Living with Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Complexity: Demonstrative Role for Architecture within COP Context

Colin D A Porteous

Emeritus Professor of Architectural Science, The Glasgow School of Art 

COPs: introduction to reflective article apropos COP30

COP26 provided a prompt to refect on the cycle of COP meetings initially sparked by the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and their impact, or lack of it, on the architectural firmament – this particularly with regard to housing, discussed via researched examples as demonstrations of sustainable development. Now at COP30, it appears that the same issues and questions remain pertinent.

Abstract

COP26 in Glasgow prompts a contextual architectural reflection on COP origins; this with research emphasis on housing via several landmark European developments, plus complexities around dominant directorial terminology.

COP26 – direction of travel?

This article ponders the lengthy temporal journey taken vis-à-vis ‘book-ended’ terms of the main title. ‘Living’, as a socio-ecological term, denotes home, work, leisure and culture.  ’Complexity’ appears critical to an environmental architectural future. This is particularly the case when performance is matched to targets and predictions. Looking back to the ‘Rio Earth Summit’ of 19921 – the progenitor of the COP series – suggests stocktaking in the aftermath of 2021’s COP26 in Glasgow2. Global warming continues to increase despite any COP-driven progress. Nevertheless, certain demonstrations in intervening years represent intermittent markers toward an architectural means to proffer reductions in carbon emissions, especially for the housing sector. 

Global policy forums and priorities for UK action plans and trends 

The mantra ‘sustainable development’ had an initial brief and open political definition – “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” – that was critical to the 1987 ‘Our Common Future’3. Introduced in the second chapter, the definition relies on others for elucidation. Very little stands out as having changed today – e.g. the promotion of gas as a relatively benign fossil fuel (for electricity generation or a direct source of heating) now stands out3a.  Nevertheless a post-gas future is only implicitly tabled within COP26’s ‘The Glasgow Climate Pact’ – e.g. “… adoption of policies to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including accelerating efforts towards the phase-down [my italics] of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, …”2a. ‘Phase-down’ was a disappointing last-minute change from ‘phase-out’, while mention of “coal” is for the first time elaborated in the note. The term ‘unabated’ implies a future potential for carbon capture; thus abated, but expensive, complicated and hence persistently illusive, aimed at targets that render the burning of fossil fuels environmentally respectable. Consequently forecasts based on carbon capture are often taken as ‘green-wash’.

Although mentioning the term ‘sustainable development’ several times, the Glasgow Climate Pact no longer indicates the need for definition. Interestingly, one that architect Reinier de Graaf attributed in 20194 to ‘Our Common Future’ dates to a 2016 text:  

 ”In a nutshell, sustainable development is a process for meeting human development goals while sustaining the ability of natural systems to continue to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depend.“5 

This is more definitive relative to environmental architecture or environmentally sustainable architecture than Brundtland’s politically guarded original. Indeed, architectural commentator Martin Pawley pronounced in 2000 that ‘sustainable development’ was an oxymoron, ‘sustainability’ was ill defined, and both objectives were impossible to achieve6. His implication is that the juxtaposition of adjective and noun in the first case is contradictory, whilst ‘sustainability’ as a noun requires an adjective. 

Notably, in the year of ‘Our Common Future’, Edward D. Barbier published ‘The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development’, explicitly including finance as central to the theory7. His article, however, includes a diagram with three variables represented by equal interlocked circles – the biological resource system, the economic system and the social system.  Their area of overlap signifies sustainable economic development. Each system has “its own unique set of human-ascribed goals” with the aim “to maximise the goals across all these systems through an adaptive system of trade-offs”. Whilst the symmetry of the three zones of interest and overlap is arbitrary, the concept has remained influential.

Between ‘Our Common Future’ and the Rio Earth Summit, economist Herman E Daly and philosopher John B Cobb Jr. published ‘For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future’8.  Daly and Cobb preface the word ‘sustainability’ with ‘ecological’, and posit consideration that “sustainability is really justice extended to the future”8a. This was prescient, given the weight now accorded to ‘climate justice’. Significantly, Daly and Cobb challenge the lack of distinction between ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainable growth’. They claim that sustainable growth (based on quantitative expansion) is self-contradictory, while ‘sustainable development’ (involving qualitative change) requires operational definition8b. Rio’s 27 ‘Principles’ seem open in this regard1a and despite ensuing alternative descriptors, the Brundtland’s original offering remains in everyday commentary.

Ten year’s after the publication of ‘Our Common Future’, John Elkington, an authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development, proposed the ‘triple bottom line’9 – economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice – corresponding with Barbier. Significantly, however, in his book (Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business), Elkington, whilst admitting the integral challenge to business, affirms that the text “is skewed more to the environmental dimension of sustainability than to the social and economic dimensions, …”9a Moreover, referring back to his and Julia Hailes’s ‘Green Consumer Guide’, again of of 1987, Elkington quotes: “the ‘profitability’ of a given business very much depends on where those who run the business choose to draw their ‘bottom line’, with costs above the line and profits below.” The second part of ‘Cannibals with Forks’ “outlines seven great revolutions which are already under way and on whose eventual success ride our hopes for a sustainable future.”9b These are represented by paired antonyms (old versus new paradigms) that refer to generic themes – starting with markets: compliance vs. competition.9c Skewed to environmental sustainability or not, Elkington’s terminology evokes the business, rather than natural, environment; it is unclear whether terms such as ‘business ecosystems’ are metaphorical or wishful. Nevertheless there are glimmers of optimism – for example, that environmental constraints can engender a highly competitive market.

