Decarbonizing the Built Environment, Deeper and Wider
Architecture 2030 delegates are gearing up to attend COP28 in Dubai this November, planning messaging for the world stage focused on Decarbonizing the Built Environment, Deeper and Wider.
Bringing Collaboration In The Built Environment Community To Bear
Architecture 2030’s collaboration with Climate Positive Design (first publicly discussed in ARCHITECT’s July/August 2022 issue) is part of an important shift toward more holistic thinking about the built environment (buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure) through the lens of materials and carbon.
The 2003 Metropolis Cover Story That Changed Things for Sustainability
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Metropolis cover story that launched Edward Mazria’s career as a climate and environmental activist. The blunt and glaring cover—designed by Pentagram’s D.J. Stout and commissioned by Criswell Lappin—showed a rolled-up set of architecture plans shaped like a smokestack and billowing black smoke, with the accompanying headline “Architects Pollute”.
Carbon Positive: Putting Decarbonization Back on the Global Stage
The AEC industry has made significant progress toward reducing the energy that buildings use and the carbon they emit. In a 2023 article for ARCHITECT, Architecture 2030 founder Ed Mazria, FAIA, examined a 2022 U.S. Energy Information Administration study and highlighted promising decarbonization trends in the built environment, including the decoupling of emissions and building sector growth.
Climate Positive Design of the Exterior Built Environment
Architecture 2030 releases new aggregations of International Energy Agency (IEA) data indicating that the exterior built environment’s infrastructure and sitework impact has been underrepresented.
Density and Carbon: An Integrated Approach to Buildings as Infrastructure
The office of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill has long studied issues of density, asking questions about how we might — and if we should — build at various scales, including the carbon impact of these choices.
With Building Emissions Dropping Significantly This Year, It’s Time to “Future-Proof” Our Infrastructure
According to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) statistics, U.S. building sector operating emissions fell in the first half of 2023 by about 8.4 percent percent, or 78.8 million metric tons CO2, compared to the same time last year.
Carbon Positive: Land Use and Carbon
Too often, we talk about carbon as if buildings exist in a vacuum. Buildings are part of built and human systems, and emissions are associated with all aspects of those contexts—people and jobs, open space, vehicle miles traveled, adjacency of uses, and infrastructure and utilities.
Climate Solutions From the Global South: Why the Future of Architecture Is Regional
In the building sector, the mismatch between accepted Global North solutions and the needs of the Global South is pronounced. For a century, the Global North has exported its energy-consuming glass towers and concrete roadways regardless of climate zone or social structure.
