Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Arup's vision of sustainability enacts a technocratic praxis, in which the
engineer is god, but a good god committed to design, sustainability, art, and
connection, an approach that the fi rm calls
total architecture
or
unifi ed
design.
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h e vision is seductive, particularly in the context of climate change.
As one notable Arup engineer explains, “Sustainability brings people
together around a common theme. h is is a critical time for society and its
relationship with the planet's eco-systems. h e moment is right for radical
thinking. 'Unifi ed design' is the mechanism by which to get to the next step:
to understand how we can minimize human impact and maximize human
opportunity.”
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h e problem, which Arup judiciously ignores, is that dis-
courses of “unifi ed design” have particular national contexts of political
authoritarianism. h is governance structure enables the big projects to be
proposed, and its particular contexts do not necessarily dovetail with Arup's
benevolent vision, however seductive that vision might appear to outsiders.
As I mentioned in chapter 1, China's fi rst major eco-village, at Huang-
baiyu, failed due to lack of understanding of the local context. Here, the per-
spectives of local residents in areas proposed for eco-development in China
collided with the goals of the global eco-architects/planners. Architecture is
littered with similar stories of so-called visionaries trumped by the intran-
sigence of small-minded locals or corrupt o' cials, or so the story is often
told. h ere are key diff erences between Huangbaiyu and Dongtan. Huang-
baiyu was a real inhabited place, while Dongtan was a newly proposed city.
Huangbaiyu was a rural place touted as an “eco-village,” whereas Dongtan
was supposed to be an “eco-city,” befi tting its proximity to Shanghai. Last,
Dongtan's development is more focused on lifestyle, consumption, and fun
than Huangbaiyu's, which was focused more on uplifting the lives of the
impoverished local residents. But, ultimately, what both projects share is a
cultural politics in which these sites are projections of global fantasies of
what an “ecological life” and “experience” looks like in a rural Chinese
context.
