Building beyond carbon
Architects are responding to climate change with designs for thriving communities based on meeting needs through local values.
A children's center in Vosloorus, near Johannesburg, designed by one of the few firms in South Africa owned by Black women. "People with low resources can still aspire to beautiful, functional spaces," says Tanzeem Razak, one of Lemon Pebble's founders.
Tristan McLaren/Courtesy of Lemon Pebble architects
In the United Nations climate summit drawing to close in Dubai, one benchmark of progress received little attention: Greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and houses in the United States have fallen by 8.4% this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is more than four times faster than the average annual rate of reduction since 2005.
It isn’t hard to see why that matters. Buildings contribute 42% of the global carbon footprint. Reducing emissions from heating, cooling, and lighting them is a key factor in slowing climate change, requiring practical steps like greening power grids and building materials.
But the U.S. decrease may be evidence of an even more important transition described by British economist Kate Raworth as “moving from growth to thriving.”
“We are already seeing a paradigm shift ... starting with a simple question: Must we build new?” wrote Lisa Richmond, a senior fellow with the climate change initiative Architecture 2030, in Architect Magazine. The question captures how architects are rethinking design in the context of global warming - starting with how buildings meet the needs of the communities they serve.
“Architects can’t operate outside of society,” said David Chipperfield, this year’s recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field’s most prestigious award. “We need society to come with us. ... Essentially, what we have to hope now is that the environmental crisis makes us reconsider priorities of society, that profit is not the only thing that should be motivating our decisions.”
That change in thinking helps explain one building trend in the U.S. For the first time since it started tracking such data 20 years ago, the American Institute of Architects reported this year that renovations outpaced new construction. Mr. Chipperfield’s approach to renewing old buildings, the Pritzker jury noted, reflects an “architecture of understated but transformative civic presence” blending austerity, use, and deference to history.
In other parts of the world such as Africa, architects are returning to traditional designs and local materials to find climate-sensitive solutions to the needs of a growing population. That requires renewing a sense of value in local ideas. “In the right context, there is a place for modernism,” Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso, wrote in The New York Times last week. “But there is also a need for architecture that, environmentally, works in Africa. ... It is essential to connect with the local community and explain what you are doing. ... Vernacular and modern techniques can work together.”
A recent U.N. study estimated that 75% of the global infrastructure that will exist in 2050 has yet to be built. “How much can we do with technology, and how much do we need to look at changing the way we live?” asked Todd Reisz, an architect based in Amsterdam, in The New York Times. As it shapes a post-carbon future, architecture is finding majesty in new forms of modesty.