It is apparent that by 2004, Elkington’s ‘profitability’ dimension had morphed into the wider domain of ‘governance’, becoming increasingly prominent within the acronym ESG for ‘environmental, social and governance’ frameworks, but without explicitly associating these with ‘sustainability’. That ‘governance’ in addressing matters such as risk and performance should correspond with financial oversight is not surprising. A year after COP26, however, Rebeca Minguela challenges ESG orthodoxy, re-stressing the need to ask the right questions – “how do we achieve a more sustainable planet and a more sustainable society?”10 She states this is “a problem of resource and capital allocation”. She also implies that businesses’ tendency to accept ESG as synonymous with sustainability is a misconception, and asks: “How do we measure sustainability?” 

For architects, this increasingly involves metrics for health/wellbeing as well as eco-detriment and eco-enhancement, part of the latter involving climate-change indicators. Harder to measure is the crucial matter of practical design. When applied to spatial organisation, this involves resources, capital allocation and recurring costs. Also architects may tend to a relatively complex and synergistic appreciation of the practicality of resources – more than simply their materiality and monetary value, and embracing phenomena closely involved with environmental considerations such as climate, embodied energy, etc. Along ESG’s 21st century trajectory, Peter Buchanan presented for architects a series of dichotomous diagrams (2012, the year of COP18 in Doha)11, where interior/subjective is compared with exterior/objective, each subdivided into individual versus collective endeavours; these based on American philosopher Ken Wilber’s integral theory illustrated by means of All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) diagrams. On the objective/collective side of one model, Buchanan positions social, ecological and economic dimensions, all three of Barbier’s or Elkington’s variables, in the collective/objective quadrant of his AQAL. It may be inferred that AQAL thus offers scope for four times the complexity as that of Barbier, Elkington or ESG’s tripartite thinking, since it requires that a change “in level in one quadrant” must be matched by equivalent change(s) in the others. To further complicate matters, one would expect architectural design to be partly subjective, partly objective, partly individual and partly collective.

Returning to the late 1980s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was founded in 1988, just after publication of ‘Our Common Future’; its first Assessment Report followed in 1990, with a supplement completed in February 199212 – just prior to the Rio Earth Summit.  ‘Sustainable development’ is a frequently used textual pairing, defined in a footnote by an extended version of the Brundtland one – “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and does not imply in any way encroachment upon national sovereignty”; citing a 1989 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting12a.  As mentioned above, Rio’s programme of Action, ‘Earth Summit Agenda 21’ defined sustainable development by proxy via 27 Principles1a – e.g. 1: “Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”; 4: “In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.” Principle 1 thus leads with Barbier’s ‘social system’, while Principle 4 emphasizes the symbiotic mutuality of his other two. Overall, the listing of a rather large number of principles may be more straightforward than diagrammatic models such as Barbier’s or Wilber/Buchanan’ – open to myriad interpretations and biases. Importantly, its ninth chapter, ‘Protection of the atmosphere’, subheading ‘Promoting Sustainable Development’ emphasizes “The need to control emissions of greenhouse and other gases …” so as to “…reduce adverse effects on the atmosphere from the energy sector …1b.  Agenda 21’s caveat, moreover, highlights a just transition away from reliance on fossil fuels:

“This objective should reflect the need for equity, adequate energy supplies and increasing energy consumption in developing countries, and should take into consideration the situations of countries that are highly dependent on income generated from the production, processing and export, and/or consumption of fossil fuels and associated energy-intensive products and/or the use of fossil fuels for which countries have serious difficulties in switching to alternatives, and the situations of countries highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.”

It appears that this cautious clause in 1992 may have set the tone for all the subsequent COP meetings – i.e. a level of pragmatism suffused with illusory urgency whereby very little has changed, especially the potency of economic vested interests originating from the developed nations, and despite apparent concerns for the less-developed ones.  At any rate, it is spurious to assert that COP28 in 2023 is the first time “Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner” has been explicitly cited; alongside “accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.13 This is more historical than ‘historic’ as claimed; the only tangible advance in three decades appears that the 2023 commitment by more than 190 nations (cf. Agenda 21’s 178) sets specific targets: 

“Limiting global warming to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels] with no or limited overshoot requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.”13

Returning again to 1987’s ‘Our Common Future’ and reference to “protection of the biosphere”, the single noun “sustainability” is used apropos “the serious probability of climate change due to the ‘greenhouse effect’ of gases emitted to the atmosphere, the most important of which is carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from the combustion of fossil fuels.”3b Hence, “the risks of global warming from CO2” for architecture were to be addressed in part through improved energy efficiency of the building envelope, and partly by low-carbon means of generating heat and power. In other words, sustainability here explicitly denotes mitigation of global warming and climate change.

