How Architecture Can Save The World From Global Climate Change

Is finding your house sinking into the ground the next big thing within sustainable architecture? Well, if you find the arguments of this project strong enough, it might actually be a common sight in the near future. The field of architecture needs to respond to the IPCC's call for action for methods of C[O2] sequestration to help antagonize the developing global climate change. How architecture can save the world from global climate change is a bold project that responds to that call, proposing an architecture that both sequesters its embodied C[O2] mass and does so within a targeted time frame of a generation. Ultimately, gifting society and its protagonists with a possibility of producing a truthfully net positive [read C[O2] reductive] footprint. It succeeds in doing so by drawing knowledge from a local history of sinking Nordic timber log architecture and combining it with the theory of sequestration. Performed as projected, this pioneering project might just be the world's most sustainable architecture, ever designed. How architecture can save the world from global climate change is for anyone with an architectural fascination longing for a deeply illustrated and detailed read of sustainable architecture and Nordic timber log design. In a comprehensive way, it weaves architectural poetry together with hard data, science, construction details and ideological ambitions in a convincing argument for the benefit of society's bettered relationship to climate. In conclusion this book is more than just a coffe book blend of a scientific report, it is a piece of art, challenging the basic perception of what an architectural book can be. "An intensely original and highly provocative MA Thesis, executed with care; supported by an amazing body of research with attention to detail and scientific accuracy. A mythic construction, full of poetic notions that allows others to rethink change." Amalia Katapodis, University Lecturer, UMA

This book provides insights into how we can protect our buildings, cities, infra-structures and lifestyles against risks associated with extreme weather and related social, economic and energy events. There are three new chapters present evidence of escalating rates of environmental change; and the authors explore the growing urgency for mitigation and adaptation responses that deal with the resulting challenges.

Focusing on the recently introduced compulsory course element on sustainability in architecture, the book outlines all of the arguments and provides a comprehensive source of information. The author's insider knowledge of the curriculum structure provides you with an invaluable companion to the new section of the course work. An outline seminar is included allowing the student to relate the theories of sustainability to the practice of study. The professional will also benefit from its focus on the practical translation of sustainable theory. He calls for changes in the way we build. For change to be widely accepted there have to be convincing reasons why long established practices should be replaced. In the first part of the book he sets out those reasons by arguing that there is convincing evidence that climate changes now under way are primarily due to human activity in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Buildings are particularly implicated in this process and so it is appropriate that the design and construction process should be a prime target in the war against catastrophic climate change. The book is designed to promote a creative partnership between the professions to produce buildings which achieve optimum conditions for their inhabitants whilst making minimum demands on fossil based energy. Peter Smith has written extensively on the subject and is well known in the field. He is responsible for introducing the compulsory sustainable element of the course in the UK. He is Chairman of the RIBA Environment and Energy Committee, the RIBA Sustainable Features Committee and Vice Chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee.

Want to keep up with emerging design thinking and issues worldwide? Design Studio is a new thematic series that distils the most topical work and ideas from schools and practices globally. The first volume launches with a statement: Everything Needs to Change. Exploring architecture and the climate emergency, editors Sofie Pelsmakers (author of Environmental Design Sourcebook) and Nick Newman (climate activist and Director at Studio Bark), are channelling the message of Greta Thunberg to inspire, enthuse and inform the next generation of architects. Featuring articles, building profiles and case studies from a range of leading voices, it explores solutions to climatic, environmental and social challenges. It urges readers to radically rethink what it means to be an architect in an era of climate crisis, and what the role of the architect is or can be. Discover how using local materials, working with nature, radical design processes, transformative learning and activism can help us find hope in the burning world. Together, we can force change for a more sustainable and equitable tomorrow. This first volume is produced in four unique fluorescent colours – green, red, yellow and purple – to be your own poster for change.

The author of this book aims to encourage an awareness of sustainability as it is implemented across all areas of planning and design, and the ability to think and act on this knowledge. This book will explore in genuine depth the sustainable strategies that could be applied, along with the practical work of key figures in the built environment, setting these against historical experiences and traditional cultures. It also aimes to revive the discourse around these subjects. Achieving this will require the involvement of architects and structural, energy and environmental engineers, construction businesses and specialists, research institutes and universities. The five chapters and 333 show-cased projects reflect important stages in the architectural and engineering-based design process, stages which need to be addressed when dealing with sustainable strategies in the built environment.

