The recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change alters the discussion of architecture and environment. The report, released on October 11, is alarming. As the Guardian puts it “we have 12 years to limit climate catastrophe, warns U.N.” Based on discussions from the IPCC meeting in Paris in 2016, a group of scientists reviewed and summarized thousands of relevant articles to assess the relative goals of 1.5 and 2ºC increase in global average temperature, from an 1850 baseline. It suggests that immediate action is needed—on reducing carbon emissions, on removing carbon from the atmosphere—to keep warming to 1.5ºC, and also warns that governments must begin preparing for social disruption from climate instability.
How can architecture respond to the 1.5ºC imperative? It is an abstract notion which the field finds itself well-prepared to engage, though perhaps not as heretofore imagined. As much as there have been multiple waves of architectural environmentalism over the past decades, 1.5ºC offers new frameworks for thinking about architecture—the problematic of growth; the positioning of the field relative to economies, development, energy, and carbon; and the shape of the architecture of a just transition.
The shadow of 1.5ºC, as an objective and as an imperative, intensifies as we recognize that what the report is saying is that “it” is already “here.” What was anticipated at 2ºC of warming (from 1850-1900 baseline) is already happening at 1ºC, in terms of storm intensity, migration patterns, shifts in territorial systems. And, simultaneously, as we recognize that we are still burning oil, emitting carbon, every day more than the day before. Renewable energy efforts, generally speaking, simply expand the energy appetite, opening up more room for more fossil fuels. 2ºC of warming looks worse than we thought—the IPCC focus on 1.5ºC as a danger sign, as a limit, is simply because it is the next bureaucratically agreed upon metric point. We need to stop, change direction, reposition, as soon as possible; A rapid transition is a primary aspect of a just transition.
The history of architecture and energy transitions indicates that architecture has induced energy expansion through all of its phases
Architecture’s response is as much mediatic as built. Eliding the essential question: how, or why, to build, to add to the pile of stylized carbon. The history of architecture and energy transitions indicates that architecture has induced energy expansion through all of its phases: architecture has been a catalyst, a medium for the intensification of energy use. It is, in this sense, both symbolic and material—a screen on which to watch cultural change; and a medium from which to produce it.
The abstractness of the 1.5ºC is that all of this is happening sooner than we thought. It is not a question of a doomsday or climate-ruin-porn, but a recognition that physical and intellectual infrastructures, such as those practices engaged in processes of the built environment (our systems, regulatory mechanisms, industries) are ineffective, out of date, and not working. The built environment is now, even more, the medium through which “we”—cultures and societies in different ways—will negotiate a life in the midst of climate instability. Architecture, its patterns, its capacities, its resiliency, is being rethought and retargeted as a means to engage with the problematics of climate change. The struggle is to make this abstraction tangible. To build the culture of 1.5ºC.
A full 1/3 of territorial eco-systemic conditions is predicted to change around the globe. This is another impact of climate instability, a metric to consider for architectural mediation. What is the ecosystem of the future in your town? What sort of materials, systems, and forms does it require? What kind of architecture can bring this geography into a different future? Architecture after 1.5ºC will have different tasks. Our lives and livelihoods are intertwined with “natural” systems; all of the human enterprise is “co-generated” with “ecosystem services”—in, with, and through the conditions of the biotic world. Architecture is the mechanism, the device, the assemblage of and for that relationship, for considering and re-configuring this socio-biotic dynamic. It has capacities. It has responsibilities.
How can we stop burning carbon – how can architects contribute to the broader goal of massive and rapid carbon reduction? Can economies decelerate? To what effect? What is the architecture of de-growth? We will find out one way or another, possibly through experiments in other ways of living, other lifestyles and their speculative eco-systemic entanglements, that are slowed by economic collapse. There doesn’t seem to be a way out but histories of innovations and technologies provide endless hope for a way through.
A just transition is the task for architecture in the next twelve years, and beyond. Architecture beyond 1.5ºC reduces energy, eats carbon, and micro-examines local conditions as sites of performance and resistance, of the representation and production of spaces and habitats for living in a different socio-biotic collective.
Architecture beyond 1.5ºC reads the climatic interior as a potent space for political resistance, a rapid politicization of adaptive comfort
Architecture beyond 1.5ºC reads the climatic interior as a potent space for political resistance, a rapid politicization of adaptive comfort—"put on a sweater," as Jimmy Carter once insisted. What is the architecture of thermal dynamism? How are bodies re-conditioned and/or conditioned for instability? It doesn’t stop at the façade. How can we reduce dependence on HVAC? Immediately and aggressively? Design for discomfort? Centers of architectural creativity are also centers of economic expansion. Architects of the global north can design at a limit of discomfort. How many sweaters can be worn? Reconditioning the body is essential to the carbon-filled future. The just transition outside of the global north involves renewable infrastructures and decentralized architecture, the building at the nexus of energy use and supply, according to regional availability and local need.
Architecture is party to the culture of joyous urgency—we need to act now to build a different, and hopefully better, world. The 1.5ºC imperative is an opportunity to rebuild, reimagine, recode and rescript; it is a celebration of the possibilities embedded in our technological extravagance. We enter unpredictable territory: a future that literally cannot be imagined, whose contours—climate disruptions, social unrest, geographical and migratory changes, financial strain—are unthinkable. Architecture becomes, right now, a beacon—a space for discourse and a site for experimentation in how to live tomorrow and the next day and a few years down the road.
Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Author of A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War. More details at my Penn web page.
5 Comments
I'm keeping an eye on the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. Many of the 10 finalist in this competition feature carbon-negative concrete and other materials/processes.
Architects have ways to do our part to mitigate climate change now!!! The UN’s recommendations for building sector action are based on the Passive House approach to reducing energy use in buildings, then using renewables to get to ZNE. The Passive House approach has been shown to work around the world for all kinds of buildings. In North America, Vancouver recently made it law To build this way recently made it law To build this way and New York City intends to by 2025. Architects simply need to take on this responsibility in a more serious way, and help figure out how to make this normal.
Looking at hurricane disasters, i noticed the fragility of the buildings reduced to rubles, what came to mind were: why are regional building codes so weak? why were flood plains authorized to be developed? why the lack of insulation against the heat (costly A/C)? Greed is the motivator; at every levels; just follow the money and you will arrive with the same conclusion. Society as a whole will be paying for a long time through taxation and insurance.
Answer: Eliminate parking requirement minimums.
Nothing will change until the planing department and their municipal masters have a change in attitude, may as well extend this to upper levels of all governments.
Climate change is in many minds an abstract affair with a few sprinkles of reality! Until those same minds are personally affected; do not expect too many changes in attitudes!
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