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DARNIOJI ARCHITEKTŪRA IR STATYBA
2013. No. 4(5) 

JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING
ISSN 2029–9990

Relevance and Extent of Ecological Architecture

Indrė Gražulevičiūtė-Vileniškė*

Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Studentu st. 48, LT-51367 Kaunas, 
Lithuania

*indre.grazuleviciute@ktu.lt

  http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.4.5.5664

1. Introduction

The definition of ecology itself and the homocentric 
nature of architectural design, urban planning, and 
landscape architecture (Thompson 2007) show us that 
sustainable design cannot be limited with site reclamation 
and renaturalization or seeking just to minimize or eliminate 
the harm to the environment without considering cultural, 
aesthetic, psychological, social, economic and other 
issues. Today we observe the trend of merging the concept 
of ecology with the human sphere. Actually, the ideas of 
differently merging the ecological concepts with human 
life had emerged with the start of the 20th century. Take for 
example urban ecology, cultural ecology or ecoaesthetics. 
The nowadays widespread concept of sustainability 
encompasses multiplicity of fields and dimensions and 
allows us analyzing in its frame not only the issues of ecology, 
but also of social, cultural, and economic sustainability in 
the areas of architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, 
territorial planning, heritage preservation etc.   

2. Conference “Ecological Architecture”

In order to provide the possibilities for dissemination, 
discussions, and questioning of these sustainability ideas in 
different spheres and searching for the links between them, 
scientific and popular events of various levels are welcome.   
International scientific conference “Ecological architecture”, 
which is organized by the Department of Architecture and 
Land Management of Kaunas University of Technology, is 
one of the first periodically organized scientific conferences 
in Lithuania providing the forum for discussions of the 
applications of principles of sustainability and ecological 
ideas in the fields of architecture, urbanism, landscape 
architecture and other areas concerning management and 
formation of environment. As the concept of sustainability, 
at least in theory, becomes the dominating paradigm of 
development of societies and environment and the ideas 
of ecological lifestyles and environmental preservation 
become widespread. The aim of the conference – to link 
aesthetic, psychological, local identity and technological 
aspects of sustainable and ecological design in different 

areas – is undoubtedly relevant for Lithuanian and regional 
development of research and studies. 

The conference “Ecological Architecture” has a 
prehistory, which also illustrates the gradual entrenchment 
of the ideas of sustainability in the discussions and research 
of architecture and related areas. The Department of 
Architecture and Land Management starting from the year 
1995, when the studies of architecture where reestablished 
in Kaunas University of Technology, organizes scientific 
thematic conferences aimed at discussing relevant questions 
of architecture, urbanism, and land management. During 
the last conferences the relevance of the application of 
the principles of sustainability became evident: in 2007 
the conference was held under the title “Developing and 
Developed Landscape” and was aimed at discussing the 
interdisciplinary aspects of landscape development; in 
2008 the conference was entitled “Problems of Horizontal 
and Vertical Urban Development” and was devoted to the 
problematic of compact cities and urban sprawl; in 2009 
the conference was organized under the title “Ideas of 
Sustainability in Architecture and Territorial Planning”. 
Starting from the year 2011, this conference, periodically 
organized by the Department, gained the permanent title 
of “Ecological Architecture” reflecting the contemporary 
trends and the status of the international conference. The 
researchers from France, Latvia, Poland, and scientists and 
practitioners architects from Lithuanian science and study 
institutions participated in the first conference “Ecological 
Architecture” held in 2011. Starting from the year 2011, 
the conference is held every second year in rotation with 
international scientific conference “Advanced Construction” 
organized by the Faculty of Civil Engineering and 
Architecture of Kaunas University of Technology. In order 
to get closer to general public and professional community, 
this year conference “Ecological Architecture” was 
organized as a part of Kaunas Architecture Festival, which 
took place in the city of Kaunas in September and October. 
The festival was dedicated to waterfronts: historic cities and 
their links with rivers. Thus “Ecological Architecture” in 
2013 was also dedicated to city center revitalization, city and 

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EDITORS WORD 



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water, landscapes and water. Other topics of presentations, 
including the application of the principles of sustainability 
and ecological design to architecture, planning, and 
construction, critical approach to principles of sustainability 
and ideas of ecological design, influence of sustainable 
and ecological design on expression and development of 
contemporary architecture, digital design for sustainability 
etc., were also welcomed. The researchers from Poland, 
Greece, Estonia and Lithuanian science and studies 
institutions had participated in the conference including the 
invited speakers Prof. Friedrich Kuhlmann and Jekaterina 
Balicka from Estonian University of Life Sciences, Prof. 
Andrzej Tokajuk from Bialystok University of Technology, 
and Prof. Anna Januchta-Szostak from Poznan University 
of Technology. Comparing with the previous conferences 
organized by the department including the “Ecological 
Architecture” of 2011, it can be noted that the array and the 
understanding of the topics have expanded from the green 
roofs and straw bale houses to the flood management and 
sustainable urban drainage systems, cityscape and identity, 
sustainability and globalization, critique of the idea of 
ecological architecture, cultural heritage and sustainability, 
sustainable rural-urban interface.  

