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(Un)sustainable Architecture
(Un)sustainable Architecture
Copenhagen, Denmark
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Other Projects by NORD Architects
(Un)sustainable Architecture
Copenhagen, Denmark
Architecture should endure for the future. It should be able to stand up to many years of use, along with wind and weather, in order to remain a testament to culture and identity for future generations. That’s the way it is – these are the conditions of architecture. At the same time, there is an expectation that architecture should be able to adapt to the future’s unforeseeable currents and changes. So how can we define and manage the concept of sustainability, in a constantly shifting world?
The Sustainability Paradox
The crisis is squeezing Europe and large parts of the western world. Global climate change is challenging our future living conditions. Countries and regions increasingly compete on their ability to quickly respond to changes. A scarcity of resources draws focus onto the creation of responsible and long-term solutions. This is reflected in architecture. At the same time, the context in which we build is increasingly unstable, due to massive urbanization and the altered conditions of countryside regions and the landscape. All of this places increasingly large demands on society, and on architecture’s ability to adapt to future developments. We are therefore forced to find new development potentials in the crises and challenges that society is facing.
In the architectural world there is a prevailing sustainability paradigm, which dictates that longevity is as important as quality, environmental balance and robust economics. However, much of contemporary building cannot live up to this sustainability paradigm, because society’s economics don’t prioritize the resources required to be able to build to a standard which will endure over many years. Due to short-term priorities, stagnated innovation and the use of poor materials, today’s building is of such low quality that large sections of the building stock will fall into disrepair within a short timeframe, without being adaptable to future needs. This is neither sustainable nor in society’s best interests.
We must react to this – for instance, by investigating whether there is potential in building stock’s tendency to quick disintegration. The question is: can the lack of long-term sustainability, and the ready tendency to breakdown, be turned to positive potential? Can we manage things in another way, by turning what’s apparently unsustainable into a sustainable resource for society?
(Un)sustainable Architecture
What if we decided that architecture didn’t need to be enduring? What if transience and renewal were the new sustainability paradigm? What if we imagined an (un)sustainable model of society, where breakdown was integrated into architecture? It would mean that there was a continuous building process, with the opportunity for ongoing innovation and development of skills, since we would be constantly asking questions about architecture’s purpose and function. (Un)sustainable architecture would stimulate innovation in the building sector, and encourage the development of new architectural expressions, materials, methods and building systems, which could dismantle and adapt architecture to ever-changing functional demands. As such, architecture could tackle the socio-economic, demographic and environmental changes with a more dynamic handling of the consequences. (Un)sustainable architecture would thereby define a new kind of sustainability, because it would be carried out to standards which are adapted to suit intended lifetimes. It is a sustainability which could handle the unsustainable in a sound way, utilizing what’s transient to achieve a more flexible and adaptable kind of architecture.
Development in Dismantlement
We could start by establishing differentiated timescales, to set out the length of time for which things should last, along with the points at which those things would be due for obsolescence. Housing should last for ten years only, to correspond with the mileposts in the course of a life; public sector buildings for four years, to match the lengths of political terms; educational buildings for as long as any collective agreement might hold; health sector buildings – until you are once more fighting fit; urban spaces for three months, to go with the seasons.
How would this influence society? How would it affect ownership rights and the housing market? How would we define ‘quality’? What would the culture of building involve? How would it affect our democracy? Our ability to compete? And what would our architecture look like?
It would initiate societal cycles with room for boldness and experimentation. New knowledge, new solutions, sustainable technologies and new materials could be continually integrated into architecture – an architecture which could meet the shifting needs and requirements of the times. New business structures would deal with building and dismantling, and energies could be directed towards defining the new instead of modifying the old. It would free up the enormous resources which are spent these days on energy-conscious renovations and on the “retro-fitting” of an older, inflexible building stock.
From Junkspace to Contentspace
(Un)sustainable architecture is a confrontation with the doctrine of preservation to which contemporary architecture is subject. The change in architecture’s governing principles could result in our society, through democratic means, being just as reactive as our totalitarian competitors such as China. (Un)sustainable architecture could be a driver for reforms of the Danish welfare model, and for the physical development of a new Denmark.
We might hope that, through this process, we could achieve the capacity to let architecture move to the forefront of substantial developments in society – unlike today, where architecture all too often merely trails after the movements of the time, finishing up in outmoded statements. In this way, we could move from today’s Junkspace to a forward-looking Contentspace. A content-driven architecture which would always be reflective of the times.
