JANSSENS
CONFLICT M. Janssens, M.Arch
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here’s all sorts of baggage with the word: sustainability. And using the word with architectural adjacency elicits a broad range of responses, from a groan (see: Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne) to a sigh (see: everyone working for Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne) to an extended sort of anticipation (see: me looking over elective options 18 months ago). But release it from the grasp of actualized architecture, and sustainability becomes a conceptual apparatus for conflict, pitting the optimists against the pessimists against the realists in philosophical battle for a sort of existential glory — bragging rights to the timeline of the apocalypse. There is power here, in the topic’s ability to divide or inspire. Concerning parties, it is especially clear — on a macro level — that participation requires a side to be taken. And in this current climate, not taking a side is taking a side. The debate then takes any fuel, meaning that even criticism of the means and methods of the thing called sustainability burns it brighter in the zeitgeist.
The micro is trickier, restricted to anecdotes. It’s different to understand sustainability on a personal level. That conflict now is not exactly the same — it is internal and individual. Sides of optimism, pessimism, and realism are replaced by concern, confusion, and apathy. Last semester saw my development of a studio project for Laguna Gloria. An art gallery, or three, intended to expand the Contemporary Austin’s potential on the north side of the historic Driscoll Villa. Inherently rife with possibilities, I rejected all
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