Climate Change: What can Architecture Do?

Related Theme:

Task

Although climate change is the greatest challenge facing humankind today, we do not seem to be able to come to any international consensus on how to begin to mitigate the causes.  Worse, misinformation and denial are rife so that many people still doubt the truth of the crisis which makes some governments reluctant to act.  There is a need to inform and educate the public about the reality of climate change and the ways in which they can contribute to changing course, and to demonstrate how this might be achieved in the built environment. The studio investigated ways that urban spatial interventions might address climate change in the shape of a stand-alone building, reuse/transformation of an existing building, or new typologies for the city, a combination of design installations, or new infrastructures connecting sites and places that start to transform the inner city. This studio asked, what can architecture do?

The studio positioned its efforts in Sydney, Australia and Berlin, Germany. Germany and Australia need sustainable and resilient development options; even though Germany is in the northern hemisphere in a temperate region, and Australia is in the southern hemisphere in an arid region, they face many common issues.  Both countries are actively looking for tools to support innovative planning processes and creative or “smart” strategies/typologies for living, working, housing and critical infrastructures that can address climate change.  Can a design solution work in two very different climate and cultural contexts?

What if..

Studio Coordinators

Prof. Deborah Ascher Barnstone, University of Technology Sydney