Andrea Wheeler

Iowa State University, Architecture, Faculty Member

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Feminist scholar
Phone: +1 515 294 3796
Address: Department of Architecture, College of Design, Bissell Road, Ames, Iowa 50014

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Papers by Andrea Wheeler

Plant Ethics or an Environment for the Birth of a New Human? An Exploration in Radical Ethics for Sustainable Architecture

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Paper for Working Group 2 "Definitions of Sustainability in the Built Environment" 13 TH Nordic Environmental Social Sciences Conference, Trondheim, Norway 9 TH -11 TH June 2015 (Unpublished Draft Paper, Do Not Cite Without Permission of Author) 1 Building a Shared World as a Definition of Sustai...

Natural and warm? A critical perspective on a feminine and ecological aesthetics in architecture

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 1, 2016

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

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Wheeler, Andrea (2014) “Sharing the World: an approach for sustainable architectural design” Presentation at the University of Bristol October 30th 2014 with Luce Irigaray

Kites

From what perspective can the aesthetic dimension impact on our way of thinking about an environm... more From what perspective can the aesthetic dimension impact on our way of thinking about an environmentally responsible and socially just future? This chapter reflects upon an exhibition of instructors of architecture, and their students, at the Venice Biennale in 2018, exploring such a question. In the theory and practice of sustainable design, little attention has been given to architectural aesthetics dismissed either as a superficial concern in comparison to the serious matter of sustainability, or worse, as an attempt at “green-wash” or to deceive. As climate change brings with it the burden of change in plant, animal and human relationships, ecological systems respond unpredictably. A dialogue is needed to establish a reconnection to concern but what exactly might this relationship be with the living environment and its systems? The scholarly question this chapter thus asks is “How can we understand an ecological architectural aesthetics within the field of sustainable architectu...

Rethinking Post-occupancy Evaluation for Sustainable Learning Environments

World Sustainability Series, 2017

Green or sustainable schools are an important building type from which to explore questions of ch... more Green or sustainable schools are an important building type from which to explore questions of changing social behaviors and the often overlooked social dimensions of sustainable development such as equity and inclusion. Building performance studies, including post-occupancy evaluations (POE) are increasingly taking into account behavioral and social dimensions of the build environment, as well as the more common objectives of reductions in energy efficiency, and adopting ethnographic and art-based research methodologies to examine building users’ interaction with their environments. In this paper we examine contemporary evaluation methods in the context of school buildings to explore how some popular POE approaches imply only superficial objectives for green building. The need to create new habits of living and the role of the built environment in this task goes without question; but confronting scientific methods and engineering perspectives typical within the industry, meets professional barriers. In order to improve commonly adopted POE methods in the context of sustainable building, it is important that we are able to contest the meaning of sustainable design and include evaluation tools that have radical educational and transformative objectives, in particular those that allow communities to explore futures that demand both social and technical change. This paper suggests that through user feedback, architects and other building professionals have not only important tools to improve the performance of sustainable buildings, but also to confront the limited expectations of architects and engage users in a sustainable future. POE tools are educational and in listening to users, co-researching ways to transform environments, architects can transform their approaches to sustainable design.

Heidegger, the Fourfold and Luce Irigaray’s To Be Born: An Architectural Perspective

Towards a New Human Being, 2019

Henceforth, it is no longer a matter of merely modifying existing design methods or of adapting b... more Henceforth, it is no longer a matter of merely modifying existing design methods or of adapting building techniques; architecture has to address the unsustainable situation of the human being. Luce Irigaray's philosophy in To Be Born: Genesis of a New Human Being is radical in this respect. It encompasses environmental, social, cultural and political concerns and, at a practical level, calls on us to find our freedombreathing by ourselves-and to take responsibility for our growing and blossoming as human beings. This is really not an easy task. It represents a provocation to change-to change ourselves, our societies, and our understanding of human rights. It is an incitement to imagine a better world, socially and environmentally, one economically viable, culturally vibrant and deeply satisfying. Moreover, Irigaray's ethics by far exceeds those present in any contemporary theory of social

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The added value of regenerative architecture and contemporary aesthetic philosophy

SAJ - Serbian Architectural Journal, 2019

Regenerative architecture seeks to impact positively on the environment. It aims to produce build... more Regenerative architecture seeks to impact positively on the environment. It aims to produce buildings that reduce the degenerative consequences of human activity and add positively to the environment. To add value, in dimensions such as beauty, included in the design approaches of regenerative architecture, and in, for example, the Living Building Challenge, where the biophilic and biomimetic are raised as aspirations, however, poses some fundamental questions for the ways of thinking that underlie regenerative architecture and the discipline of architecture. Design tools suggest that the "greater than character" can be determined, measured even, in all categories, but aspirations also call for radical changes to the way we see and understand human lives. Understandings of aesthetics and the primacy of a sensory connection with the environment are little acknowledged questions within the philosophy of regenerative design outside the suggestion of biophilia. In this paper, ...

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“The Future We Want?” The sustainable school as a place of wellbeing

The energy between us: Two affective and intertwined space-times evoked by architecture as prelude to a proper sharing?

