Sharing the World: an approach for sustainable architectural design

What else could be more appropriate for a conversation about sustainable architecture, than the proposition in Luce Irigaray’s Sharing the World that it is the task of the human being, to learn not to appropriate resources but to share life, with each other and with plants? The question of sustainable architecture is, however, dominated by a discourse comparing the energy performances of buildings and on abstract certification or “rating tools”, each easily manipulated to serve the purposes of either commercial or political gain. Despite a rich history of architects challenging relationships with nature and re-envisioning community, and social scientists addressing how societies use or conserve energy, this current trend presents the problems of sustainable architecture as distinct from that of the human being, his and her desires