A holistic approach to sustainability requires a change in values, behaviours and paradigms – a transformation. This can be achieved by integrating sustainability into the design process.

Communities and initiatives develop varied strategies for transformative impact. These include capacity building, education and learning, inner transformation and sustainable place-shaping.

These strategies can be described by a variety of amplification frameworks. A broad range of these are available in different research areas.

1. Rethinking the Built Environment

Architects play a vital role in shaping the built environment. In this capacity, they must address a range of issues from density to social equity to environmental impact and more.

https://www.fredeo.com/general/sustainable-architecture-and-its-transformative-impact-in-the-uk/ It’s this balancing act that has many architects searching for novel ways to reduce construction’s hefty footprint and build in harmony with nature. These efforts have given rise to innovations like eco-neighbourhoods and energy positive buildings that are able to give back to their surroundings.

The Foundation is proud to support thought leadership practices, design strategies and philosophies that are driving these momentous shifts in built environment leadership. We believe it is crucial to support the growth of these communities of practitioners who are able to generate and promote solutions that will become practical and feasible for wider industry adoption. This includes advocating for these solutions in regulatory and policy contexts.

2. Rethinking Business Models

Sustainable architecture, also known as green or sustainable building, promotes healthy and resource-efficient models for construction, operation, renovation, and maintenance. These practices limit demands on the environment by minimizing energy and water usage, as well as carbon emissions from the property.

Imagine your council commissions you to build a new City Hall. Your primary design objectives include meeting the space needs of the community, preserving the existing environment, and demonstrating the City’s commitment to sustainability.

Your building is designed with the latest research in the field of regenerative design. It uses daylight to reduce reliance on artificial lighting, optimizes acoustic performance, and avoids materials with high Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions.

Additionally, you have chosen to use local materials to minimize reliance on truck transportation and pollution. This approach supports the City’s goal of reducing the use of non-renewable resources and protecting the global freshwater supply.

3. Rethinking Education

In the field of sustainable architecture, rethinking education is a key element. Educators must avoid using one-size-fits-all instructional methods that view academic disciplines in narrowly defined and historically constrained ways. They must also provide students with multiple pathways to learning and take into account the histories of knowledge systems that are often neglected in the classroom.

For architects like Murcutt, rethinking education involves “touching the earth lightly.” In other words, every design decision must be considered in terms of its environmental impact. This includes materials selection: avoiding non-sustainable products and exploring the possibility of utilising recycled and reclaimed building materials.

As the pandemic unfolded, many teachers knew that this was a once-in-a-generation moment to rethink what schools were for and experiment with new possibilities for teaching and learning. To do so meant to disavow one-size-fits-all instruction and abandon the kinds of policies that detract from student achievement and racial justice in education. This is what the founders of Rethinking Schools did when they launched the magazine in 1986.

4. Rethinking Culture

Whether through green buildings or carpentry workshops in rural Senegal, the impact of architecture extends well beyond carbon-related issues. It influences society through education, the development of job skills and even social cohesion. Holistic thinking for sustainability requires a deep questioning of the system we operate within, including our own values and behaviour. It calls for a shift from transmissive to self-reflective learning, challenging current hierarchies between teacher and student, and the dominant teaching methods that promote individual designer capabilities over collaboration.

Rethinking Culture explores new perspectives and interpretations of cultural phenomena – from photography to fashion, romance novels to television and jokes to food habits. The book shows how ideas from the cognitive sciences (cognitive anthropology, psychology, linguistics and neuroscience) are reshaping sociologists’ understanding of culture and triggering new ways of analysing it. The book also reveals how the concepts of density, which has long been part of urban planning discourses, are currently regaining interest in art and design.