Marcus Fairs from Dezeen, Kasper Guldager from Home.Earth, Susanne Brorson from Studio Susanne Brorson and James Drinkwater from Laudes Foundation discuss how we can build more sustainably, how the techniques used today for construction can make the buildings themselves more sustainable and in what way people’s lifestyles can tie into this equation. 

 

A bit more about the three persons presenting: Susanne Brorson is an architect, the founder of student center Boston, and a researcher at Technical University in Berlin. Kasper Guldager is an architect by training, but has spent most of his life trying to deviate from the classical architectural track. He now runs a development company that does ethical development with a social and environmental pledge. James Drinkwater represents a philanthropic foundation, so “architects of a another type” that create ecosystems of actors across the private sector, across policymakers, finance and of course, broader society to help achieve transformational shifts; and we're climate change and inequality, which is a dual crisis.

 

After all three have presented on their topic, the discussion led by Marcus Fairs commences and touches upon the status quo in architecture. The presenters are in agreement that there is quite a lot happening in the world of architecture right now, and that there has to be a general willingness to take risks and experiment with different materials and systems. Another aspect is scaling, as there are many interesting ideas that work on a small scale, yet the jump to a big scale has not been successfully made – key words here: scaling mass timber as well as digital technologies. The question whether there is enough timber, globally, to build with that material is raised. The answer quite clearly is no, due to the mere number of housing needed and the issue of deforestation but there are also other way, cf. rammed earth buildings, which could help circumnavigate that problem.