“Our work embraces infrastructure, architecture and product design.
We design by challenging – by asking the right questions.
We believe the quality of our surroundings can lift the quality of our lives.
Our works ranges from new buildings to intervention within old structures.
We work from the scale of the airport down to the detail of a door handle.
We are guided by sensitivity to the culture and climate of place.”
Norman Foster
While architects cannot solve all the world’s ecological problems, they can design energy efficient, socially responsible buildings and they can influence transport patterns through urban planning. Importantly, sustainability also implies a way of building that is sensitive to its location and the culture that has shaped it. Although architects work on a scale unimaginable 40 years ago, sustainability is an issue that has driven the work of the practice since the early days and continues to inform what we do today. It is a thread that runs through from the very beginning to the present and on into the future.
Sustainability is a word that has become fashionable over the last decade. However, sustainability is not a matter of fashion, but survival. The United Nations, in its latest Global Environmental Outlook, outlined a series of possible environmental scenarios for the next thirty years. At worst, it foresaw crises triggered by increasing water shortages, global warming and pollution. It suggested that these trends might be slowed, but only if nations work together to address radically the global consumption of natural resources and energy, and to halt man’s degradation of the environment.
Sustainability requires us to think holistically. The location and function of a building; its flexibility and life span; its orientation, form and structure; its heating and ventilation systems and the materials used; together impact upon the amount of energy required to build and maintain it, and travel to and from it. Only by finding new solutions to these problems can we create sustainable forms of building for the future.
The best architecture comes from a synthesis of all the elements that separately comprise and inform the character of a building: the structure that holds it up; the services that allow it to function; its ecology; the quality of natural light; the symbolism of the form; the relationship of the building to the skyline or the streetscape; the way you move through or around it; and last but not least its ability to lift the spirits. This holistic approach is augmented by a strong commitment to the clients and also to the public domain and the many users involved. A high degree of personal service, coupled with respect for the precious resources of cost and time, therefore characterizes the client relationships.
Eco-architects work in the spirit of enquiry, challenging preconceptions and testing conventions. The process of ‘reinvention’ distinguishes all of their work – past and present – and rests on a duty to design well and to design responsibly – whether that is at the scale of an airport or a door handle. The last decades have witnessed key shifts in public attitudes to ecology and energy consumption. Architects have always anticipated these trends, pioneering design solutions that use totally renewable sources of energy and offer dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions. Environmental awareness is an integral part of the practice’s culture as it evolves to meet the challenges of the next years.
3. Answer the following questions:
1. How do you understand the way of building "sensitive to its location and the culture that has shaped it”?
2. What is the linking element of the past, present and future in building?
3. Can you explain what it means “to think holistically”?
4. What process distinguishes the work of an eco-architect?
5. What is the essence of this process?
6. What changes took place in our society in the last decades?
7. Why is environmental awareness called “an integral part of the practice’s culture”?
4. According to the text what are the constituent parts of the best architecture? Discuss each of them in pairs. Put them into the order of importance from your point of view. Make use of the following conversational formulas:
To my mind…
In my opinion…
As for me…
If you ask me…
As I see it…
I’d like to point out that…
I can’t but mention …