Critical Environmentalism: Local Architecture?

2023 was the hottest year on record. Records were smashed for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic Sea ice cover reduction and glacier retreat. Our daily news featured stories of floods, storms and fire. Daily temperatures in cities like New Delhi in India reached as high as 120 degrees F. Despite various measures and regulations to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures, 2011–2020 was the warmest decade on record. In his June 5, 2024, speech for World Environment Day UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described fighting climate change as a ‘moral imperative’ as we race towards multiple human survival risk tipping points.

Unbearable heat is already an issue in many parts of the globe. Australia is the hottest and driest continent on the planet. Much of the country is uninhabitable. Despite having a land mass similar to that of the United States, Australia’s total population (26 million) is two thirds of the population of California. 90% of Australians live in coastal townships and cities. Outback townships like Broken Hill, in far west New South Wales, become problematic if global warming continues as predicted. Extreme heat coupled with associated climate phenomena (warmer moist air causing severe storm cells that result in extreme weather events) will make much of the building stock of these remote towns unsuitable for human occupation in the foreseeable future. (Air conditioners contribute to the problem of global warming.) Architects might be able to help. Can we find a better way to design for an increasingly hot climate so that marginal townships can continue on in a meaningful way into the future? Can we minimize energy consumption through good design and so in the process reduce the carbon footprint of the buildings we make? For this studio we will select a part of the township of Broken Hill that is archetypal and examine the various urban typologies that exist there. Each student will take from this exercise a particular site and building type and develop a detailed design brief and design response to be inserted back into the selected townscape. Can a local approach to the problem of extreme heat result in an architectonic response that is particular to place? Can we discover a new vernacular that makes sense in this time of global warming?

In simple terms the studio involves an up-front urban design exercise followed by the detailed design of a particular building. At semester’s end each student’s building design will be inserted back into a re-planned townscape. In this studio discussions on critical environmentalism will inform the design process.