Two opposing forces are planting architects in the middle of what one sustainable design expert calls a “built environment contradiction”.
On the one hand, the United Nations estimates that three billion people will need access to adequate housing by 2030. On the other, buildings and construction are responsible for a monumental share of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“We have a moral and ethical obligation to build. The flipside of that is, every time we build, there’s an environmental impact and it’s most often a negative environmental impact. For every square metre we build, typically we’ll commit somewhere between 400 and 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2),” says Associate Professor Philip Oldfield from UNSW’s
