To Combat Climate Change, Architecture Needs a SERIOUS Wakeup Call
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When the skies turned deep red over much of the Northeast this past summer, heavy and dangerous with smoke from Canadian wildfires, many of us felt a deep appreciation for the thick walls and tempered glass of our homes. Architecture is reassuring in part because it doesn’t change, generally. Yet in these times of accelerated environmental flux, change it must.
The tension between the need to build more homes and the existential threat of climate change means there is an increasing urgency to reduce the impact of building on the environment. The idea of simply stopping construction entirely—perhaps even just for a time—is no longer a fringe conversation. It’s central to an exciting new movement in architecture that is being called radical resilience.
Indeed, architects and clients alike are taking the whole process into their own hands and rethinking nearly every aspect of construction. They are questioning the life cycle of each material used to clad, cover, and build their designs, as well as the landscapes and biomes that surround them. Pritzker Prize–winning architects Lacaton & Vassal, for example, advocate for a “reuse first” approach, seeking out opportunities to repurpose and adapt existing buildings. Instead of tearing down dated or dilapidated high-rises, they first analyze which materials can be saved and then design from there. Their extraordinary work in transforming a series of social housing projects in Paris that were scheduled for demolition into livable, light-filled homes has inspired many architects to follow their lead.
What would architecture be like if design began from a place not of unlimited imagination and abundance, but rather one of economic and material scarcity? That is the question Nigerian architect Tosin Oshinowo, curator of the upcoming Sharjah Architecture Triennial in the United Arab Emirates, will be asking at the global event. For the exhibition design, Oshinowo is working with Milan-based architect Joseph Grima, who believes that architects today should be far more aware of the impact of building on global supply chains.
They argue that designers can begin to talk about the environment only after they’ve taken the time to understand the entire process, from the extraction of materials from the ground to their refining and shipment around the world. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, an assistant professor of urban design at Harvard University, is the author of A Moratorium on New Construction, a book that begins with the idea of a complete halt to all building for one year. She suggests that by forcing people to think about designing only with what exists, we may inhabit those spaces and care for them quite differently.
Acknowledging that immense waste does not have to be part of the building trade, many players are finding creative ways to reuse and recycle. Rather than pushing forward with traditional modes of financing, developers and clients are beginning to trust the design process and, in some cases, are considering sustainable construction methods and quality of life as metrics of success, not just profit.
As part of the Phoenix, a project outside of London in East Sussex, ecological developer Human Nature is overseeing a 700-home construction site. Practice Architecture and Material Cultures are designing 100 of the houses with construction that features prefabricated hempcrete panels made from a carbon-efficient mixture of hemp, water, and lime that avoids petrochemicals and even absorbs carbon over its lifespan. Practice Architecture recently completed its first “carbon zero” Flat House; the Phoenix project presents the first opportunity to test ideas at scale and cleverly integrates the construction operation with local economies and, in the case of hempcrete, an agricultural supply chain.
In New York City, the architecture firm SO-IL suggests a more expansive view of what it means to build ecologically, placing a premium on quality and access to light as well as contributions to the city. The Brooklyn-based studio is collaborating with the developer Tankhouse on a trio of housing projects that defy traditional modes of construction and efficiency demands from developers. Among the proposed features are roomlike balconies,
green spaces, terraces, and porches with natural ventilation.
Designers are also joining forces to target the considerable waste from demolition. Last year, Jaffer Kolb and Ivi Diamantopoulou of New Affiliates teamed up with the architecture school at Columbia University and New York City Parks to find ways of creating community spaces from the by-products of the construction process, including the 1-to-1 “mock-ups” used to test materials and sell units. Those expensively produced models often end up as landfill, but with the pilot project by New Affiliates, they could instead be rescued from the dump and repurposed as greenhouses, sheds, or even classrooms inside community gardens.
These and other initiatives are gaining traction and upending convention at nearly every stage of construction, bringing innovation and sustainable practices to the fore.
As our environment continues to be unpredictable, with record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather our new normal, architecture, too, must move away from the static and predictable. Ultimately, it will have to become more flexible and adaptive, creating resilience as it puts forward new ideas for a radical and hopeful repair.
Beatrice Galilee is a New York–based curator, the cofounder and director of The World Around, and the author of Radical Architecture of the Future (Phaidon, 2021).
This story originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of ELLE DECOR. SUBSCRIBE
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