Theoretical and Methodological Contribution to the Sustainability of the Architecture and Planning

Abstract

Our Global Society is fragmented with respect to land use, to social structure, and to knowledge. Fragmentation is the result of the reductionism of the 18th Century Age of Enlightenment intellectual framework. Reductionism has achieved great advances in solving innumerable mechanistic problems, but since World War 2, the hyper-acceleration of human endeavor has exploded in all fields, and this has put excessive anthropogenic pressures on the Biosphere, as seen at all levels of all ecosystems.We therefore need to develop, a new intellectual framework, based on holistic principles, and transdisciplinarity, to provide a solid foundation for re-educating architects and planners, and to achieve true community sustainability. For this we need an indicator-tool for analysis and accounting in commerce, and for sustainable planning of territories and their functions. We present a case study to illustrate a methodology developed for a Drainage Basin, near Abrantes, Portugal, with the tool/indicator being the area's capacity to absorb/emit Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The dangers of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and CO2 in particular, are universally accepted to convey the severity of anthropogenic pressures. Architects and planners have a duty and a responsibility to expand their understanding of what true sustainability means, and must create a holistic, transdisciplinary framework for both building design, and for assuring positive, symbiotic relationships between urban places and their corresponding drainage basins.