This panel discussion brings together disciplinary experts, practitioners, and students from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design to address structural hurdles and potentials embedded in ethical 21st-century design practice.

The conversation, moderated by Practice Forum Chair Elizabeth Christoforetti, begins with a pragmatic acknowledgement of the conditions within which contemporary design practice is situated: Buildings alone are responsible for over 40% of global carbon emissions, and the exponential growth of our urban world presents an ethical imperative for practices of the built environment with respect to climate impact. Physical growth is inextricably linked to increased carbon demand and waste generation. At the same time, political pressures and professional ethics demand rapid expansion to improve life for the many through a significant increase in the provision of low-cost housing units and supportive social infrastructure. The increasing capacity of technology to scale growth and development amplifies both the risk and opportunity of these seemingly contradictory conditions. Adding to this is a long-growing conflict between our fiduciary responsibility to our clients, often translated into the generation of financial returns, and our dedication to disciplinary knowledge, which is rooted in cultural (rather than capital) production.

With an action-oriented mindset, we ask how design practice may respond. Must we recalibrate our understanding of “growth”? Can a recalibration of professional limitations (and thus the professions themselves), such as the essential disciplinary and legal division between designing and building our world, contribute to a renewed form of ethical practice for the 21st century? What is the role of the public vs. private sectors in a practice that serves the public good? Is it possible to run an ethical practice rooted in a value system of infinite growth in a finite world?