Place and Time - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 167

human beings. It is the view that all humans (and only humans) have moral
value. Nonhuman species and abiotic resources have value only in respect to that
associated with human values (known as instrumental value ). Conversely, biocentrism
is a systematic and comprehensive account of moral relationships between humans
and other living things. The biocentric view requires an acceptance that all living
things have inherent moral value, so that respect for nature is the ultimate moral
attitude. By extension of the biocentric view, ecocentrism is based on the entire
ecosystem rather than a single species.
Thus, from the standpoint of perceived value, anthropocentrists may strongly
disagree with biocentrists on the loss of animal habitat. The anthropocentrist
may hold that the elimination of a stand of trees is necessary, so they provide less
perceived monetary worth (instrumental value) than the project in need of clear-
cutting, whereas the biocentrist sees the same stand of trees has having sufficient
inherent value to prevent the clear-cutting. Few hold any of these viewpoints
exclusively, but apply them selectively. For example, a politician holding a strong
anthropocentric viewpoint on medical research or land development may love
animals as pets.
In his seminal journal A Sand County Almanac (1949), 9 Aldo Leopold took the
ecocentric view and established the land ethic . It was a dramatic shift in thinking
from that which dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Leopold held
that this new ethic “reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in
turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of land.” This
is a precursor to ecocentrism.
The ecocentric view asks the designer to perceive undeveloped land or existing
structures as more than a “blank slate” and standing building stock as more than
mere three-dimensional structures ready to be built, changed, or demolished
as a means to engineering and architectural ends. In fact, land and structures
are human enterprises that affect people's lives directly. The Pruitt-Igoe public
housing project in St. Louis, Missouri is a tragic and telling example of an
engineering failure by one of the great contemporary architects that resulted
from a lack of insights into the sense of place.
Thus, “failure” in design can go beyond textbook cases and those shared by
our mentors and passed on from our predecessors. By most accounts, Minoru
Yamasaki, was a highly successful designer and a prominent figure in the modernist
architectural movement of the mid-twentieth century. Tragically and ironically,
Yamasaki may best be remembered for two of his projects that failed. Yamasaki
and Antonio Brittiochi designed the World Trade Center towers that were to
become emblems of Western capitalism. Certainly, Yamasaki cannot be blamed,
but the towers failed. In fact, the failure of architects for buildings is seldom
structural and often aesthetic or operational (e.g., ugly or an inefficient flow of
people). Yamasaki strived to present an aesthetically pleasing structure. One may
argue that his architectural success in creating a structure so representative of