(Un)sustainable architecture could be a much-needed tool in land-planning. We could start by declaring trial areas to be (un)sustainable, within regions which have the greatest need to adapt to society’s developments – and then seeing what happens.
The Sustainability Paradox
The crisis is squeezing Europe and large parts of the western world. Global climate change is challenging our future living conditions. Countries and regions increasingly compete on their ability to quickly respond to changes. A scarcity of resources draws focus onto the creation of responsible and long-term solutions. This is reflected in architecture. At the same time, the context in which we build is increasingly unstable, due to massive urbanization and the altered conditions of countryside regions and the landscape. All of this places increasingly large demands on society, and on architecture’s ability to adapt to future developments. We are therefore forced to find new development potentials in the crises and challenges that society is facing.
In the architectural world there is a prevailing sustainability paradigm, which dictates that longevity is as important as quality, environmental balance and robust economics. However, much of contemporary building cannot live up to this sustainability paradigm, because society’s economics don’t prioritize the resources required to be able to build to a standard which will endure over many years. Due to short-term priorities, stagnated innovation and the use of poor materials, today’s building is of such low quality that large sections of the building stock will fall into disrepair within a short timeframe, without being adaptable to future needs. This is neither sustainable nor in society’s best interests.
We must react to this – for instance, by investigating whether there is potential in building stock’s tendency to quick disintegration. The question is: can the lack of long-term sustainability, and the ready tendency to breakdown, be turned to positive potential? Can we manage things in another way, by turning what’s apparently unsustainable into a sustainable resource for society?
(Un)sustainable Architecture
What if we decided that architecture didn’t need to be enduring? What if transience and renewal were the new sustainability paradigm? What if we imagined an (un)sustainable model of society, where breakdown was integrated into architecture? It would mean that there was a continuous building process, with the opportunity for ongoing innovation and development of skills, since we would be constantly asking questions about architecture’s purpose and function. (Un)sustainable architecture would stimulate innovation in the building sector, and encourage the development of new architectural expressions, materials, methods and building systems, which could dismantle and adapt architecture to ever-changing functional demands. As such, architecture could tackle the socio-economic, demographic and environmental changes with a more dynamic handling of the consequences. (Un)sustainable architecture would thereby define a new kind of sustainability, because it would be carried out to standards which are adapted to suit intended lifetimes. It is a sustainability which could handle the unsustainable in a sound way, utilizing what’s transient to achieve a more flexible and adaptable kind of architecture.
Development in Dismantlement
We could start by establishing differentiated timescales, to set out the length of time for which things should last, along with the points at which those things would be due for obsolescence. Housing should last for ten years only, to correspond with the mileposts in the course of a life; public sector buildings for four years, to match the lengths of political terms; educational buildings for as long as any collective agreement might hold; health sector buildings – until you are once more fighting fit; urban spaces for three months, to go with the seasons.
How would this influence society? How would it affect ownership rights and the housing market? How would we define ‘quality’? What would the culture of building involve? How would it affect our democracy? Our ability to compete? And what would our architecture look like?
It would initiate societal cycles with room for boldness and experimentation. New knowledge, new solutions, sustainable technologies and new materials could be continually integrated into architecture – an architecture which could meet the shifting needs and requirements of the times. New business structures would deal with building and dismantling, and energies could be directed towards defining the new instead of modifying the old. It would free up the enormous resources which are spent these days on energy-conscious renovations and on the “retro-fitting” of an older, inflexible building stock.
From Junkspace to Contentspace
(Un)sustainable architecture is a confrontation with the doctrine of preservation to which contemporary architecture is subject. The change in architecture’s governing principles could result in our society, through democratic means, being just as reactive as our totalitarian competitors such as China. (Un)sustainable architecture could be a driver for reforms of the Danish welfare model, and for the physical development of a new Denmark.
We might hope that, through this process, we could achieve the capacity to let architecture move to the forefront of substantial developments in society – unlike today, where architecture all too often merely trails after the movements of the time, finishing up in outmoded statements. In this way, we could move from today’s Junkspace to a forward-looking Contentspace. A content-driven architecture which would always be reflective of the times.
(Un)sustainable architecture could be a much-needed tool in land-planning. We could start by declaring trial areas to be (un)sustainable, within regions which have the greatest need to adapt to society’s developments – and then seeing what happens.
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