When we move from the principles and policies of Rio’s Agenda 21, however, to the action plans set out by individual governments such as that of the UK, Sustainable Development is tackled in one document14, and Climate Change in another15. The separation of these, each dated January 1994, potentially weakens integral linkage. Significantly, both advocate an archetypal de-regulatory conservative position. Sustainable Development emphasises “The Government’s general policy is to reduce and simplify regulations wherever appropriate.”14a Similarly, Climate Change stresses that to stimulate energy efficiency it advocates “economic instruments rather than regulation”15a. This ‘laissez-faire’ political bent has largely prevailed despite governmental changes since 1994, and, notwithstanding the ESG acronym with environmental and social dimensions, its logic risks greater scope for negative unintended consequences.

Complexity – initial UK post-Rio action plans

The Summary section in the UK’s 1994 ‘Sustainable Development’ states that this is one of four simultaneously published reports representing “each of the four “Rio” agreements”14b. These represent the themes of Rio’s four sections. Firstly, ‘Social and Economic Dimensions’, begins by emphasizing the need to “accelerate sustainable development” in a globally cooperative manner including “developing countries and related domestic policies”.1c Secondly, ‘Conservation of and Management of Resources for Development’, begins with ‘protection of the atmosphere’.1d Thirdly, the Preamble in ‘Strengthening the Role of Major Groups’ stresses ‘broad public participation’.1e Fourthly, ‘Means of Implementation’, starts with ‘Financial resources and mechanisms’ and also includes ‘Science for sustainable deveopment’1f.

Thus economy, society and environment are woven into these four sections in Rio’s Agenda 21, which broadly cover ‘operational definition’ required by Daly and Cobb vis-à-vis ‘sustainable development’; thence pursued nationally as in the 1994 proposed action documents of the UK. Individual national political economics inevitably invite obfuscation, deceptive simplicity or hidden complexity. Examples that frustrate are not hard to find.  

In ‘Sustainable Development, The UK Strategy’14, one might cite three categories – unrealisable aspirations, flawed assessment tools, and the contrast of irrelevant detail to a lack of key specifics. In the first instance, an example is the recommendation to limit air-conditioning and improve its efficiency14c, but without mention of the critical role of architectural design; later in the 1990s, regulatory limitation foundered on pushback by the industry, and air-conditioning continues to be a major emitter of greenhouse gases. In the second category, the ‘tick-box’ assessment methodology of BREEAM14d (still extant) has never satisfactorily addressed compensatory play-off between various attributes. In the third, brief mentions of enlarged ‘combined heat and power’ (CHP) capacity fail to address seasonal variability, load-matching of heat and electricity to demand, potential for retrofit and so on14e, 14b. Also improved standards for domestic refrigerators and freezers are included, but not high-energy appliances like washing machines; neither does it raise the issue of all of them remaining unregulated14f.

‘Climate Change, the UK Programme’15 sidesteps complexity by means of reliance on broad targets arising from trend-based scenarios. Moreover, although it predicts an overall saving of 10 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) by 2000, the trend in electricity shows carbon emissions steady after a mid 1990s dip, while demand rises from approximately 23 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) or 67.5 TeraWatt hours (TWh) up to approximately 29 Mtoe or 337.3TWh15c. And, although the document gives prominence to the displacement of coal-fired electricity generation by “high efficiency gas-fired combined cycle (CCGT) plant”, data on direct heating of buildings by natural gas at much higher efficiency than CCGT is noticeably absent. Indeed, the demand for heating (spaces and hot water) within buildings including impacts on it of systems (or lack of them) for adequate ventilation, and consequent emissions of greenhouse gases, is subsumed within the generality of ‘energy consumption’ – ‘in the home’, ‘by business’ and ‘in the public sector’. Such subsections do at least provide breakdowns of CO2 emissions for space heating, hot water, cooking, and lighting and appliances, the last set for 2000 predicted15d. There is, however, a tendency to focus on intricacies of finance rather than to explain incremental changes due to scientific complexities across sectors – say to take account of the variability of building practice and fuel choices, potentially further influenced by specific and differing socio-economic and geographic conditions.

Sustainable living complexity – architectural ‘signposts’

The word ‘living’ is used here to focus on time at home rather than work, leisure, etc.  The analysis cited above for ‘Energy Consumption in the Home’, counter-intuitively, predicts an increase in space heating between 1990 and 2000 of some 10.0%.15d An explanation, during a decade that saw significant attempts to tackle fuel poverty and provide affordable living comfort, is that improved thermal efficiency, including the means of heating, results in households being able to buy more units of energy compared with formerly. In other words a large portion of the benefit of thermal upgrading is realised in the ability to heat an entire dwelling comfortably, rather than only principle rooms poorly and/or intermittently.  This was evident in the theoretical before-to-after difference (‘after’ measured; ‘before’ calculated to the same mean temperatures, but unaffordable in practice) for a significant residential Solar Demonstration Project. Part-funded by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC), this retrofit of 36 flats in two blocks was located in Easthall (Fig. 1), one of Glasgow City Housing’s peripheral estates and monitored between 1992-9416 – i.e. matching the time frame between Rio Earth Summit and UK Agenda 21 proposals. The Mackintosh School of Architecture (MSA), with links to all key players, functioned as the ‘Academic Subcontractor’.

