Chapter 9
Sustainability and Education inthe Built Environment
Brian Edwards
THE DEBT TO VITRUVIUS
Environmental design only became a coherent theme of education in the construction industry during the 1960s. Even then it was preoccupied with energy rather than the broader concerns of sustainable development. Conceptually, however, the environmental tradition exists in texts that are the very bedrock of architecture and building design. In Vitruvius, for instance, comfort and climate are central to the tripartite model of utility, beauty and commodity. Vitruvius declared that the site of cities, the direction of streets and the orientation of buildings should be determined by environmental factors (Hawkes, 1996, pp10–11). The very nature of ...
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