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September 5, 2004
Many eco-philosphers do not move beyond a concern with eco-rationality and the extension of ethics the non-human world. But if we are to find counter-practices to a technological mode of being then how do we live differently?If dwelling implies building, then what sort of building would allow us to dwelling poetically?
The answer often given in Adelaide is water and energy efficiency. Our houses, apartments and office buildings need to become far more efficient in te way we use energy and water to run them. Most of our buildings are very energy and water inefficient, and the finger is often pointed at architects. Surely it is up to them to design buildings that enable dwelling?
Is energy and water efficient buildings a pathway to dwelling?
One way of exploring this is to turn to Heidegger's late essay Building Dwelling Thinking contained in Poetry, Language, Thought. Heidegger opens the essay with a powerfulpassage:
"We attain to dwelling, so it seems, only by means of building. The latter, building, has the former, dwelling, as its goal. Still, not every building is a dwelling. Bridges and hangars, stadiums and power stations are buildings but not dwellings; railway stations and highways, dams and market halls are built, but they are not dwelling places. Even so, these buildings are in the domain of our dwelling. That domain extends over these buildings and yet is not limited to the dwelling place. The truck driver is at home on the highway, but he does not have his shelter there; the working woman is at home in the spinning mill, but does not have her dwelling place there; the chief engineer is at home in the power station, but he does not dwell there. These buildings house man. He inhabits them and yet does not dwell in them, when to dwell means merely that we take shelter in them. In today's housing shortage even this much is reassuring and to the good; residential buildings do indeed provide shelter; today's houses may even be well planned, easy to keep, attractively cheap, open to air, light, and sun, but-do the houses in themselves hold any guarantee that dwelling occurs in them? Yet those buildings that are not dwelling places remain in turn determined by dwelling insofar as they serve man's dwelling. Thus dwelling would in any case be the end that presides over all building. Dwelling and building are related as end and means."
To reside means to dwell in a place.
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I am forever amazed at the lack of foresite in Adelaidean housing design. Does no-one look at the site the plonk the house onto? Don't they wonder whether this will be a comfortable or sensible design? An economical design? I know a few people who have or are designing great houses that use local materials and blend with their environment.
PS embarrassing to say I saw the show, but did you see the underground house on Burkes Backyard?
I LOVED it