| In this thesis I contend that certain tacit assumptions about the nature of discourse in the field of architecture have served to reduce the role of architecture in environmental issues to the articulation of technologies that seek to minimize the quantifiable impacts of architectural artefacts on environmental systems. In this role, I contend that architecture's engagement with environmental concerns serves largely to reinforce an existing conceptual positioning that allows (and perhaps even assists) environmental exploitation.; Drawing upon Justus Buchler's theory of human judgement, and employing theories of discourse and discourse analysis by James Gee and Maarten Hajer, I critique these tacit assumptions, and argue, in their place, for a broader sense of architectural discourse which, in turn, reveals architecture's greater potential as a means by which to explore and challenge current understandings of and to provoke new understandings of the relationship between the 'human' and the 'non-human' in our postmodern context.; Drawing upon Aidin Davison's critique of instrumental perceptions of technology, and upon writings on environmental ethics by Anthony Weston and Edward Hill, I further contend that the focus of most current architectural environmental discourse on the quantifiable aspects of buildings has inadvertently encouraged the architectural profession to overlook the more fundamental role that architecture necessarily plays in the shaping of environmental ethics.; I then explore the implications of these contentions through multimedia images and an imagined dialogue which together propose a series of mobile shelters in Ottawa for the Greek cynic philosopher Diogenes and his followers. |
