Ethics in Architecture Responsibilities and Moral Decisions in Sustainable Design

DOI: 10.34810/rljaev1n12id389295 2 ETHICS IN ARCHITECTURE RESPONSIBILITIES AND MORAL DECISIONS IN SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

Karen Boujaoudeh Khoury

Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of ethics in the professional practice of sustainable architecture. What is the architect responsible for, and to whom is s/he responsible? How does the architect make moral decisions when challenged with ethical encounters that ascend both at the level of ‘practice’ and ‘theory’ in the broader space-time framework of architectural realization? The paper designates the value of ethics in the profession nowadays and whether this value is being taken into consid- eration not only theoretically but practically throughout the project’s life cycle. The results of a small questionnaire survey of project managers, architects and building contractors reveal a list of ethical measures to be considered by architects when executing a sustainable project in an urban context in Lebanon. It leaves the reader with an open window of discussion on what architects should be aware of during the sustainable practice of this profession. Is the architect practicing ethics in his career or is s/ he only restricted to its theoretical measure? Keywords: Ethics, theory, architecture, sustainability, practice

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Introduction

Architecture in the Construction Industry: Where does sustainable architecture stand as a profession? Activity or ‘practice’? Architecture is an art, not a science, and for that reason its standards and principles are aesthetic. Nevertheless, it is not similar to other arts, because since its purpose is to create suitable places and sustainable environments of social life, its purpose is by desig- nation ethical. Architecture is functional: sustainable design and its outcome form part of the same activity. Resolutions taken by architects in their daily practice have a constant influence on the lives of occupants and those affected by their work of design. These are obviously ethical decisions, but they are similarly professional ‘best-practice’ decisions taken in order to achieve the ideal results for the project in hand. For that reason, the ethical problems linked with architecture are within the practice of architecture, and their resolution is a basic of doing ‘fine’ architecture. Architecture is a job developed with the discrepancy between artists and handicrafts. But what makes it interesting is that architects as leading builders had common skills with craftsmen and other artisans from the beginning.

Literature review

Moral decisions in Theory

Ethics is defined as ‘the branch of philosophy dealing with values relat- ing to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain action and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions’ (Wassermann, Sullivan and Palermo 2000). Morality as a monitor to the ethical behavior, ‘a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior’ (Oxford Dictionary), is understood as one of the drives which assisted people to create societies, community, and cities. This feature makes ethics crucial for architecture. Architects began to fascinate the imagination of philosophers when the American Institute of Architects transformed its Code of Ethics several times between 1960 and 1987, replying precisely to numerous vital Supreme Court judgments. Even though the new code is sophisti-

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cated in differentiating ethical standards of supreme behavior from the least, compulsory “Rules of Conduct,” it is somewhat basic in substance. The AlA Code of Ethics replies to disorganized public and legal insights of the correct role of architects in society, struggling to satisfy by leaving out the officially violent requirements formerly believed to be ethically mandatory. In terms of singular occupations, it is frequently presumed that architects are not only gifted in the design and construction of buildings, but also of the uppermost ethical competence (J Dobson, 2010); N Carroll, 2015, for example, has outlined this back to the American Institute of Architects Code of Ethics set in 1947. The present code of ethics rotates around the notion that the common good is right for issues not established in laws (N Carroll, 2015). Ethical values are general and dissimilar to legal, social or religious moralities. ‘Ethical inquiries deal with supportive or dangerous performance toward people or other beings. They have to be notable amongst social demands which deal with the duties, customs and prohibitions of groups, or religious demands that deal with the nature of sanctity, or legal interrogations which deal with what has been organized into law in specific civilizations. The reason behind evolving as an ethical scholar involves an open-minded empathic reasonability, becoming more truthful, genuine and open, less biased, and more lenient. This method requires time and practice’ (Paul and Elder, 2006). A significant feature of ethics in the construction industry is individ- ual ethics repeatedly understood by construction professionals as just handling others with an equivalent degree of honesty as they would like to be treated (T Beachamp, N Bowie, 2004).

