%0 Journal Article
%T Fudo: An East Asian Notion of Climate and Sustainability
%A Jin Baek
%J Buildings
%D 2013
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/buildings3030588
%X My paper discusses an East Asian notion of climate and its significance for sustainability. A particular reference is the environmental philosophy of Tetsuro Watsuji (1889¨C1960), a Japanese philosopher who reflected upon the meaning of climate, or ¡° fudo¡± in the Sino-Japanese linguistic tradition. Watsuji sees fudo not merely as a collection of natural features¡ªclimatic, scenic, and topographical¡ªof a given land, but also as the metaphor of subjectivity, or ¡°who I am¡±. Furthermore, this self-discovery through fudo is never private but collective. By referring to a phenomenological notion of ¡° ek-sistere¡±, or ¡°to be out among other ¡®I¡¯s¡±, Watsuji demonstrates the pervasiveness of a climatic phenomenon and the ensuing inter-personal joining of different individuals to shape a collective sustainable measure in response to the phenomenon. My paper lastly concretizes the significance of fudo and its inter-personal ethical basis for sustainability by dwelling upon cross-ventilation in Japanese vernacular residential architecture. Cross-ventilation emerges only through what Watsuji calls ¡°selfless openness¡± between different rooms predicated upon the joining of different ¡®I¡¯s soaked in hotness and humidity. Watsuji¡¯s fudo thus offers a lesson that without considering the collective humane characteristic of a natural climatic phenomenon, any sustainable act is flawed and inefficient.
%K Tetsuro Watsuji
%K fudo
%K climate
%K the inter-personal
%K sustainability
%K cross-ventilation
%K japanese residential architecture
%U http://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/3/3/588