Responsible Architecture: Relational Approaches to Sustainable Behavior in Design

The project is a practice-based research project that strives to develop a critical framework for the integration of relational approaches to promote sustainable behavior in architectural practice and learning. It investigates the relationship between sustain¬able practices in architecture and the prevailing architectural perspectives (its world¬views, values, and practices), and it evaluates the necessary transformation these need to undergo in response to our time’s increasing environmental and social challenges. The dissertation proposes a critical framework and relational tools for architectural practice and education to include sustainable behavior strategies to design, evaluate, and practice architecture. RA is presented as a critical-relational framework that uses emotional attunement to promote long-term sustainable behavior change. Drawing from a multidisciplinary approach supplied by environmental psychology, environmental education, critical environmental studies, and participatory design, this dissertation investigates RA in diverse experiments. These experiments include interviews with Danish professionals in the field of architectural sustainability, participatory design workshops within the architectural studio in Aarhus, and research within a post-graduate architectural education course in Porto, Portugal. By broadening the dimensions of responsibility within architecture to include a critical and relational practice, this study prompts all current and future architects to become active and conscious of their individual and collective responsibilities in practicing architecture that is more responsive to the environmental and social challenges of our time.