Wheeler, Andrea and Nagdive, Aniket, "The energy between us: Two affective and intertwined space-... more

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Building a Shared World as a Definition of Sustainable Architecture

Whilst the current debates on sustainable architecture is dominated by a conversation about energ... more Whilst the current debates on sustainable architecture is dominated by a conversation about energy performance and abstract certification—each easily manipulated to serve commercial gain—I argue that a philosophical reconsideration of relationality is key to a sustainable built environment, examining sustainable architecture through the perspective of Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of beingtwo. Defining sustainable architecture is a notoriously difficult proposition. Ambitious claims abound, demanding a critical distance, but equally important and necessary self-criticisms are heard. Edward Mazria (2013) founder of the Architecture 2030 Challenge, argues that “life depends on design.” Whilst the building sector as a whole, a major emitter of greenhouse gases, is currently making a significant negative impact on the natural environment, it can also be a solution to climate change. Roger Platt, President of the U.S. Green Building Council, recognizing the limitations of the LEED rating to...

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Space: Notes on the Thought of Luce Irigaray

In March 2015, a conference was held in New York entitled Feminism in Architecture 2015, and subt... more In March 2015, a conference was held in New York entitled Feminism in Architecture 2015, and subtitled, ‘We need to change our expectations. We need new models of success. We need to change what and how we teach’. I made an application, and I suggested adding to the subtitle ‘And we need an evolution in love’ (it was not accepted). And yet, the concept of affect, but not apparently affection, is a current conversation in architecture. The question of atmosphere and affect, of space and mood, has been pondered in a number of conferences recently including: Atmospheres (University of Manchester, July 2015), with the British placepoet Simon Armitage as keynote speaker, and Sites of Production (UCL, London, July 2015), with Gernot BÖhme in attendance. And, for Gernot Böhme, an important philosopher in this field, the “whatness” of our immediate surroundings is understood through affect. Importantly, he argues (and this is his interest to the architectural profession) this vague and poet...

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Wheeler, Andrea (2014) “The Sustainable School: Effective and Energy Efficient Ventilation in the Classroom, and the Question of Educational Performance and Wellbeing” World Sustainable Building Conference, 28th – 30th October, Barcelona

Within the context of designing a sustainable school, technical studies that address questions of... more Within the context of designing a sustainable school, technical studies that address questions of air quality, educational performance and wellbeing, challenge the trend towards designing for natural ventilation in schools. This paper critically examines research literature that has provided evidence that temperature and air quality are, in a large proportion of classrooms, so poor as to have a negative effect on children’s health and educational performance. This evidence, in support of mechanical systems that control air quality, contradicts trends towards natural ventilation proposed in order to conserve energy consumption in schools. Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is generally not stressed, or indeed challenged, in the program to design sustainable schools, but the questions of air quality, children’s wellbeing in school and educational performance, raise important issues in the drive to reduce energy consumption of schools.

Outsider ethics and marginalized aesthetics: The value of contemporary environmental philosophies for designing sustainable architecture

In this paper, I will explore the work of two contemporary environmental philosophers: Gernot Böh... more In this paper, I will explore the work of two contemporary environmental philosophers: Gernot Böhme, celebrated for his philosophy of architectural atmosphere although less known for his work on ecological aesthetics, and Luce Irigaray, a French philosopher renowned for her work inspiring a generation of feminist scholars but less well discussed for her work on environmental ethics. For Böhme, our designed environments are experienced through atmosphere; we feel our own presence in a built environment and feel the environment in which we are present. His approach to design depends on feeling experienced through being in space rather than seeing space or imagining it. Irigaray, on the other hand, now in her eighties, distinguishes experience as different between the sexes, not as already cultural, but rather to be cultivated. Her philosophy is provocative and challenged by many; while on the margins of Parisian intellectual society, she still works, teaches, and writes prolifically a...

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Glass Submarines, Beach Houses, Holographic Teachers and Elvis

Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2009

About being-two in an architectural perspective: interview with Luce Irigaray

The Journal of Romance Studies, 2004

In this interview Luce Irigaray responds to some of the issues arising from architectural theory ... more

School Design Futures: Education for Sustainability, new educational philosophies and designing sustainable schools - what can we learn?

From Agent of Change to Global Citizen?” Dialogue, drawings, narratives and performances of secondary school children engaged with the design of a sustainable school

http://nceub.commoncense.info/uploads/W1244a%20Wheeler.pdf

What do young people tell us about sustainable lifestyles when they design sustainable schools?

The UK government created a unique educational opportunity with the recent school building progra... more The UK government created a unique educational opportunity with the recent school building programme. Its aims were described as transforming learning and embedding sustainability into the life experience of every child. However, how do young people understand these aims, and the concepts of sustainable lifestyles and sustainable communities, now they have begun to be translated into school design? This paper reports on the recently suspended programme and discusses the value of Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) as a way of capturing successes and failures of what has been implemented so far. POE provides an opportunity for young people to critically engage with why our energy use and our relationship with the natural environment has to change. POE can also examine the gap between predicted and actual energy performance of a building and human behaviour is key in such investigations. The focus on innovative technologies is in danger of ignoring the human factors involved in reducing o...

Architectural Issues in Building Community through Luce Irigaray's Perspective on being-two". In, Teaching, Luce Irigaray (ed.)

Andrea Wheeler

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