Gregory Palermo

I find that my work on ethics of/in architecture aligns primarily with two of the themes; ‘Architectural Agency’ (AA) and ‘Material and Immaterial Production.’ I see architecture as ethically framed — one does not act “in the world by transformatively engaging socio-political structures” nor presume to serve as an “agent of change” without the understood implication of betterment, toward the ‘good’ of some preferred or better state of affairs. In the case of AA this ‘good’ is “praxes that permit pluralities of voices and contestations that change over time rather than seeking a fixed and therefore singular state.” This situation elides architectural with ethical agency. However, engagement of that ‘good,’ the underpinning of the presumption of betterment through those praxes depends upon meta-ethical depth — What the hell is ‘good’ in this case (a nod to G. E. Moore)? Or is the world one of relativism and communitarianism? The ethical framing of agency requires reflection and a few discourses on foundations. Alas, I am hopelessly (from the contemporary Continentalism perspective) analytic. The immaterial.