Systemic Approach For a Sustainable/Responsible Design: Thinkings and Proposals

Early in third millennium when we talk about sustainability, we must provide for the opening of an ethic scenario that regards the awareness of responsibility that each social protagonist of building process (designer, construction company, private or public customers, etc.) has towards future generations. Without this awareness, that implies a new conceptualization on looking at world (Latouche, 2009), the meaning of sustainability is reduced to a rationalization of design processes. Isn’t exceeded the characteristic of power over the world, that the scientific mentality of the modern age (since Galilei and Cartesio) possesses and that gives rise to the present environmental tolerability problem. So a sustainable design, instead of turning to a reductionist approach, necessarily must tackle and rule the complexity pattern that, as we know, characterizes any action on territory, considered as system connecting the physical (natural and anthropic), social and economic sub-systems. The design, either is dealing with new buildings or historical buildings reuse/recovery/restoration, must constitute synthesis and, therefore, validation of choices. These decisions must consider the relationships existing between different “systems” involved (practical imperative: to operate according to a multidisciplinary knowledge). So we think that in design process all the analytical phases have to be performed according to a systemic approach by means of it are disclosed and validated “design choices” depending on the needs of present-day community and future generations alike. This paper will report on some thinkings about system approach, and its problematic aspects, considering it as a methodological tool for the rule of the complex scale of design in the perspective of sustainable/responsible social scenarios.