COMMENT After surveying more than 14,000 scientific papers for eight years, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has given its gravest ever warning, steeped in irrefutable evidence, that we’re standing on the cliff edge of an irreversible climate catastrophe. Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.
Longer warm seasons, more destructive floods, extreme heatwaves and volatile shifts between episodes of calamitous weather are no longer premonitions. Increasingly catastrophic weather events are becoming more frequent in our everyday lives. Recent flash floods in the UK, China and Germany, and sudden fatalities relating to heat in Australia and Canada, reveal a trail of devastation which has made climate scientists’ predictions tangible and its global repercussions harder to ignore.
Code red
As the IPCC’s report makes clear, without a wholesale commitment to carbon neutrality, we risk amplifying, not merely materialising, permanent damage to our planet.
Make no mistake: this is the ‘Code Red’ we’ve feared, and it will serve as a point of inflexion for as long as we resist the call to arms to accelerate the process of decarbonisation. IPCC reports have previously used tentative language. This report is unequivocal.
While architects and designers should incorporate low carbon and regenerative materials into their design approach, drive out physical waste and prioritise the efficient use of energy, water, light and space, decreasing carbon consumption at a whole-life level is only part of the story.
The report’s emissions scenarios are startling and speak to architects on a more fundamental level, serving as a wake-up call for those who still fail to place climate resilience at the forefront of their design and response.
Critical vulnerability
Climate responsive architecture is essential, not least because the buildings we live in can exacerbate the upheaval caused by extreme weather.
This couldn’t have been more evident than in Canada, where heat-absorbing surfaces combined with poor ventilation fostered the conditions necessary to bring about heatstroke. In Germany, inquiries have begun to review the structural integrity of homes and public infrastructure brought to bear by unprecedented flooding.
These types of unexpected events have exposed the critical vulnerability of buildings unprepared for the climate crisis.
The UK’s domestic housing stock is some of the least adaptable to shift between extreme conditions in Europe. The Committee on Climate Change has previously described the residential sector as ‘shockingly unprepared’ for climate change, especially flooding, overheating, and water scarcity.
In the face of ever more volatile weather patterns, it is incumbent on architects to ensure that the sustainable buildings we design and retrofit are climate-resilient, enduring, flexible and, more importantly, safe, as we collectively decarbonise our built environment.
Rory O’Hagan is director of Assael Architecture
