AIA UK Sustainability Talks 2021

The severity of the Climate Crisis is becoming ever clearer, with the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released on 9th August 2021 laying out the stark reality that climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying.  With buildings responsible for around 40 percent of all carbon emissions (and a lot of other environmentally damaging effects and emissions as well), our role as architects is significant, and our design decisions will be highly impactful for generations to come.  To help our members better understand sustainability issues, best practices, and innovative approaches, the AIA UK Chapter created a dedicated Sustainability Initiative in 2019.  This year, with the November UN Climate Change Conference CoP26 in Glasgow rapidly approaching, we have continued these activities online, reaching a wider and broader audience than ever before with our greatest range of speakers yet. In summary:

We kicked-off the year with the story behind the design and construction of the award-winning Cork House – in Windsor, shared by CSK Architects (as part of our ongoing virtual Building Tours series).

Kelly Doran, of MASS, then shared his personal research and work on 'Climate Positive Design', highlighting the challenges of the current normative design, specifying, procurement systems and incentives, as well as the need for a different and more thoughtful approach so we can design, specify, and build carbon positive architecture.

In April we collaborated with the AIA International Region to create their ‘Implementing Change’ Spring Conference to draw attention to international issues, approaches, and challenges around making meaningful change in how we design and build more sustainably. We hosted three of the key events, including the keynote lecture and discussion with Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030, who laid out the facts and figures of where we are, where we need to be, and a possible path for how to get there, in his talk ‘Architecture of the Earth, Not Just On It’.

In May we were joined by Sustainability Consultant Lucy Townsend of BDP, to talk us through 'Navigating a Pathway to Net Zero', highlighting the policy landscape, problematic approaches and definitions, and the exciting opportunities for us to reach this goal. 

In July Patrick Bellew, Co-Founder of Atelier Ten, built on these discussions as he questioned ‘Sustainability and the Road to Net Zero?’ by talking us through the details of some of his firm’s innovative projects across Europe, North America, and Asia.

In October we will continue these discussions with Raphael Lafargue from Transsolar.

Throughout the year we have been working closely with Architecture 2030 to push for meaningful action at CoP26 in November.   As part of this process, we were a foundational signatory to the CoP26 Communiqué.  We continue to work with AIA National as we approach the November conference - stay tuned for updates!  

If there are any speakers, events, or particular discussions you would like us to host, please get in touch at sustainability@aiauk.org.

Written by: Mark Breeze, AIA