In just two days, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) becomes the second Architects Declare co-founder to leave the advocacy group, following Foster + Partners' withdrawal yesterday.
In a statement released by Architects' Journal, ZHA said that "climate change is a defining challenge of our generation," and that the practice is committed to developing solutions. However, ZHA says it is time to recognize its "significant difference of opinion with the Architects Declare steering group on how positive change can be delivered."
Below is the full statement from Zaha Hadid Architects, published earlier today by Architects' Journal:
Climate change is a defining challenge of our generation and Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is committed to developing solutions.
We embed sustainability into the design, procurement, construction and operations of the projects we are delivering, and we work hard to build integrated client/contractor/design team relationships that can maximise opportunities to improve systems which prioritise environmental issues and ensure cost-effective sustainability.
This collaborative relationship between the client, operator, design team and contractor, together with the development of an overall understanding of the sustainability agenda across the entire project team, is critical to delivering the most sustainable construction and operations of a building throughout its lifetime.
Recent ZHA projects have achieved exemplary accreditation. The KAPSARC research centre in Riyadh and the Generali Tower in Milan were awarded LEED Platinum. The Nürnberg Messe Convention Hall received its Platinum rating from the German Society for Sustainable Building (DGNB) and Leeza SOHO in Beijing obtained LEED Gold.
ZHA is now delivering architecture around the world targeting the highest sustainability certification, including projects in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas planning carbon-neutral operations.
We continue this progress; marrying advances in sustainable design and operational systems with innovations in ecologically sound materials and construction practices. We do not look only at the disparate parts, but work to understand them as a whole to deliver effective solutions.
Regrettably, we are withdrawing from Architects Declare. As a founding signatory, we agreed to continue and accelerate our work towards progressive change in our built environment. However today we need to recognise that we have a significant difference of opinion with the Architects Declare steering group on how positive change can be delivered.
For us, how change is delivered requires discussion, co-operation and collaboration, and this must be debated without condemnation.
Architects Declare’s steering group has unilaterally decided on its own precise and absolute interpretation of the coalition’s commitments. By doing so, we believe they are setting the profession up for failure. Redefining these commitments without engagement undermines the coalition and trust.
We saw Architects Declare as a broad church to raise consciousness on the issues; enabling architectural practices of all sizes to build a coalition for change and help each other find solutions. We need to be progressive, but we see no advantage in positioning the profession to fail. In fact, it would be a historic mistake.
18 Comments
The very idea that any of ZHAs architecture is sustainable, and that can win LEED accreditation is testament to the fact how screwed up the ratings are. Its unimaginable how the excessive pursuit of form can be in the same vein as sustainable. Good job they got out.
Did anyone really think ZHA actually cared about sustainability or climate change? Seems ridiculous.
That being said, their letter makes an interesting point - they’re going for LEED and getting Gold and Platinum on their projects, which probably speaks as much to how broken these rating systems are as it does to ZHA’s supposed commitment to sustainability. Spec the right MEPs and you’re like 3/4 of the way to a LEED credential.
The entire profession (well 99.9999% of architecture firms) are out of step with true sustainability.
Both ZHA and Architects Declare are both hypocrites for thinking that there is a real path out that invokes the dichotomy of saving the earth (well, humans---earth will be fine) and building. Specifically they both do not recognize Capitalism for the last 200+ years and Western Hegemony for the last 2,000+ years. It's so much bigger than solar panels and netzero, so, so, so much bigger....but, alas, anarchy doesn't look like too much fun.... ;-)
It'll be alright though....should we still do the best we can? Sure, why not. Just people acting like we have real control here confuse me...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mercer - LEED AP BD+C
Dropping like bowling pins now! Hot take: IMO this makes Architects Declare all the MORE significant. It's upsetting the old guard, and that's good!
Obviously its a good thing, but it also shows how our profession is diametrically opposed to the environment in the end, as hard as we try
From the Oslo Architecture Triennale:
Is architecture a bra for the environment?!
As a bra wearer I have questions about what this means.
Bra= Good
But that also...
Both Foster and ZHA love doing projects for petrostate dictators, and they both love doing gigantic airports. Of course they dropped out of an organization that wants to actually do something about climate change: It might upset their clients.
The expansion of oil and gas drilling and the expansion of air travel are simply incompatible with the goal of keeping our climate somewhat stable for the next hundred years, there is simply no way around it.
There is no way anything we do in the building profession will ever reverse our course; as far as our ultimate impact on the environment and climate go. We can use less toxic materials, less land, less energy (kind of a joke on that one though....see Planet of the Humans for more on that...), just less. That's great and admirable... but the result will be the same, maybe it just buys us a couple decades or so.
I've really shifted my perspective the last decade or so. It made me
seriously depressed and ill before with the delusion, like many people share, that we have control. That we, the godly enlightened ones, are some sort of colonists on a journey to save the earth for all of humankind.
This realization has really liberated my thinking about things. They are crystal clear now, and it's alright. The earth had recycled itself a million times over. Who do we think we are? That we are gods? We are only human, and that is all we will ever be and that is beautiful. We can try and limit development in minimally or undisturbed lands, limit energy use, limit toxins, and be inclusive. And above all, be kind to one another, but that's it. That's all, and it will end the same. We all die.
And it's beautiful.....why not?
An aside, so funny to see the emphatic void of critique on Moore's film. I've been thinking the things Moore brings up for a little while, he had a lot of guts to make it. Best and most relevant thing he has ever done...
Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael Moore film to be taken down
Planet of the Humans, which takes aim at the green movement, is ‘full of misinformation’, says one online library
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
if anything architects should be advocating to accelerate climate change because they're the ones best equipped to create artificial environments
Air Conditioning was the biggest mistake in architecture history. Buildings used to have, by default, high ceilings, natural ventilation, passive orientation, and large atriums and wells for natural circulation. Air conditioning should never have become such a crutch. Hopefully Geothermal, and a return to organic design, can become less expensive and reverse some of the damage.
agreed, what a disaster for humankind. not to mention the work of the architect (imagine a world without mech dwgs..)
fwiw building heating is a bigger contribution to emissions than AC. the carbon footprint of a SFH in Montana is much higher than in Houston.
anything built beyond necessity is, by definition, unsustainable- this is a hard truth that architects need to wrestle with as we hurtle towards the impending climate crisis.
it's entirely possible for necessary building to be unsustainable too.
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