This project was also unusual in that it represented empowerment of a local group of tenants who were campaigning for radical improvements to rid them of the blight to their lives wrought by fuel poverty – dank discomfort with indoor condensation causing black mould and poor health.17 Thus it was driven by a grass-roots quest for social justice, the CEC offering a financial gateway to redress, alongside the help of academic expertise to enable effective technical solutions with passive solar energy to the fore. Fortunately, Easthall Residents Association (ERA) and other like-minded groups in Glasgow, together with appropriate academic help, had established a community-controlled Technical Serves Agency (TSA) in the mid-1980s, modelled on one in Liverpool.18 TSA initiated a weekend ideas competition, ‘Heatfest’, hosted by ERA in 1987 in association with two other organisations within the voluntary sector – the Scottish Solar Energy Group, part of a global solar network, and the West of Scotland Energy Working Group. 

The subsequent demonstration of thirty-six households emanated through post-Heatfest predictive analysis by MSA in lockstep with an initial trial of a six-flat block funded via a ‘Jobs and Energy’ project by Heatwise, another voluntary sector organisation in Glasgow.19 Briefly, the small 67m2 footprints of these flats were modestly expanded by two glazed buffer spaces, one a former recessed balcony, the other a utility space next to the kitchen. These formed an integral part of thermal upgrading of the external envelopes well beyond regulatory standards to yield affordable whole-house heating; the solar-augmented buffers enabling a preheated supply of fresh air to pass through rooms and hallway and exit via vertical exhausts from kitchens and bathrooms. Additionally, bespoke solar air collectors were included on the CEC-funded blocks to preheat domestic hot water as well as the common stairwells.  

A further sense of the uniqueness and complexity of the respective small and large retrofits lay in keeping all players on board, with ERA at the helm, although naturally also involving the local government owners and TSA. In terms of initial local empowerment, more followed from corresponding dates between Easthall’s Solar Demonstration and Agenda 21. One of ERA’s tenants became involved at this time in public health and development through local organisations such as Scottish Education and Action for Development (SEAD) to global ones such as World Health Organisation (WHO), and travelled to various events and meetings in countries such as Nicaragua, USA and Demark to share experiences of health and housing.20 Another led a series of international workshops in 1996 held to disseminate the findings of ERA’s retrofit; yet another gained a degree at Glasgow University and became a lecturer there.

Such examples of individual empowerment sit within a complex mix of socio-political cohesion and disconnection, and hence lack tangible visibility. Similarly, advances made in built prototypes such as the unheated glazed spaces and solar air collectors used at Easthall, find difficulty in gaining a marketable foothold. Bold ideas for glazed residential streets date back to 1868 when Alexander Thomson proposed them as a healthy solution to the Glasgow City Improvement Trust21. However, apart from retail arcades,   this idea has not flourished in the UK.  An exception is the 1985 John Darling Mall by Hampshire County Architect22. Similar projects, such as the 1984 Danish Jystrup co-housing by Vandkunsten Architects23 or the 1988 Sozialer Wohnungsbau in Graz, Austria, by Manfred Kovatsch24 (Fig. 2), remain relatively rare. 

Some notable experimental projects shared chronology with political crises. For example, in southern France the first experimental Trombe-Michel solar wall in 1967 coincided with Israel’s 6-Day War and later variants followed the year after the 1973 Yom Kippur War25. Both wars affected the global cost of oil, and the 1972 Stockholm Declaration (Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment)26 occurred within the same time frame. Hence from the late 1960s up till the end of the 1980s, there was a resurgence of architectural interest in exploiting solar energy, by passive and active means, in order to make buildings less reliant on fossil fuel sources. Awareness and action with respect to climate change followed on from the late 1980s, still with fossil fuels very much to the fore as key drivers of greenhouse gases. The cultural evidence of ‘co-operative community’ also stems from the societal loosening up of the 1960s as well as specific political-economic problems. For example, the Clean Air Act of 1967 led to a move away from traditional solid-fuel heating to predominantly electrical sources, which in turn altered the ventilation characteristics of dwellings as well as the ability to heat them adequately. Hence we have a paradox – an environmental benefit to outdoor air quality leading to mould-compromised indoor air as in the pre-existing conditions of the Glasgow demonstration project cited above.   

This project was not the first in the UK to associate individual unheated sunspaces with solar air collectors. Cedric Green’s Paxton Court, Sheffield, a cooperative, self-build passive solar development was completed in 198727 (Fig. 3) the concept winning joint second prize in the ‘First European Passive Solar Competition – 1980’28.  An integrated air collector within the sunspaces of its two-storey houses ducted preheated air through the first floor down into a spine wall of hollow concrete blocks; the loop completed by returning air to the sunspace below its floor. Also pre-warmed air within the sunspace could be introduced to rooms at both levels via windows. 

Addressing a period prior to this in the United States, Daniel Barber traces connections between the Stalin-Khrushchev Cold War era and US experimental solar dwellings and technology with export potential to developing countries29 – effectively, a comparison of the American free-market versus Soviet totalitarianism, and regulated influence. Arguably, the issue of deregulation versus regulation remains critical to architecture’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Inevitably, such domestic architectural research and innovation via science and technology has continued in the decades since Agenda 21, but its impact, both cultural and in terms of addressing global warming, has been very limited. Martin Pawley expressed this potently towards the end of the 1990s relative to ‘Green Architecture’  – “its driving force is the principle that architectural form should be dictated by compliance with the global energy and environmental imperatives that govern human survival” – but was downbeat about the prospects30. Such pessimism is reinforced by the historically leisurely rate of change in the architectural firmament attributable to advances in science and technology – compared for example with the fields of medicine or communications.  And although there is considerable hype around so-called ‘smart technology’ applied to buildings, there is scant evidence of a relationship with reduction in global warming.

