Building sustainable cities: tools for developing new building practices?

Urban professionals have a widespread interest in sustainable cities and the use of assessment tools to monitor performance. Much of the research on such assessment tools focuses on gauging their differences and similarities. Scholars give insufficient attention to what the tools do' to those who use them and to how this affects building practices. Drawing on insights from actor-network theory and an empirical study of two Danish urban development competitions in which design teams were required to use a sustainability assessment tool, the analysis shows how this artefact mediated interaction among different professionals and initiated iterative, dialogical processes that affected building practices. The analysis emphasizes a number of aspects that the construction and urban development literature often overlook: such tools can facilitate and mediate knowledge creation and flow, but the entanglement of relationships, the assemblages, in which the designers are situated conditions the outcome.