The website of the conference with the conference 
program, the book of abstracts, some photographs and 
general information can be accessed using the following 
link: http://ktu.lt/saf/turinys/international-conference-
ecological-architecture. 

3. Review of articles

The present issue of the Journal of Sustainable 
Architecture and Civil Engineering mainly publishes the 
articles further elaborating the topics discussed during the 
conference “Ecological Architecture”: heritage preservation 
and sustainability, sustainability and globalization, city and 
water, sustainable rural-urban interface. 

3.1. Heritage preservation. Sustainability has 
strong temporal and intergenerational dimensions that 
are underlined in its definition (Throsby, 2002). Evaldas 
Ramanauskas and Liucijus Dringelis in their article “The 
Inheritance of the Soviet Period: should It be Evaluated?” 
discuss the Soviet experience in landscape formation and 
settlement planning and the need for its present evaluation. 
They note that some features of urban and rural settlements, 
designed during the Soviet period, today could be attributed 
to sustainable urbanism: systematic approach, integrity, 
assessment of natural conditions, sensitivity towards 
community needs, attention towards public spaces, and, 
especially, green areas. The authors maintain that the legacy 
and experience of the Soviet era should not be wasted. They 
also note that “…in order to save the country’s residential 
construction experience, as well as maintain the historic 
urban diversity, it is important to evaluate planning and 
design work of the residential areas, which was carried 
out during the 50-year period.” This is especially relevant 
today, when we see the tendency to forget the Soviet era 
researchers, planners, their accomplishments and to see 
the documents accumulated in archives as mere curiosity, 
considering these works irrelevant for the present day, 

because they were implemented under different ideological 
and economic system. 

The theme of the urban legacy of the past and its present 
day preservation and use issues is continued in the article by 
Katarzyna Hodor and Julia Klimek entitled “Attempts and 
Methods for Revitalizing the Centers of Small Localities. 
Selected Examples”. The article deals with renovation, 
revitalization, and management of small urban settlements 
in Poland and presents two different examples - the village 
Stary Paczków nearby Opole rich in cultural resources and 
small town Zabierzów in southern Poland nearby Krakow 
under pressure for rapid change and development – which 
allow authors to showcase different methods of analysis 
and management proposals aimed at preserving local 
identity and heritage and at the same time improving the 
quality of life for inhabitants. The article underlines the 
importance of such actions: “…the risk associated with the 
loss of individual landscape features of small towns may 
be irreversible and may lead to the loss of tangible and 
intangible landscape values.”

 In the practices of landscape architecture, 
architecture, and urban design it is crucial to understand that 
the concept of “empty space” does not exist and we always 
have some kind of natural and cultural context (Stauskas 
2009). Domenico Chizzoniti, Letizia Cattani, and Luca Preis 
in the article entitled “The Memorial Museum of Jewish 
Culture in Prague. An Example of Urban Regeneration” 
present the methodology and the alternative proposals for 
the intervention in the historic urban fabric of Prague. The 
box-like modernist design proposals in the historic fabric 
could be discussed; however, two useful principles can 
be undoubtedly drawn from this research: the thorough 
analysis, good knowledge and appropriate interpretation of 
local history; the design principle of elaborating different 
alternatives that afterwards could be reconsidered and may 
point to their synthesis or to radically new design proposals.

3.2. Sustainability and globalization. Local identity is 
crucial to social, cultural, and even economic sustainability. 
The question of identity faces new threats and new 
development trends under globalizing forces. Giedrė 
Gudzinevičiūtė-Vilkelė and Evaldas Ramanauskas in their 
article entitled “The Impact of the Specific Elements of 
Globalization on the Spatial Structure of Lithuanian Towns 
and their Valuation” analyze the problem of consumer 
culture and its architectural manifestations in the townscapes 
of small settlements in Lithuania. They underline the 
negative impact of uniform functionalist architecture 
of large shopping centers, compare them with standard 
housing schemes of the Soviet period, which today pose 
many problems in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. 
They propose the way of compromise: the uniform logos 
of commercial institutions would represent the recognizable 
globalizing trend but the adaptive re-use of the existing 
buildings should be favoured instead of new construction.   