Overwhelming building procurement with architects absent or influentially sidelined, impedes necessary design changes, including the embedded carbon trail of materials. The tendency for governmental promotion of over-simplistic solutions is unhelpful in such a context.  For example, a rapid transition from gas boilers to air-source heat pumps begs the question in the UK of how soon it would be possible to displace electricity that is generated by gas at a much lower efficiency than delivering it directly to heat buildings. Moreover, in terms of disruption to consumers, heat pumps require hot water storage if also heating domestic water and ‘wet’ radiators, whereas ‘combi’ gas boilers do not. Further their Coefficient of Performance (COP) and capital/running costs vary widely – e.g. from individual air-source ones to grouped/district, deep-bore, ground-source installations. Transitional rollout may involve modification of a larger system of servicing living comfort, such as heat emission and retention embedded within built form and fabric, and with implications for other natural or artificial environmental variables. Mitigation of energy consumption does not simply rest on insulation, itself a complicated proposition for existing buildings, especially where mixed tenures are involved; it also relies on high-performance windows and effectively healthy systems of ventilation, not simply airtightness and wishfulness.

Further signs of architectural positivity leading up to COP26

Given the timing of landmark projects above such as Glasgow’s Easthall and Sheffield’s Paxton Court relative to the Rio Earth Summit one might have anticipated a continued parallel of architectural innovation augmenting realisation of COP aims and objectives.  But while architects are engaged on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions by design of buildings, both embodied and in-use, successive COPs are substantially focussed on the electricity supply side – cutting emissions from generation for multiple purposes. And although other northern European countries also address district systems for the renewable supply of heat, the UK has a poor record in this regard. Meanwhile, for architects, replication of proven carbon-saving techniques at scale and pace is daunting. Building procurers still tend toward minimum standards, whether upheld by regulation, or expected within a deregulatory environment. Architects’ agency is also too frequently contractually diminished (e.g. via ‘Design and Build’). 

More optimistically, one enduring business model that sets its own relatively rigorous standards of energy efficiency, and in so doing requires use of specific building products, is that of the Passivhaus Institute in Germany, with its first built example constructed in Darmstadt-Kranichstein in 1988. In 2010 a hybrid solar retrofit of 1952 and 1970 housing blocks at Dieselweg, Graz, Austria, by Hohensinn Architektur, with consultants ESA (Energie Systeme Aschauer) and AEE INTEC (Institute for Sustainable Technologies), achieved Passivhaus standard31 (Fig. 4). This project represents a happy ‘marriage’ between ‘Passivhaus’ principles and those of ‘passive solar’; here a solar-enhanced over-cladding that enables residents to remain in their homes throughout the building works. The approach makes high-grade changes affordable (816 €/m2 in 2010) by a combination of financing from the central and regional governments and a non-profit industrial housing organisation. Over-cladding of the 1970 blocks included: extending and enclosing existing balconies as sunrooms; outer glazed ‘solar honeycomb’ enabling lowered effective thermal transmittance (U-values), and an inner heating serpentine next to the outside of existing solid brick walls; decentralised mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) units; a new insulated, low-pitch roof with 3m2 solar-thermal panels per flat; and insulation above the basement that housed services such as district, deep-bore, ground-water-source heat pumps and thermal storage tanks. The 1952 block was similarly renovated: a more visible tiled roof and bespoke flat-plate solar-thermal collectors incorporated in the new vertical cladding alongside the ‘honeycomb’ system.

While this project embodies generic principles – e.g. the new solar skin – it also involves specifics such as its precisely prefabricated cladding over original solid-brick walls.  In terms of wider applicability, other givens might be older solid walls of historical aesthetic worth; thus steering toward internal insulation and its impacts on construction. Variables such as tenure and utility provider might militate against other collective assets; as could fiscal politics in other countries hinder emulation of the Graz financial model. Hence every paradigm involves caveats that qualify, but do not negate, up-scaled replication.

Nonetheless, evidence of such ‘roll-out’ remains scant. Extant building stock as a whole remains a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, the UK lagging behind its European neighbours in terms of remedial action. The longevity of the Passivhaus standard, variously adopted with ecological adjuncts, however, seems to offer a route to a more sustainable low-carbon culture for building stock, with renovations keeping pace with new-build. There is also the issue of quantitative scope coupled with ownership, community empowerment and cohesion. A particular beacon in this regard is the Vaubon district of Freiburg in southwest Germany; a military barracks, established there in 1936 was finally vacated by French troops in 1992 (two years after German reunification, and the year of the Rio Earth Summit). When purchased by the City of Freiburg, it aimed for a ‘Sustainable Urban District’ to be “based on ecological and social cohesion criteria” with implementation 1993-200632. A “participatory process” was also central to the project’s objectives, which included re-purposing the existing ranks of barracks. The result includes individual Passivhaus and net ‘energy plus’ landmarks such as the co-housing, ‘Living & Working’ (Wohnen & Arbeiten) by id-Architektur, 199934, and Solarsiedlung by Rolf Disch, Solar Architektur, 200635 (Fig. 5). Overall, it represents an urban paradigm of low-carbon livableness that contrasts with that adopted by top-down, post-war ‘New Towns’ in the UK, with their high car-induced footprints. In different climates, more truly passive housing models are possible.  Recent medium-rise, dense low-carbon social housing by architects Peris +Toral in the Mediterranean island, Eivissa (Ibiza) offers a naturally ventilated, culturally flexible paradigm, its only mechanical component ceiling-mounted cooling fans, and warmed in winter by solar gain36. 