Moral decisions in Practice

Architecture is a profession associated with diverse concerns and fields. Architects are anticipated to be socially conscious and simultaneously have awareness on numerous technological schemes. The architect has to transform the knowledge from several fields into ‘architectural knowledge’. Furthermore, as a director or planner she/he frequently has to link the information among verbal terminologies, dissimilar kinds of graphic means or structural and environmental systems throughout the design period.

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“The Business of the architect is to make the designs and estimates, to direct the works, and to measure and value the different parts; he is the intermediate agent between the employer, whose honor and interest he is to study, and the mechanic, whose rights he is to defend. His situation implies great trust; he is responsible for the mistakes, negligence, and ignorance of those he employs and above all he is to take care that the workman’s bills do not exceed his own estimates. If these are the duties of the architect; with what modesty can his situation, and that of the builder or contractor, be united”. Sir John Soane. For project managers, one of the serious fundamentals of their profession is the contemplation of ethics and social responsibility (Fry, T., 2009). There should be no clash among ethics and virtuous management. The architect as an artist is exceptionally capable to exercise moral thoughts in the course of moral negotiation. One might suppose ethical discrepancies to be met with self-confidence and overcome with intelli- gence. Nevertheless, architecture is very unlike other arts, since its purpose is to create suitable places and contexts of social life, then its determination is by definition ethical (Jane Collier, 2006). Architecture is a talent, an obsessive engagement with design, a profession, and a business (D. Koehn, 2017). It is also a practice in the logic that diverse groups of people work together to accomplish particular activities; their communications and interactions create a ‘culture of practice’ in any given condition (Davis, C, 2001). And consequently, architecture as a profession is not restricted to the architect only. Con- tributors involved in the entire process of construction play a part in this profession. Therefore, ethics is not only an obligation for the architect but rather a requirement for all members involved in the construction industry. Project managers, engineers, contractors and specialists along with the architect, cooperate to achieve a project. It is vital that project managers accomplish their work in an ethical method. This quotation, from the preamble of the Code of Ethics for Project Managers (Watson, D., 2001), confirms the scope of proper ethical conduct required by project managers. Construction contractors are also likely to perform in an ethical rou- tine. A recent discussion survey of construction professionals designated the important role ethical conduct plays in construction contracting (T Beachamp, N Bowie, 2004), an unpredictable point in view of people

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working in the construction industry are deemed as likely to withstand a major damage and five times more likely to be murdered than the aver- age for all industries (Davis, 2001). Being honest and accurate is also said to be an essential aspect of professional reliability, particularly when making dues and estimations (JA Brickley, CW Smith Jr, JL Zimmerman, 2002). Unlike architects, conversely, construction contractors have a repute for unethical performance, the main difficult being, according to a survey led by the journal Building Research and Information (H Sadri , 2012), the high level of arguments between managers and builders. Their com- monly poor behavior has been said to have emerged from the inflow of new construction companies with new people who bond that professional understanding be both valuable and impartial (Warburton, n., 2012). Theorizing architecture as ‘practice’ permits one to discover three perspectives that in their diverse ways acknowledge such necessity and therefore support one to define features of architectural ethicality more carefully. ‘Architecture’ is not a lonely activity, so that in the first occa- sion we need to work with some conception that permits us to handle agency and environment concurrently. It is a social practice that duplicates and converts its ‘world’ in ways permitted and controlled by prevailing rules and offered resources (P Boxall, J Purcell, 2007). A truthful and useful view of architecture as a social practice implanted in its chronological, three-dimensional and social contexts, where ethical standards are ‘hard-wired’ into the social system by specialized rules and cultural prospects. It is a virtue practice among the activities of architectural practices. This struggles to accomplish their determination of excellent design and its suitable comprehension in buildings that assist the needs of human beings. It is a learning practice where acts of problem-solving and learning from experience and know-how are entangled. The know-how is also acquired by reflecting on the past, by reviewing and learning from what has been done before. Architecture appeals on a long sequence of narratives by which it has well defined and redefined its own uniqueness and its own history (Was- serman, PJ, Sullivan, G, Palermo, 2000). A practice includes standards of superiority and respect to rules as well as the accomplishment of properties. To cross the threshold into a practice is to admit the authority of those values and the shortage of one’s

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own performance as judged by them. It is to subject one’s own arrogances, choices, favoritisms and tastes to the standards that presently and moderately describe the practice (C Delancey, 2004).

