Ethics in the Built Environment

Catalog description

Ethics In the Built Environment is an applied theory course that uses negotiation strategies to examine issues broadly relating to the creation and use of the built environment, including research practices and professional ethics. The course examines the role of power imbalances as underlying ethical questions, and discusses means of mediating the resulting ethical problems in a sustainable manner. Through readings, discussions, short exercises, and a term paper, students will gain a greater awareness of ethical issues raised through the production and use of the built environment, and will develop tools to asses ethical issues and identify appropriate resolutions. Topics covered in this course include: defining ethical concepts, tools for evaluating ethical issues in the built environment, understanding built power and the role of empowerment, the power of marketing, accuracy in historical research, urban design and planning and the right to the city, gender and the built environment, architectural practices, the ethics of green architecture, the ethics of design computing, as well as research on individual case studies.