The Role of Architecture in the Process of Moving Towards Sustainable Development

Environmental, social, and cultural problems arose in the twentieth century as a result of acceleration of industrial growth of societies as well as economic inequalities. Lack of proper development patterns was the main factor demanding the introduction of the concept of sustainable development in the second half of the twentieth century. The construction industry, particularly the residential construction sector, was one of the major factors of energy consumption in the world. Therefore, inclusion of the issue of sustainable development in this area and coupling housing development policies with the goal of sustainable development was of particular importance. In this regard, sustainability, as one of the most influential disciplines in the field of architecture, played an important role in order to meet the objectives of sustainable development. This paper reviewed the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable design, and addressed them in the field of architecture. The research method was descriptive-analytic, based on library information, and extracted data from the case studies. In this regard, the movements related to sustainable architecture have been categorized and characteristics of a sustainable building in terms of sustainable development goals have been outlined. The results showed the importance of the architecture in the process of moving towards sustainability. Subsequently, an appropriate approach to meet the goals of sustainability in architectural design has been developed and potentials of this process to achieve sustainability have been mentioned. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.20.3.18406