In the following interview, Dr. Moore answers questions related to trends he sees occurring in the field of sustainable design, what students are most interested in, the progress that the Center for Sustainable Development has achieved and what he's most looking forward to in 2009. Enjoy! 

 

What is the Alley Flat Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin?
The Alley Flat Initiative, or AFI, is a partnership of the University of Texas Center for Sustainable Development (UTCSD—a research center), the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation (GNDC—a thirty year old not-for-profit affordable housing provider), and the Austin Community Design and Development Center (ACDDC—a three year old not-for-profit community design center). In collaboration, these three groups constitute the AFI in an attempt to provide affordable/sustainable housing in Austin that will have measurable impact on the city’s infrastructure.

How did the Alley Flat program get started and why?
In the fall of 2003 Steven Moore and Andrew Light (an environmental philosopher then at NYU and a Harrington Faculty Fellow at UT for that year) organized the Civic Environmentalism Workshop—a collaboration of architecture students, philosophers, geographers and local activists. The Workshop asked architecture students to imagine over the semester what the concept of “civic environmentalism” might look like in Austin’s Boggy Creek watershed—a low-income community threatened by economic gentrification. In November students presented their proposals to a panel of participants, and in response, each of the panelists wrote an essay intended to inform the completion of the design proposals. In our discussion over two days, one participant asked “Why aren’t you doing this ‘for real’ in the community rather than as a learning exercise.” At the time I responded that, “We haven’t the resources to sustain an effort longer than one-semester and without such resources we would only exploit a community already at risk.” The point had, however, had not fallen on deaf ears. By 2005 I had written and received grants from the Henry Luce Foundation (and subsequently others) that would sustain a multi-year effort to imagine how the development of an affordable/sustainable housing delivery system could become an anti-gentrification tool.

 

What kind of student demand are you seeing in the Graduate Program in Sustainable Design?
When I came to UT in the fall of 1997 there were 3 students enrolled in the program, which was created in 1973 and then called the Design with Climate--the oldest of its kind in North America. Today there are 70 students, which constitutes 1/3 of our graduate program in architecture. In short, the demand is significant and growing. We have four distinct degree programs within Sustainable Design: A First-professional degree program for students without a design background; A Post-professional degree program for students who already hold a 5-year undergraduate professional degree; A Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD) for students who wish to pursue the PhD or work in activism; and an Interdisciplinary PhD program.

 

What topics are students most interested in at the moment?
There is most student demand in three areas: First, Design/Build is an approach to architecture that blurs disciplinary boundaries and the “silos” that have emerged between designers, builders, and community activists. Students are strongly drawn to a more interdisciplinary approach that unites the traditional categories of environmental protection and social activism. Second, evidence-based design, is an approach that values building energy performance and quantitative analysis as the basis of form-making. The appearance of codes like the US Green Building Council’s LEED standard, both reflect and stimulate this kind of study. And third, biomimicry, or the notion that buildings can effectively mimic the natural strategies of climate adaptation found in nature. This does not mean that building should look like plants, for example, but they might act like them.

 

What big trends are you seeing in the field currently?
The general public has come to associate “sustainable design” with energy-efficiency, or what many refer to as ecological modernization. While there is certainly evidence to support this interpretation, especially in the current economic climate, the relationship of efficiency to environmental and social issues is being subsumed by economic concerns. My own view is a pluralist one, which suggests that we are better off as a society by amplifying, not suppressing, the conflicts between economic, environmental, and social interests. On the positive side students from all university disciplines are eager to engage sustainability in an interdisciplinary context. Toward this end we have founded the UT Graduate Portfolio Program in Sustainability, which is best thought of as an graduate level minor degree program: see, www.utcsd.org.

 

In what ways are the social dimensions of sustainability incorporated into the graduate program curriculum?
The core curriculum requires that students take three of four courses, one of which is titled Society, Nature and Technology (SNT). This core course examines the concept of sustainability, first through the philosophy of technology, second through Science and Technology Studies (STS), and third through the contemporary “green” literature. Elective courses are available in Geography, Philosophy, History, Planning, and Economics.

 

How does the program evaluate its success?
Through annual meetings with students, exit questionnaires, and feedback from former students.

 

What obstacles have you discovered while directing a graduate program that is highly interdisciplinary?
Most problems come from the faculty rather than students. Although the university is explicitly supportive of interdisciplinarity, individual faculty members are often challenged by cross-boundary study.

 

Do you have a sense of how well students who have graduated from the program are faring in the job market?
It depends upon which degree program, but generally very well. Students in the two Professional programs are in the greatest demand and all PhD students have found Post Doc or faculty positions. MSSD students, coming from a non-professional program, have a longer search.

 

Is there a particular insight (learning experience or “ah-ha” type moment) you have had since co-founding the UT Center for Sustainable Development?
The founding of the UTCSD has a long history, but it taught me (once again) not to start up an organization (within a larger institution) without the resources of time and money to do so. The good news is that I rarely listen to my own insights and so the Center has succeeded anyway.

 

What are you most looking forward to in 2009 (does not have to be academic or professional)?
The incoming Obama administration will, I hope, follow through on the various proposals for creating “green jobs.” If so, the UTCSD is already engaged in a project that can provide productive experimentation in “change-oriented research.”