Research question and methodology

Following the literature review, a questionnaire is established for pursuing the views of practitioners on the main ethical issues surrounding construction industry activities. How does the architect handle the notion of ethics in his/her profession? Does it remain theoretical or he/she strains to apply it in practice? The study includes a number of architects with a wide variety of ex- periences who practice the profession in Lebanon. The research observed 10 large scale sustainable projects in a major urban area of the country. The main target was the architects and all the participants involved in the construction project, including engineers and contractors. The ethical practice of the architect towards nature and the environment is also identified. The results indicate the architect’s ethical position in the professional practice.

Findings

What is the architect responsible for? The responsibility of the architect toward: the profession, the community and the environment. Current literature has highlighted the growing demand for good ethical practice and professional behavior in all forms of business, including the construction industry. The survey focused on analyzing the ethical conduct, identified in the literature, of professionals highlighting their duties to clients higher than their responsibilities to the public (environmental ethics and public health and safety). Almost one-third of the respondents claimed to have witnessed or experienced breaches of public obligation, including: • Corruption and contamination of the soil; • Deprivation of vegetation;

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• Soil erosion; • Insufficient perimeter fencing on construction sites; • Inconsiderate execution of demolition and construction; • Loading of construction waste products offsite; and • Scarce protection for public from remains. Based on that, the study initiates methods and means in which the future is foreseen, and lists features of sustainability to which architects can constrain. The ethical responsibility of the architect lies in the measures extracted from the survey:

Responsibility towards the Ethical measures Profession Community Environment The availability of energy sources X X The human values established X X by basic design The sourcing of material, its cost X X and renewability The lifespan of the building relative X X to its cost, the suitability of the design for its environment Recycling materials, energy-efficient X X design, decreases in energy request, regional planning and preservation Bioclimatic design, energy- X X X efficient technologies, enclosed air quality, pollution moderation and environmental landscape design A knowledgeable, ethical, and X unbiased service Designing buildings that shelter X X X the health, security and wellbeing of all the inhabitants Respect for the natural environment X X Steadiness, reliability and X X the honesty of the project

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Analysis

Responsibility is associated in the fineness of architectural practice, but it also exists in the broader sense of responsibility for the ‘outcome’ pro- duced by the modeling of the built environment. Respecting the issues of sustainability obliges the architects to admit responsibility not simply for current human thriving but for the wellbeing of future generations. Responsibility has to be an obligation for the upcoming: it is a responsibility not only for the significances of today’s selections, but for the methods and means in which we foresee the future, because that con- stitutes tomorrow’s choices (Charles Vee, C Martin Skitmore, 2003). Responsibility without precaution is visionless, but precaution deprived of responsibility is alarming (W Fox, 2012; N Carroll, 2015). Liable architecture is currently progressively future-oriented; sustainability is ‘future fairness’. It calls architects to design and build for supply use that is equivalent to or less than a sustainable or renewable level. A traditional measure would be what is instantly offered on that specific site (e.g. solar, wind or other energy sources). A broader measure would consist of assets derived from the topographical ‘footprint’ of the public expected to use the building. There are additional issues linked to the sourcing of material, its cost and renewability, the lifespan of the building relative to its cost, the suitability of the design for its environment (fits in the context well), and to the absence of respect for human values established by basic design in commercial buildings where individuals spend most of their lives (Delancy, 2004). Recycling materials, energy-efficient design, decreases in energy request, regional planning and preservation are all features of sustainability to which architects can constrain. Debate on the environmental significances of architecture is frequently disregarded by practitioners and professors (Watson, 2001). That is a responsibility which architecture cannot disregard. While the practice of architecture is fundamentally accountable for providing ethical resolutions to nowadays complications of settlement and occupation, it is also responsible for guaranteeing that the future influence of today’s choices is not such as to hover the wellbeing of future generations. Some concerns re- lated to environmental health and wellbeing have been a part of the professional dialogue for years. Subjects such as bioclimatic design, energy-efficient technologies, enclosed air quality, pollution moderation and environmental landscape design have become part of the data base,

