Departing from observations collected in an architecture firm, this essay investigates the way in which an architect expressed his concerns for what the material he intended to use “wants to do”. Adopting a speculative and pragmatist perspective, I detect there a possibility of thinking about architects’ responsibility as a moral exchange with beings involved in the design process. The text addresses two interpretations of that situation that could hinder the possibility of a more relational architectural practice. The first reduces the designer’s formulation to a rhetorical means to expose his ability to take constraints into account. The second interprets it as the expression of the architects’ moral obligation to respect the material’s intrinsic nature. Two diverging notions of responsibility are at stake, which are here contrasted with a third one. Built on a materialist view on ethics, the ethological perspective allows the acknowledgement of what the material and the designer become capable of together.

中文翻译：

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“森林想做什么”：实用主义对可响应建筑实践的猜测

这篇文章从在一家建筑公司收集的观察出发，调查了一位建筑师表达他对他打算使用的材料“想要做什么”的担忧的方式。采用思辨和实用主义的观点，我发现有可能将建筑师的责任视为与参与设计过程的人进行道德交流。文本解决了对这种情况的两种解释，这些解释可能会阻碍更相关的架构实践的可能性。第一个将设计师的表述简化为一种修辞手段，以展示他考虑约束的能力。第二种将其解释为建筑师尊重材料内在本质的道德义务的表达。两种不同的责任概念处于危险之中，在这里与第三个形成对比。建立在唯物主义的伦理观之上，伦理学的观点允许承认材料和设计师能够共同发挥作用。