Agile, democratic, and interdisciplinary networks for building change towards decarbonising the industry, by constructively rethinking architects’ daily work and their role within wider cultural transformations relating to energy and climate
Context
Architects—particularly young architects, architectural assistants, and students—have in recent years become much more acutely aware of the complicity of architecture within environmental crises and source depletion. They have also realised the significant agency they might have in their positions for changing the ways in which things are done. However, they find existing professional and regulatory bodies to be unwilling to engage with issues of climate with necessary urgency and scope. In response to the global demand for a shift in ecological consciousness and a comprehensive transformation of the global economic system, various movements and manifestos are emerging, particularly within the construction industry. These groups, recognising that traditional practices and approaches are no longer viable in the face of environmental challenges, advocate for fundamental changes in the way buildings are designed, constructed (or not), and operated—to minimise carbon emissions, reduce resource consumption, and promote regenerative practices.
Practice
Seeking to build change from within, groups of architects and other professionals are organising beyond professional bodies, across industries, and from the bottom up—both to examine what kind of changes architects can and might make, and to enact change through political campaigns, research, and wider public engagement.
In the UK, the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) was launched in 2019 through a series of public meetings and assemblies around how to decarbonise the industry by making change from within. Employing a fleet-footed, bottom-up approach inherited from activist groups, ACAN’s tactics include political campaigning (significantly in relation to building regulations relating to embodied energy), as well as protest and direct action and public engagement. ACAN’s education group—one of several working groups into which their work is divided—published the first version of its education toolkit in 2020. The toolkit is based on a set of principles derived from workshops with educators and students, and contains resources on decarbonisation, ecological regeneration, and cultural transformation. It is provided for both students and educators, recognising that there is a lack of expertise and capacity amongst tutors in some schools.
Architects Declare is a network of architectural practices that signed up to a broad declaration in 2019. The network initially included a number of high-profile former Stirling Prize winners, before the apparent contradictions of having such ‘starchitects‘—whose work included new airports—led to rifts between the steering group and practices such as Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects, who eventually withdrew.The network still aims to be a “broad church”, however, and acknowledges that the declaration is an ambition more than a current reality for most of its signatories. Their current work is particularly focussed on ideas around systems thinking and regenerative design, and their Practice Guide, published in 2021, is split into practical ways in which architects can enact change in both their own practice and through their projects. The format has been adopted by other built environment groups including Built Environment Declares and Education Declares, as well as by architects internationally.
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Architects for Future (A4F), founded in 2019 by architecture graduates in Wuppertal, aligned itself with the Fridays for Future movement and is dedicated to achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, particularly limiting global warming to 1.5°C. With a focus on the building sector, which contributes around 40% of global carbon emissions, their aim is to bring about a holistic sustainable transformation in construction practices. A4F operate at national and international levels, comprising activists from various disciplines, not limited to architecture. They have established about 40 local groups with approximately 2,000 active members across the three countries. Despite initial challenges in gaining recognition from the professional world, A4F has garnered support through various tactics such as events, workshops, and exhibitions, as well as engaging in political advocacy and lobbying for stricter building regulations and policies. They emphasise decentralised organisation, democratic decision-making, and cooperation among different groups, encompassing ecological, social, and economic aspects, circularity, and the use of healthy and climate-friendly materials. They acknowledge the importance of both low-tech and high-tech solutions in achieving the necessary transformation, challenging conventional practices, advocating for policy changes, and prioritising conversion, renovation, and adaptive reuse over new construction.
Focussing more on cross-industry collaborations, the Low Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) is a network of “developers, engineers, housing associations, architects, planners, academics, sustainability professionals, contractors, and facilities managers” in the UK making connections across professions towards the goal of developing and delivering zero-carbon technologies. It is a model for combatting the isolation and marginalisation of the architectural profession within the wider field of building and construction. Their publications, including the Climate Emergency Design Guide, help to build carbon literacy and detail real-world strategies to help the UK meet both its immediate and longer-term carbon reduction targets.
By bringing together individuals committed to building change within built environment industries, these movements are able to achieve change in ways which higher powers, the accumulators of control, are unable or unwilling to. They do so partly through confrontation with traditional professional bodies, but mostly through building networks and constructive rethinking of architects’ daily work, and their role within wider cultural transformations related to energy and climate. They show the power of fleet-footed bottom-up initiatives to effect real change in the built environment.