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the significance base and the study base of the profession. Nevertheless, some of the most obstinate sustainability issues relate to expansion, de- mographic burdens and megacities. The intricate connection of these problems with environmental threats such as carbon emissions and uni- versal scarcity hinder the ability to understand, and also to react. The architect is responsible for reporting unique visual potentials to the individuals’ buildings, yet his/her limit is not buildings only. The right satisfaction of the architect’s responsibilities involves knowledgeable, ethical, and unbiased service, not only on behalf of the client, but as well in the community concentration. Rarely does a building influence its occupant only, nor does it stand on its own. Hence, the architect is responsible for designing buildings that shelter the health, security and wellbeing of all the inhabitants and also improve the surroundings by showing due respect for the natural environment, current physical fac- tors, and circulatory configurations (B Sweeting, 2016). According to Justin Sweet, “An architect who has contracted to perform traditional site services owes a duty to construction workers. This duty does not depend upon the architect’s having particularly broad powers, such as the power to supervise, direct or stop work, an empha- sis mistakenly employed in some of the seminal cases. Nor can the duty be completely negated by the architect’s contract. The duty arises from the simple fact that architects and construction workers are co-participants in a dangerous enterprise. They are both physically on the site, often at the same time. Each would expect the other to act when danger surfaces” (Tschumi 1989 p.66). The architect who deals with the predicaments of her/his practice is called ‘the uneasy architect’ by Spector referring to Bernard Williams’ theory of ‘uneasy professional’. Spector proposes that the architects rec- ognize that ‘that discomfort is an essential part of their role. The complications of working for both public and private welfares or challenging with standards of art and efficacy are difficulties that must occur in the world’. In addition to that, ‘some encounters regularly challenged by the architects may be extremely fixed in the different morals of the society to be determined through fair and fine design’ (Spector, 2001). The variances among private and public welfares or artistic and technological attitudes can produce many problems, but they are not the only ones. ‘Design every so often begins with an apparent necessity by a person or group who want extra; extra space, extra product, extra profit... by con- sidering methods or means to moderate, simplify, or remove at the same

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time’ (Fisher, 2008). The yearning of achieving more by means of less is one of the straightforward dilemmas of architecture. Everyone desires an ethical method and rationale for valuing the world, circumstances, her/his own work or for arbitrating anything in an ener- getic way. ‘Most people complicate ethics with behaving in harmony with social settlements, religious views and the law; that doesn’t give ethics a stand-alone concept’ (Paul and Elder, 2006). The transformation is that ethical values exceed the limits of engraved flawless rules. Most of the time clear rules are inadequate in order to clarify the whole thing in open- ended and uncertain fields like architecture. Architectural design can be assessed through the steadiness, reliability and honesty of the project. The scheduling of activities (planning), the concept (design), the structural system, appropriate, significant details and anything in any scale about the project must be a part of this regular- ity. All measures and their associations on diverse scales support the ec- centric of the whole and the transformation of the ideas. An attempt to improve this approach aids to see Spinoza’s ‘everything fits together in one huge system argument’, or Singer’s approach to ‘moral questions based on the idea of consistency’ (Warburton 2012). Design process involves a cluster of ideas, which when collected turn out to be a system. Aiming on a system supports to see diverse types of sub- systems in the whole project. Therefore the examination for steadiness and the core integrity is a major argument for architectural design education.

