A Reflection on the Sustainable Architecture Project

Abstract

Environment, ecosystem, harmful emissions, citizens’ health, energy consumption, sustainable development. It is a non-exhaustive list of terms that are part of our daily life and that show how much responsibility the human imprint has today on the state of health of the planet. Despite the fact that they have been deadlines for some decades, at the head of all the programmatic statements on development, issued by international bodies and governments, the situation does not seem to improve. We are, indeed, called to change our lifestyle and our well-being patterns which are causing an exaggerated and ever-increasing waste of energy and resources, just as the overall impact of the human species on natural systems continues to grow (De Capua, 2008). In recent years everything that has to do with architectural design, from the choices of materials to the technologies used, has had to deal with the term sustainability, whose meaning, despite trying to place it in a unique defining apparatus, always takes on nuances and different meanings. In spite of this it has universally generated, in the society of the last decades, the awareness that the lifestyle assumed will have a dramatic impact on the generations to come.