ABSTRACT
Our take on questions of architecture and performance is rooted in a linked environmental and cultural ethic and endeavour. Its aim is to improve on the relation between architecture and environment, while basing this approach wherever possible on locally specific cultural practices. As construction impacts upon our planet at a momentous rate, consuming in the process vast amounts of resources in terms of surface area, material and energy and impacting massively on the bio-physical environment, we pose two related questions: (1) can architecture be in the service of the bio-physical environment; and, by extension, (2) can architecture principally be conceived of as not in conflict with, but rather as an embedded part of its local bio-physical environment? This chapter examines what this involves.
