This book explores why and how the design of architecture contributes to Christian pursuits of social and environmental justice. Edwards offers a new understanding of architectural design’s relation to Christian ethics and proposes five moral commitments for orienting the design process towards the flourishing of humanity and God’s creation.

This book reflects on several questions, among them: How can we deepen the connections between aesthetics, ethics, and religion in architecture? Do we really need "less aesthetics and more ethic?" How can we understand the spirituality of space and place, or the spatiality of the sacred? And finally, what is the significance of built space for the experience and imaging of the God of the Here-and-Now? Contributors offer a variety of views from architectural, artistic, philosophical and theological perspectives, as well as insights into ongoing research projects of relevance to the new interdisciplinary field. Sigurd Bergmann received a 1995 doctor of theology at the Faculty of Theology, University of Lund and has held various positions at the University of Lund, University of Troms, University of Gteborg, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

The dynamic relationship between art and theology continues to fascinate and to challenge, especially when theology addresses art in all of its variety. In Architecture and Theology: The Art of Place, author Murray Rae turns to the spatial arts, especially architecture, to investigate how the art forms engaged in the construction of our built environment relate to Christian faith. Rae does not offer a theology of the spatial arts, but instead engages in a sustained theological conversation with the spatial arts. Because the spatial arts are public, visual, and communal, they wield an immense but easily overlooked influence. Architecture and Theology overcomes this inattention by offering new ways of thinking about the theological importance of space and place in our experience of God, the relation between freedom and law in Christian life, the transformation involved in God's promised new creation, biblical anticipation of the heavenly city, divine presence and absence, the architecture of repentance and remorse, and the relation between space and time. In doing so, Rae finds an ample place for theology amidst the architectural arts.

Built space is both a physical entity as well as a socially and historically constructed place. It constantly interacts with human beings, affecting their behavior, thinking, and feeling. Doing religious work in a particular environment implies acknowledging the surroundings to be integral to theology itself. The contributors to this volume view buildings, scriptures, conversations, prayers, preaching, artifacts, music and drama, and built and natural surroundings as contributors to a contextual theology. The view of the environment in which religion is practiced as integrated with theology represents not just a new theme but also a necessity if one is to understand religion's own depth. Reflections about space and place and how they reflect and affect religious experience provide a challenge and an urgent necessity for theology. This is particularly important if religious practitioners are to become aware of how theology is given expression in the existential spatiality of life. Can space set theology free? This is a challenging question, one that the editor hopes can be answered, at least in part, in this volume. The diversity of theoretical concepts in aesthetics, cultural theory, and architecture are not regarded as a problem to be solved by constructing one overarching dominant theory. Instead, this diversity is viewed in terms of its positive potential to inspire discourse about theology and aesthetics. In this discourse, theology does not need to become fully dependent on one or another theory, but should always clearly present its criteria for choosing this or that theoretical framework. This volume shows clearly how different modes of design in sacred spaces capture a sense of the religious.

Bringing together the reflections of an architectural theorist and a philosopher, this book encourages philosophers and architects, scholars and designers alike, to reconsider what they do as well as what they can do in the face of challenging times. It does so by exploring the notion that architecture and design can (and possibly should), in their own right, make for a distinctive form of ethical investigation. The book is less concerned with absolutist understandings of the two components of ethics, a theory of ‘the good’ and a theory of ‘the right’, than with remaining open to multiple relations between ideas about the built environment, design practices and the plurality of kinds of human subjects (inhabitants, individuals and communities) accommodated by buildings and urban spaces. The built environment contributes to the inculcation of all sorts of values (good and bad). Thus, this book aims to change the way people commonly think about ethics, not only in relation to the built environment, but to themselves, their ways of thinking and modes of behaviour.

Architectural Design and Ethics offers both professional architects and architecture students a theoretical base and numerous suggestions as to how we might rethink our responsibilities to the natural world and design a more sustainable future for ourselves. As we find ourselves on the steep slope of several exponential growth curves – in global population, in heat-trapping atmospheric gases, in the gap between the rich and poor, and in the demand for finite resources, Fisher lays down a theory of architecture based on ethics and explores how buildings can and do provide both social and moral dimensions. The book also has practical goals, demonstrating how architects can make better and more beautiful buildings whilst nurturing more responsible, sustainable development. Architectural Design and Ethics will prove an invaluable text not only to those in the architecture field, but to anyone simply interested in the ethical issues surrounding our built environment.