Thinking about Architecture

The inauguration of our blog coincides with my decision, only to take on projects which have true sustainability as a central project aim.

This is an ethical, rather than a philosophical, decision. Ethical in the ecological sense, as ecologists use the term  ‘ethic’ to describe a limitation on behaviour which is imposed by the ecosystem.

I once wrote an article for the now defunct ‘Ecodesign’ magazine, entitled ‘Why I am NOT a green architect’ – setting out my attempt to work in a holistic way, without accepting that any specialised perspective should dominate. Sustainability thinking, as a necessarily holistic practice, has always been fundamental to my approach, but in the broadest imaginable sense.

However, it seems increasingly likely that there is a fairly short period of opportunity for us humans to sort out our relationship to our ecosystem. Increasingly, all our actions need to be considered in this light. I do believe that we are living through a slow motion emergency, one which is speeding up, albeit insensibly, with every passing day.

So it won’t do for us, anymore, to add sustainability thinking into the mix – it must be a clear aim of our clients, or we won’t work with them. We will spend our time only on projects which seek wholeheartedly to embody the best possible sustainability practice

I’m glad to say that we already have three projects in progress that meet this standard – more about them in forthcoming posts.

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