3.3. City and water. One of the major focuses of the 
conference this year was city and water. Several articles 
dedicated to large and small scale water management 
projects and experience are presented in this issue of the 



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journal. Their topics range from the influence of water on 
city’s identity to concrete examples and design proposals.

In the article “The Role of the River in the City 
Centre and its Identity” Justina Mačiukėnaitė and Ingrida 
Povilaitienė focus on Lithuania and on the role of the rivers 
in the historical development and present identity of the 
cities, although they touch some European examples in order 
to show that the enhancement of the water in the cityscape 
and the maintenance of local identity can be achieved both 
by large scale interventions (as in the case of Arhus) or just 
changing the attitude towards the river (as in the case of the 
Urban “beach” in Paris).

According to J. Stuart-Murray (2007) in landscape 
architecture “More recently, perhaps because of the growing 
incidence of unpredictable weather patterns, which have led 
to increased frequencies of flooding, concerns have turned to 
the management of man-made hydrology. Most sustainable 
urban design and landscape architecture is now typified by 
articulations of best practice in sustainable urban drainage 
systems.” The research by Anna Januchta-Szostak presented 
in the article “Multifunctional Riverside Buffer Parks – the 
Research on Nature-Urban Revitalisation of River Valleys” 
is the example of several trends of contemporary sustainable 
landscape architecture and environmental management: 
revitalization of urban river spaces, flood management, 
riverside buffer parks. The comprehensive study presents 
the evaluation of riverside revitalization projects with the 
system of criteria, the methodology for creation of riverside 
buffer parks, and the application of the research outcomes 
and guidelines in the design of park in Poznan.  

Niki Manou-Andreadis and Maria Milona in the article 
“Water Designing for Sustainability, Purity and Comfort” 
discuss the historical and architectural-urban relevance of 
water in human living environment and underline water’s 
significance in development of tourism facilities. The 
authors present five realized examples of their small-scale 

water designs in recreation institutions in Greece, discuss 
their environmental, psychological, aesthetic, social benefits 
and the links with historic tradition. 

3.4. Rural-urban interface. Simona Basilico, 
Patricio Eduardo Enriquez, Massimiliano Bevacqua, and 
Fabio Villa touch a very important issue of rural-urban 
interconnections in their article “Agricultural Land into the 
City: 5 Environmentally Sustainable Ecological Parks”. 
As an opposition of the urbanization of the countryside 
they propose some naturalization and “ruralization” of the 
abandoned and faceless urban areas in the city of Vigevano 
(Italy), which, after proposed interventions, would have not 
only ecological, but also social recreational and educational 
benefits. 

The mentioned above articles confirm the attitude 
maintained by the conference “Ecological Architecture” 
that sustainability in architecture and related fields can 
be approached from many different points of view and, 
simultaneously, the common, integrating points can be 
traced. It is possible to conclude with the words of Niki 
Manou-Andreadis and Maria Milona that “In a holistic view, 
sustainable architecture could be an interconnected network 
of natural and social systems that provides a diverse range 
of environmental, cultural and economic benefits.”  

References

Stauskas V. 2009. Kai kurie šiuolaikinės architektūros aspektai 
[Some aspects of contemporary architecture]. Urbanistika ir 
architektūra, 5(33), 270–278.

Stuart-Murray J. 2007. The practice of sustainable landscape 
architecture. In: Benson J. F., Roe M. Landscape and 
sustainablity. Abingdon, Taylor & Francis, 222–235.

Thompson I. 2007. The ethics of sustainability. In: Benson 
J. F., Roe M. Landscape and sustainablity. Abingdon,  
Taylor & Francis, 16–35.

Throsby D. 2002. Economics and culture. Cambridge, Cambridge 
University Press.

Indrė GRAŽULEVIČIŪTĖ-VILENIŠKĖ – associated professor at Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil 
Engineering and Architecture, Department of Architecture and Land Management.
Main research areas: valuation and preservation of cultural heritage, management of rural-urban interface, sustainable 

architecture.
Address: Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Studentu st. 48, LT-51367 

Kaunas, Lithuania.
Tel.: +370 37 451546
E-mail:  indre.grazuleviciute@ktu.lt