A pragmatic approach means taking your surroundings into account when creating new buildings

I watched this program about an architecture collective in Denmark called Adept (or something). They had “a pragmatic approach” towards architecture. What they meant was that if you where to build a new house in the midst of some ugly piece of urban sprawl you shouldn’t design something totally spaced out, but instead realize that the ugliness around you is going to be there for a while and you should take it into consideration in your project.
Having visited areas of New York such as Williamsburg I can not agree more. The totally out of place new fancy buildings appearing right next to churches or warn down buildings is just ridiculous. It looks like shit and does not make the neighborhood any better.

I think this is true for software too. Of you always strive for creating shiny new stuff in the midst of a pile of mud you might provide more value by adjusting to your surroundings. This does not mean you should change and improve, but perhaps with a better perspective than just the need we have to create brand new things as opposed to improving existing code bases. The big rewrite only give you a new set of problems along with the old ones.