How architects can move toward a more just, harmonious, and non-exploitative designed environment. Architecture--and architects--have immense influence in defining the way we live, work, and interact as communities. Architecture, in fact, could be described as the very process through which our collective priorities take shape in the environment. Today, buildings generate nearly forty percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. As awareness of the true cost of inaction grows, every human activity will be rethought--and the material economy of the building industry is one of the places where new thinking is most urgently needed. Architects have the opportunity to reclaim their relevance by becoming the advocates and masterminds of a new way of building. What kind of architecture will be born once its primary purpose is serving communities and not capital accumulation? How can we compel the market to factor in the true long-term costs of construction and material production? How can we reduce the sense of abstraction that separates "consumers" of architecture from the environmental damage wrought at the sites of material extraction? How can communities become fully involved in every stage of the production of architecture, not just its final consumption? This book attempts to frame the problem, and begins the process of delineating alternative paths forward. The first step architects can take towards a more just, harmonious, and non-exploitative designed environment is to redesign themselves, and what the word "architect" stands for.

Integrate Architecture Under the Influence of Climate Change Architektur unter Einfluss des Klimawandels ChangeThe projects selected for this publication show a range of approaches to making energy, carbon emissions, and their underpinning principles explicit in studio design work. We hope the selection not only inspires and stimulates, but also encourages both novice and expert in their search for future-proof architectures. Without a doubt, we are convinced that now is the time to challenge conventional norms and explore the potentials of such principles, not only to elevate design quality in building practice, but to benefit global society as a whole. Für dieses Buch wurden Arbeiten ausgewählt, die unterschiedliche Ansätze in der Umsetzung der Themen Energie, CO2-Emissionen und den dahinter liegenden Prinzipien im Entwurfsprozess thematisieren. Wir hoffen, dass die Arbeiten sowohl AnfängerInnen und ExpertInnen bei der Suche nach zukunfts-fähigen Architekturen anregen und ermutigen. Zweifellos ist es an der Zeit, beste hende Ansätze zu hinterfragen und neue Prinzipien zu testen, die unter Berücksich tigung der gestal terischen Qualität das Potenzial haben, unserer Gesellschaft als Ganzes zugutezukommen.

Climate change is one of the major challenges facing cities in the future. Landscape architecture is particularly in demand here because it offers solutions that are characterized by complexity and interdisciplinarity and contribute to the quality of everyday life. These range from green roofs and facades to urban gardening and the landscaping of large-scale protection works. This volume presents measures and plans of eleven major cities in North and South America, from Vancouver to Rio de Janeiro, to protect their inhabitants and their habitats against future storms, floods, landslides or long periods of heat and drought. Outstanding projects in the featured cities are analyzed in their geographic and climatic context. The author also addresses the social and cultural dimensions of resilience.

Understanding Sustainable Architecture is a review of the assumptions, beliefs, goals and bodies of knowledge that underlie the endeavour to design (more) sustainable buildings and other built developments. Much of the available advice and rhetoric about sustainable architecture begins from positions where important ethical, cultural and conceptual issues are simply assumed. If sustainable architecture is to be a truly meaningful pursuit then it must be grounded in a coherent theoretical framework. This book sets out to provide that framework. Through a series of self-reflective questions for designers, the authors argue the ultimate importance of reasoned argument in ecological, social and built contexts, including clarity in the problem framing and linking this framing to demonstrably effective actions. Sustainable architecture, then, is seen as a revised conceptualisation of architecture in response to a myriad of contemporary concerns about the effects of human activity. The aim of this book is to be transformative by promoting understanding and discussion of commonly ignored assumptions behind the search for a more environmentally sustainable approach to development. It is argued that design decisions must be based on both an ethical position and a coherent understanding of the objectives and systems involved. The actions of individual designers and appropriate broader policy settings both follow from this understanding.