Foundation 23 - Re-materializing Construction

65 Rt Hon Simon Upton energy from it; new approaches in water management; Christoph Küffer’s notion of wild design, according to which the environment shouldn’t have to adapt to our requirements, rather, our design principles should be derived from the environment and ecosys- tems; and last but not least, Anne Lacaton’s approach of make do , which effects conservation instead of destruction. “But this loca- tion and this Forum have also exposed us to the fact that there are plenty of people who have, if not nothing, very, very little other than the degraded environment which we are now asking them to survive in – so asking them to make do with what is clearly inade- quate will not suffice,” Upton said. In addition to continuing learning and information exchange, ac- tion is also important. Upton: “We have to accept that the planet won’t give us much time if we don’t.” According to projections, “There is a serious need for education.” “There will be transitional costs, and we need to be honest about that.” they also leave an enormous environmental footprint. We can easily build 300-meter sky- scrapers, but the environmen- tal price is high. Even higher is the dependency on the energy we need to use our constructed world. So what should we do? Is the answer new biomaterials? Perhaps, but there is no real demand for them. So should we be focusing more on the design of our built environment? Upton said the Forum brought forth many fascinating ap- proaches: the possibility of reducing waste and generating