and measurable performance, sustainability often passes as a technological challenge. Its primary language is that of data, equipment, and engineered systems, most often translated into a hyper-technologized layer hidden within a design upholding pre-existing aesthetic norms. As architecture is the image of society at one moment in time, how does the focus on sustainability translate into architectural language, further legitimatizing the efforts to establish an equitable relationship with the environment? Architecture serves as an expression of attitudes, and since sustainability has become a fundamental value, it is worth looking at whether or not it has produced an aesthetic transformation.

An Architectural Language Shaped by Sustainability
Taisugar Circular Village / Bio-architecture Formosana. Image © Studio Millspace Taisugar Circular Village / Bio-architecture Formosana. Image © Studio Millspace

With its quantifiable objectives and measurable performance, sustainability often passes as a technological challenge. Its primary language is that of data, equipment, and engineered systems, most often translated into a hyper-technologized layer hidden within a design upholding pre-existing aesthetic norms. As architecture is the image of society at one moment in time, how does the focus on sustainability translate into architectural language, further legitimatizing the efforts to establish an equitable relationship with the environment? Architecture serves as an expression of attitudes, and since sustainability has become a fundamental value, it is worth looking at whether or not it has produced an aesthetic transformation.

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