Highlighting the status of research

The exemplars above indicate that although Passivhaus certification neglects environmental criteria other than energy, it highlights the gap between current UK statutory standards and what is reasonably possible. Bridging such a gap appears to be predominantly political, successive governments fearful of alienating the powerful building lobby, and a need for further research is often cited as a delaying tactic.

Demonstration projects, whether at the urban scale of Vaubon or small sets of buildings to an individual building, constitute a cusp between research by theory and research by practice. Absence of the word ‘research’ in key documents, however, stresses political economics over climatological and ecological science. For example, the second chapter of ‘Our Common Future’ is ‘Towards Sustainable Development’3 rather than ‘Towards Sustainable Research and Development’. Neither is it included within the 1992 Rio Declaration, although implicit in some of its 27 Principles like “exchanges of scientific and technological knowledge”1a. Such exchanges are only belatedly mentioned as “findings of scientific research” and ‘research capacities” apropos ‘Programme Areas’ within a later Rio chapter on ’Science for sustainable development’1c.

‘Our Common Future’ does cite research, but mainly governmental reportage (including quangos) rather than academically peer-reviewed articles. For example, its first chapter ‘A Threatened Future’ references a 1986 World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) conference on greenhouse gases and their impacts3d.   It is emphatic on the key causality of atmospheric CO2 increase: “The most significant contributions to this increase are anthropogenic”. It also seems confident regarding predictive modelling: “This leads to a reasonably consistent picture of the integrated human impact on the carbon system, …”. A 1992 climatic textbook again links anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 to the Industrial Revolution, arguing for energy conservation coupled with renewable electricity generation; as the WMO report, it cites the 1990 IPCC Assessment regarding such influence, and alludes to modelling evidence: “Sophisticated theoretical models, …, now strongly suggest that an anthropogenic increase in the greenhouse effect will soon produce clearly identifiable warming.”37 Such 1990s references to causal aspects of global warming mark a significant advance over the 1890s foresight of Svante August Arrhenius in discussions with Arvid Högbom.38 ‘Agenda 21’ arising from Rio is sparser than ‘Our Common Future’ apropos citations of research, and the UK’s follow-up ‘Sustainable Development’ again has a governmental emphasis – e.g. Department of Trade and Industry and Department of the Environment regarding Energy Efficiency.14g 

More recently, outputs from ‘6th Assessment’ cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2021-2022 include ‘The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers’, August 202139. This provides data from models such as the ‘Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 6’ (CMIP6), and its 49 notes belie “over 14,000 cited references” in the full report mentioned in the preceding press release40. The summary also includes graphic evidence of the steep rise in anthropogenic and natural increases to global surface temperature since the 1960s compared to natural causes alone, and graphical output of predicted future CO2 emissions alongside non-CO2 drivers of global warming such as methane and nitrous oxide. The third chapter in the full report on The Physical Science Basis – ‘Human Influence on the Climate System’ – contains considerably more detail, with multiple academic references41. Thus in terms of scientific research, the IPCC has met the challenge of climate-change sceptics over decades, as well as showing the change itself to be a worryingly increasing phenomenon. The chapter also includes a concise answer to the question: ‘How Do We Know Humans Are Responsible for Climate Change?’ The second of this series, ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’42, is again lavishly referenced and frequently twins mitigation with adaptation. But it contains only a brief section dedicated to Building Design and Construction with reference to natural ventilation, solar chimneys, passive cooling, and citations indicating contemporary architectural-cum-scientific scope42a.

The final part of this IPCC series, ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’, 2022, shifts the agenda toward architecture rather than energy infrastructure and wider areas of environmental sustainability. It also sharpens focus on housing – with an emblematic cover picture of an award-winning Scottish project in Findhorn, Morayshire, by John Gilbert Architects. Within, however, a sub-section starkly informs: “In 2019, global direct and indirect emissions from non-residential buildings increased by about 55% and those from residential buildings increased by about 50% compared to 1990.”43 Given successive COP meetings in this period, including the 1997 adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, and the 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP25), this is a depressing finding. Reasons offered, such as “increase of the floor area per capita” and “increased use of emission-intensive electricity and heat”, confirm the plethora of socio-economic issues that help to drive this counter-intuitive phenomenon of apparent profligacy. Moreover, although the report notes “increasing examples of zero energy or zero carbon buildings in several regions”, it adds the caveat “the low renovation rates and low ambition of retrofitted buildings have hindered the decrease of emissions”. Demonstrations such as Dieselweg in Graz cited above do not represent a norm; techniques such as ‘solar district heating’ barely appear in references, while renewable ‘combined heat and power’ (CHP) is absent, as is solar or renewable air conditioning. Apart from the chapter on Buildings43a, with brief sections on exemplary projects, the cover image is misleading. Mentions of architecture tend toward abstract metaphors such as ”global governance architecture”,  “architecture of constraint” or “international climate policy architecture”, and repeated use of “choice architecture” is defined in a glossary as “The presentation of choices to consumers, and the impact that presentation has on consumer decision-making.”43b  This may be intended to represent dialogue between architect and client in establishing a brief or programme. Alternatively, perhaps it alludes to the ‘placatory participation’ or ‘transformative participation’ expounded by Jeremy Till in 2005?44

