Technology and place: sustainable architecture and the Blueprint Farm (Google eBook)

Steven A. Moore

University of Texas Press, 2001 - Technology & Engineering - 260 pages

Developing "sustainable" architectural and agricultural technologies was the intent behind Blueprint Farm, an experimental agricultural project designed to benefit farm workers displaced by the industrialization of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yet, despite its promise, the very institutions that created Blueprint Farm terminated the project after just four years (1987-1991).In this book, Steven Moore demonstrates how the various stakeholders' competing definitions of "sustainability," "technology," and "place" ultimately doomed Blueprint Farm. He reconstructs the conflicting interests and goals of the founders, including Jim Hightower and the Texas Department of Agriculture, Laredo Junior College, and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, and shows how, ironically, they unwittingly suppressed the self-determination of the very farm workers the project sought to benefit. From the instructive failure of Blueprint Farm, Moore extracts eight principles for a regenerative architecture, which he calls his "nonmodern manifesto."

Contents

• ModernityTechnology and Place: 9
• Critical Regionalism: 15
• Toward a Nonmodern Alternative: 21
• CHAPTER TWO A RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE FILE: 29
• CHAPTERTHREE THE LOCAL HISTORY OF SPACE: 45
• CHAPTER FOUR CONFLICTING INTENTIONS: 86
• CHAPTER FIVE TECHNOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS: 112
• CHAPTER SIX RECEPTION: 135
• CHAPTER SEVEN REPRODUCTION: 155
• CHAPTER EIGHT EIGHT PROPOSITIONS: 173
• APPENDIX THE THINGS THEMSELVES: 203
• Hood River Oregon for CMPBS: 207
• Inorganic mulch: 213
• Downspout from roof and cistern at Blueprint Farm: 219

Bibliographic information

• Title: Technology and place: sustainable architecture and the Blueprint Farm
• Author: Steven A. Moore
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2001
• ISBN: 0292788584, 9780292788589
• Length: 260 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Development / Sustainable Development; Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / General; Technology & Engineering / Social Aspects