Darran Anderson: “We need architecture that is more than just green”

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Great piece by Darran Anderson up on Dezeen.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explored the likely global warming of 1.5 degrees, its effects and how it might be mitigated. But it warned that, without urgent change, the impact is likely to be far greater. Meanwhile the Emissions Gap Report 2018 has suggested we are already 10 years behind the targets set out in the Paris Agreement just three years earlier.

The dirges of doomsayers offer little in terms of design inspiration
How designers and architects, those who will envisage and build the future, face these complex issues matters deeply. There are two factors that might aid us in this regard and help us navigate certain recurring pitfalls – namely recognising the dangers of optimism and isolationism.

Faced with dire predictions of the future, the temptation for designers is to develop utopian proposals.

Certainly, the dirges of doomsayers offer little in terms of design inspiration. Optimism, by contrast, is pro-active – a quality we see in the solarpunk green sheen of Vincent Callebaut.

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