Shortly after the publication of the first of this IPCC series, and although the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact refers to the “research community”2b relative to the COP25 Paris agreement, imperatives of research itself feel occluded by political ‘shorthand’. One of its notes, however, makes reference to the August 2021 IPPC report: 

“The debate in Glasgow was driven in part by a report released in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body responsible for assessing scientific research, which described how humans have altered the environment at an “unprecedented” pace and detailed how catastrophic impacts lie ahead unless the world rapidly and dramatically cuts greenhouse gas emissions. An October report from the U.N. weather agency warned about a looming water crisis, with floods, droughts and other water-related disasters on the rise.”2c

Even if we regard relevant research as a natural continuum within academia, practice and quangos, the ‘spin’ on the paramountcy of economic development agendas – national or global – prevails. It expresses a trend toward sustaining development rather than sustainable development. The former would fatally compromise the efficacy of Barbier’s 1987 aspirational schematic7, with the key gerund echoing Ian Abley and James Heartfield in their 2011 book ‘Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age’45. Abley refers to a culture of architectural reaction to science and technology, asserting: ”The anti-machine reaction co-exists with increasing dependence on advancing science and technology.”45a This implies a question as to how architects treat the era of Information Technology (IT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in practice or research. In 2024 Karina Montoya outlines what ‘narrow AI’ can do to augment the quest for environmental sustainability, but also points out AI myths and energy-consuming downsides.46

Generally, there seems to be a tacit assumption that ‘sustainable development’ can readily align with scientific logic and evidence of research, whilst ignoring inadequate dissemination. Countering negative local-to-global environmental impacts lies within architectural scope. Nonetheless, trends since circa 1990 appear static if not detrimental.  Gaps between apparent governmental aspirations and what occurs, viewed through a lens of successive COPs, appear excessive. Unlike other areas of expertise such as medicine, architectural research outputs, with varying levels of significance that might mitigate climate change, languish outwith the day-to-day ken of the profession.  Persistent political reluctance to regulate adequately, coupled with backsliding on agreed timelines for carbon reduction and enablement of further fossil fuel extraction, combine to question the efficacy of the COP series. And this depressing status quo aligns with strident UN warnings of lack of progress in attempts to address climate-change globally.

Concluding remarks from a Scottish perspective

Despite the issues raised above, there are occasional national signs that COP26 remains relevant within the architectural firmament. Tom Morton recently published a brief article in which he enunciated particular pathways relative to COP26 that the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA) has been discussing, latterly with the Climate Change Policy Exchange Network of the Scottish Government47. Morton emphasizes the “Just part of the Transition” and “fundamental change” to the construction system so that it delivers “gender equality, ends fuel poverty, empowers shared agency, and eradicates physical and mental health inequalities among construction workers and building occupants.”  Keeping these tenets in mind, Morton also advises caution with regard to mass retrofit programmes, for which he highlights factors such as material quality and skills training requirements.  He raises three other aspects:  holistic inclusion of all construction infrastructure incurring carbon emissions and indirect environmental impacts overseas; careful governmental procurement processes; and the need for developing a “clear projection of climate impacts”. Morton’s emphasis on justice echoes the views of earlier authors such as Daly and Cobb in ‘The Common Good’, as well as Barbier’s ‘Concept of Sustainable Economic Development’ and evokes his holistic take on the environmental pathway for architects.

Notes/References:

1. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Earth Summit Agenda 21, The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1992).

1a. Ibid. pp. 9-11.

1b. Ibid, p. 78.

1c. Op cit, Earth Summit Agenda 21, 1992, pp. 19-26. 

1d. Ibid, pp. 77-83.

1e, Ibid. p. 219.

1f. Ibid. pp. 249-251 and 257-263.

1. Washington Post Staff, The Glasgow climate pact annotated, (Washington: The Washington Post, Nov. 13 2021); note that the acronym, COP as in COP26 held in Glasgow stands for Conference of the Parties.

2a Op cit, IV Mitigation, 36.

2b. Op cit. II Adaptation, 13.

2c. Op cit. I Science and urgency. 2. 

1. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1987), p. 45; the report of The World Commission on Environment and Development led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, at that time Prime Minister of Norway. 

3a Ibid, Ch. 7 Energy: Choices for Environment and Development, pp. 168-205.

3b Ibid, pp. 169-172. 

 3c. Op cit, pp. 27-42.

1. Reinier de Graaf, Four Walls and a Roof, The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession, (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 96-97. 

2. Shabana M Kazi and Saltanat M Kazi, Understanding Sustainable Development, (New Delhi: The Energy and Resources Inst., 04 July, 2016).

3. Martin Pawley, Sustainability: Today’s Agenda for Tomorrow,  (London: The Architects’ Journal, 1 (2), 2000). 

4. Edward B. Barbier, The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK: Environmental Conservation 14(02), June 1987), pp 101-110.

5. Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good, Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future, (Boston Mass., Beacon Press, 1989). 

8a Ibid, p 146.

8b. Ibid. pp. 71-72.

