Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate

FOUNDATIONS interprets the historical and current connections between architecture and the roots of climate breakdown. The section introduces the sites of climate breakdown and the issues which produce and reproduce it, alongside various theoretical and practical positions that have addressed and continue to address the causes. Engagement with climate can only be meaningful through an understanding of these foundations. Read more

Climate breakdown is not a natural phenomenon, but a product of capitalism and the modes of thinking with which it approaches and appropriates nature. Architecture often only addresses the symptoms of climate breakdown, through various forms of adaptation and mitigation. This solutionist approach leaves the underlying roots of climate breakdown both unexamined and undisturbed, allowing the crises to perpetuate. FOUNDATIONS explores these roots, first by identifying a range of issues—exploiting, accumulating, etc.—in order to ground them as modern capitalist ways of thinking and acting. The sites—land, culture, work, etc.—are the various contexts in which climate breakdown is played out, all of which have spatial implications. Alongside these are a set of positions from which to reconfigure social and spatial relations to nurture climate justice. A library of books and other forms of writing gathers key points of inspiration which have informed Architecture is Climate.

PRACTICES is not about architecture as you know it. This section of the website gathers examples from multiple regions, contexts, and disciplines, which directly address climate breakdown and its spatial implications. Together, they point towards other forms of action and potentials for spatial practice beyond current architectural responses. The variety of approaches reflects the need for architecture to look beyond its self-defined, often technocratic, boundaries. Read more

PRACTICES encompass projects, people, policies, organisations, typologies, philosophies, concepts, economies, architectures, and more. It foregrounds processes, ethics, and actions that are directly and productively dealing with climate breakdown through various forms of organisation, governance and collaboration. It situates future architecture in a broad field beyond the technocratic, solutionist, approaches that dominate current architectural approaches in relation to climate. PRACTICES asks you to situate and then develop your own work in this expanded, hopeful, context. Each example is described in terms of its context (the issues it faces, how it was developed) and its practices (identifying its forms of action and following its implications for spatial practices in relation to climate). Examples are tagged with the sites in which they intervene and the issues they address. This allows you to filter the examples in relation to your own interests and projects. Each example also has links to external resources and further reading. Drawing on the FOUNDATIONS and presenting viable FUTURES, the PRACTICES section constitutes the core of the Architecture is Climate website.

FUTURES are multiple; they already exist in the gaps in the present. This section proposes ways of thinking and acting in order to achieve climate justice. The homepage is a cloud of prompts; click on the ones that seem relevant to your own work, and find a short explanation, links to relevant practices and in some cases things to do. Taken together, they support you in making choices for viable futures in the face of climate breakdown. Read more

Neither a definitive list nor a set of instructions, the prompts are catalysts for rethinking relationships such as those between labour and economy, resources and policy, or infrastructures and culture. They can be used when you are stuck with a text, a project, a context, or any other dilemma, to direct your thinking in another way. They work best when they are not used in isolation. Use two. Use three. Use a bundle of them. This will help you to look at your project from a different perspective. Sometimes the prompts come with an exercise (which grounds the prompt in a specific activity). Each is linked to relevant PRACTICES to give pointers of how such futures might be enacted, and to give confidence that you are not alone.

Architecture is Climate

Architecture is Climate is a project that reimagines the future of architecture through exploring its entanglement with climate breakdown. The website is divided into three sections: FOUNDATIONS sets the background themes and issues; PRACTICES gathers inspiring examples across multiple disciplines; FUTURES prompts paths forward. All three parts are interlinked, to understand the connections between pasts, presents, and futures.

Climate breakdown fundamentally alters architecture as we know it: as discipline, practice, field, and education. The systemic changes required to avoid complete ecological collapse should be accompanied by reimagined forms of architecture. This website therefore moves beyond architecture as defined solely by buildings (because that continues the status quo), and instead presents paths to other ways of doing architecture beyond the current norms. FOUNDATIONS interprets the roots of climate breakdown in relation to architecture and collects theoretical and historical resources that have addressed them. It is only through understanding these foundations that architecture can meaningfully engage with climate. PRACTICES gathers a multitude of spatial and non-spatial examples that present powerful counterweights to the roots of climate breakdown, suggesting ways of doing otherwise. FUTURES prompts how other social and spatial practices might be imagined and enacted.

Architecture is Climate

Sarah Bovelett

Anthony Powis

Tatjana Schneider

Christina Serifi

Jeremy Till

Becca Voelcker