Sustainable, resilient, circular, degrowth, or smart?

Abstract

This dissertation examines how the material dimension of green transformations – the built environment – both reflects and shapes cultural and social dynamics. It explores how architects, planners, and builders define ‘green’ design and how these definitions produce differing values and understandings of ‘greenness.’ Five conceptual scripts of greenness – (1) three-pillar sustainability, (2) resilience, (3) circularity, (4) degrowth, and (5) the smart city – serve as analytical lenses in this study. These scripts are understood as both narrative and technical frameworks that structure environmental meaning within urban space. Drawing on case studies from the Ruhr region (Germany) and the Atlanta metropolitan region (USA) – including the Kreislaufhaus, Tiny Houses Dortmund-Sölde, Essen 51, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Kendeda Building, and Roosevelt Hall – the research examines diverse approaches to sustainable architecture across contrasting urban contexts. Green building standards such as LEED, DGNB, and the Living Building Challenge (LBC) define criteria for energy efficiency, material sustainability, and occupant well-being, and thus function as key instruments for assessing and guiding ecological design practices. Using these standards alongside the concept of green scripts as a theoretical framework – and combining interviews, planning documents, and fieldwork – the study interprets green buildings as cultural artifacts within the transdisciplinary field of urban studies. The findings indicate that dominant green building standards emphasize engineering resilience features like stormwater management, energy independence, and structural durability over the social script of sustainability, often sidelining equity, accessibility, and collective well-being. The dissertation ultimately calls for deeper collaboration and dialog between engineering and cultural studies in standardization processes, as the built environment encodes key socio-political visions of sustainable futures.