Addressing Hedonism in Architecture: Macro research on Hedonistic Sustainability for Guilt-free Living

We have been suffering the effects of human intervention on environment since a long time and when it comes to counteracting those effects, we consider sustainability as a good option but at the same time the concept of sustainability is drowned in a misconception that it’s a question of “how much of our existing quality of life are we prepared to sacrifice in order to afford to be sustainable?”. “Sustainability can’t be like moral sacrifice, political dilemma or even a philanthropical cause. It’s a design challenge.” says Bjarke Ingels, the architect who coined the term “Hedonistic Sustainability” or Hedonistically Sustainable architecture. This type of architecture demolishes the notion of sacrifice from sustainability. What if you can have it all? what if you can benefit the environment while not sacrificing pleasures? This study explores the same question. The study aims at comprehending the term as well as to check the plausibility of such architecture in different contexts. It aims at finding out the impacts of such type of architecture on the environment as well as on people and evaluating it in Indian context. The research includes contextual analyses of models under the class of Hedonism in Architecture and sustainable design in order to see whether there’s a particular strategy or an approach to utilize components which makes a structure Hedonistic. The outcome incorporates the results dependent on primary information gathering which will be done through existing data in the form of live architectural examples to process the results.