The justification of planning solutions in ecological housing ‐ a case study of Viikki in Helsinki

Ecology and sustainability have produced new challenges to traditional argumentation in urban planning. In addition to the rhetorical approach informed by Perelman's ‘new rhetoric’, the recent changes can be analysed by using more traditional philosophical argumentation critique, which is also in line with recent developments in argumentation theory. The state of the art in planning is analysed in this article through a case study of an architectural competition for ‘ecological housing’ held in Helsinki in 1995. The analysis illustrates the way that environmentalism produces new discursive means of justification, but not necessarily new types of urban planning.