Hacia una arquitectura sostenible: El ejemplo de Suiza y Voralberg

Abstract

During the past years, the society has developed an ecological awareness as a derivate of the sense of belonging towards a fragile system with complex and global relationships. This ecological awareness has been strengthened by a harsh environmental damage caused to our planet mainly by the modern way of life. This danger is supported by climate change evidences predicted by a number of scientific studies. The architectural process is immersed in an ecological debate considering all the economical, environmental and social aspects due to its high environmental impact. The society as a whole and individually, aware of the environmental damage, becomes the main actor in the decision making when developing a sustainable architectural design. The architecture of the 21st century should define and manage the participative process of all these social actors in its different phases of development. An integrated view of all these aspects could only generate a sustainable architecture. With this aim, examples with cumulative experience located in Switzerland and Austria are shown in this work.