Week 3 Lecture

This weeks lecture was on 'How to measure sustainability' by Murray Lane. I have had the chance to work with Murray previously, being my tutor in first year of design. It was interesting to see the vast range of knowledge he had about this particular subject. The lecture although being quite loaded with information offered quite a unique perspective towards the triple bottom line.

Instead of it existing as just the three core elements;

• Economic 

• Social 

• Environmental 

http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/2764

Murray was proposing that sustainability can be split into principles and context when analysising a project.

• Principle is the core values or never changing elements - the bare essentials which sustain human life. For example, shelter, love and safety are principles of architecture. 
• Context is the ever changing factors such as culture, economy and climate.

He has broken the triple bottom line down and developed his own diagram for it which can be seen below. Here it reveals great levels of detail which can help to obtain the greatest amount of information about sustainability and its impacts whether in daily life or during a project.

Murray raised quite a valid point which has never occured to me, although it seems quite obvious. Claims for sustainability need to be backed up by reasoning, considering design, construction through to operation. So considering construction techniques, materials (recycled? local? embodied energy?) and operation. To literally call a project 'sustainable' means it is able to sustain itself which is difficult.

I believe that to considering all of these factors within a project could be quite a stretch and definitely within this society would be very hard to achieve. Perhaps a project needs to have systems in place that eventually mitigate and offset resource use, embodied energy and operation of buildings.