Discussion

The research used a structural method resulting in the extraction of the respondents’ beliefs and values. The context in which the research is based has a major impact on the outcome of the results, which means the data collected in the Lebanese market will not be reliable with a market in Europe for example. The environmental impact is substantial so care- fulness should be considered to avoid generalization. The research however does provide future researchers with the foun- dation to analyze professional ethics in details. All participants, irrespective of professional commitment, call for a common understanding of ethical and professional values. Nowadays it is beyond one’s choices to have the environment as the first significance in responsible design choices. “We human beings have

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reached a critical moment in our existence. It has always been recognized that individuals, communities, races and even nations can be fated or disappear, but we are now at a point when it can no longer be assumed that we have a future. If we do, it can only be by design against the still accelerating detouring condition of unsustainability” (Fry 2009). To perform for nature’s advantage would be an easy choice to create. Nor- mally speaking, ethics includes inquiries about what methods are considered good and what decisions lead to doing right (Fisher, 2008). In spite of the modest definition of ethics stating the good and the right, inquiring the good and the right is not always stress-free. ‘In our daily world, the ethical issue to do must occasionally be a substance of debate’ (Paul and Elder, 2006). Ethics requests searching, debating, and discussing, while architectural design studios are mainly grounded on deliberations through the nonstop collaboration of the ‘idea versus work’ association. Archi- tecture is a restraint with the prospective to revive moral philosophy by addressing questions about what is right in addition to what is good from different perceptions. The work of architecture is grounded on the notion of transformation and time interval. Individuals, geography, dwelling; weather conditions, movement, society, speed and many more can be converted through architecture with an optimistic motivation for the future. The architect senses the pressure not only of working on dissimilar systems concurrently, but also of the requirement of ‘being’ in diverse times, ‘today and the future’ at the same time. Flexibility is a significant skill that the architect needs in order to deal with that strain, doubt, uncertainty and open-endedness. Despite the fact that the architect is involved with the chore of transforming the space to a specific place, she/he has to deal with various problems.

Conclusion

As long as the absence of professionalism and ethics subsists, even the ethically good will have trouble preserving moral standards. The architect as a builder or the architect as a developer struggle has been used regularly as a means in the community segment to sustain cost control. The correctness of design build approaches for public projects is still argued within the architecture community. Building change guidelines and extras are by characterization not projected in the original price; their possibility should not “swab prices”:

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these must therefore be added on in the future. In reference to the AlA, the public would at no time benefit by a project determined by the eco- nomics of the general contractor. Did experts and specialists intentionally approve the legal simplicity of present practice ethics of the courts through their own arrogances or were they sufferers of the courts? Deprived of moral guidance from similar professions as architecture, the influence of professionalism on the protection of social community and wellbeing, education and proficiency misses its value at large.

References

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Fry, T. (2009): Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Harries, K. 2001: ‘The Responsibility of the Architect’, Reflective Prac- titioner, pp. 4-13. Koehn D. (2017): Ethical issues in human resources. The Blackwell guide to business ethics, Wiley Online Library Paul and Elder (2006): Critical Thinking: Strategies for Improving Student Learning, Part II; National Center for developmental education, vol- ume 32 issue 2. Sadri, H. (2012): Professional Ethics in Architecture and Responsibilities of Architects towards Humanity. Turkish Journal of Business Ethics. Spector, T. (2001): The Ethical Architect: The Dilemma of Contempo- rary Practice. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Sweeting, B. (2016): The ethics of ethics and the ethics of architecture. OCAD University Open Research Repository Faculty of Design. Tschumi, B. Comments in Progressive Architecture (awards issue), January 1989, p. 66. Vee, Ch., Martin Skitmore, C. (2003): Professional ethics in the construction industry: Engineering, Construction and Architectural Manage- ment. Warburton, N. (2012): A Little History of Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wassermann, B., Sullivan, P. and Palermo, G. (2000): Ethics and the Practice of Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Wasserman, B., Sullivan, P. J., Palermo, G. (2000): Ethics and the Prac- tice of Architecture. Wiley publishers. Watson, D.: (2001), ‘Environment and Architecture’, in A. Pietrowski and J. W. Robinson (eds.), The Discipline of Architecture (Univer- sity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis), pp. 158-172. Karen Boujaoudeh Khoury Notre Dame University [email protected]

Submission: September, 26th 2019 Approval: February, 18th 2020

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