1. John Elkington, Cannibals With Forks, The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century    Business, (Oxford UK, Capstone, 1997, 1999).

9a. Ibid. p. vii.

9b. Ibid, p. 3.

9c. Ibid. p. 100.

1. Rebeca Minguela, This is not an ESG Article: The case for taking a scientific approach to an often misunderstood framework, (London: RSA Journal, 2022, 3), pp. 32-35.

2. Peter Buchanan, The Big Rethink, Towards a Complete Architecture, (London: The Architectural Review, 1381, March, 2012), pp. 70-81. 

3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change: The 1990 and 1992 IPCC Assessments, IPPC First Assessment Report Overview and Policymaker Summaries and 1992 IPPC Supplement, (New York: June 1992).

12a Ibid, p. 57 (note 1).

1. Damian Carrington, The Text: What’s left in and left out, (London: The Guardian, 14th December 2023), p. 5.

2. UK Government, Sustainable Development, The UK Strategy, (London: HMSO, 1994).

14a. Ibid, p. 34 (3.2.1).

14b. Ibid, p. 6.

14c. Ibid, p. 166 (25.8).

14d. Ibid, pp.166-167 (25.9-25.13).

14e. Ibid, pp132-133 (19.13-19.14).

14f. Ibid, p. 227 (36.8).

14g. Op Cit, Sustainable Development, The UK Strategy. 1994, pp. 226-228.

1. UK Government, Climate Change, The UK Programme, (London: HMSO, 1994).

15a. Ibid, p. 16 (3.16).

15b. Ibid, p. 19.

15c. Ibid, pp. 16-17 (Fig. 3e and 3f). 

15d. Ibid, p.19 (Fig. 3h).

1. C. D. A. Porteous and H. M. Ho, Do sunspaces work in Scotland? Lessons learnt from a CEC solar energy demonstration project in Glasgow, (Lutterworth: The International Journal of Ambient Energy, Vol. 18(1), Jan. 1997), pp. 23-35.

2. Sonja Hunt, Damp and Mouldy Housing, A Holistic Approach, in Unhealthy Housing, Research, remedies and reform, (London, E & FN Spon, 1993), pp. 69-93; E. L. Lloyd, C. McCormack, M. McKeever, and M. Syme, The effect of improving the thermal quality of cold housing on blood pressure and general health: a research note, (London: Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2008, 62), pp793-797; note that this article specifically affirms health benefits attributable to the Glaswegian solar demonstration project (17 above). 

3. Colin Porteous, Technical Services Agency (TSA), Glasgow, (Liverpool: Town Planning Review, Liverpool University Press, 1988, 59(1)), pp. 18-29.

4. N. Vaughan, et al, 9 Edderton Place, Easthall, Renovated Housing, Glasgow: EPA Technical Report Research Results, (Cardiff, Welsh School of Architecture UWCC, DTI/ETSU, March 1992).

5.  Cathy McCormack with Marian Pallister, The Wee Yellow Butterfly, (Glendaruel, Argyll: Argyll Publishing, 2009). The empowerment of the late Cathy McCormack (d. 2022) has since been furthered by the launch of the ‘Cathy McCormack Community Activism Fund’ by Glasgow Community Energy, a community-owned renewable energy co-operative, at a Glasgow event, ‘A People Powered Future’ (27-03-24), which noted COP 26 legacy; her book was also cited by co-author Pallister at the Preview Event of the 30-year Retrospective Exhibition of the Mackintosh Environmental Research Unit (MEARU), The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), 12-01-24, and is held in GSA’s Easthall Solar Demonstration Project Archive.

6. Ronald McFadzean, The Life and Work of Alexander Thomson, (London, Boston and Henley: 1979), pp. 204-205.  

7. Databuild, International Energy Agency Task X1, Passive and Hybrid Solar Commercial Buildings: Basic Case Studies, (Harwell: Energy Technology Support Unit, 1989), pp. 265-270.

8. Tom Wilkinson, Typology: Co-housing (London: The Architectural Review, Sep. 2023, 1504), pp. 30-31. 

9. Manfred Kovatsch, Gedachtes Und Gebautes, (Augsburg: Hofmann-Druck KG, 1989), pp. 70-79.

10. W. Houghton-Evans, D. Turrent and C Whittaker (W. Palz and T. C. Steemers eds), Solar Houses in Europe, How They Have Worked (Oxford, IK: Pergamon Press, 1981), pp. 163-170; F. Trombe, J. F. Robert, M. Cabanat and B Sesolis, ‘Some Performance Characteristics of the CNRS Solar House Collectors’ in proceedings The Passive Collection of Solar Energy in Buildings (London: Royal Institution, April 1979), pp. 4-23.

11. United Nations, New York, Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 15-16 June 1972, (New York: United Nations, Declaration 21st Plenary Meeting, 16 June 1973), pp. 3-5.

12. Simos Yannas, Solar Energy and Housing Design, Volume 2: Examples, (London: Architectural Association, 1994), pp. 52-59. 

13. Ralph M. Lebens, Passive Solar Architecture in Europe, The Results of the ‘First European Passive Solar Competition – 1980’, (London: The Architectural Press Ltd. 1981), pp. 72-79.

14. Daniel A. Barber, A House in the Sun, Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

15.  Martin Pawley, Terminal Architecture, (London: Reaktion Books, 1998), pp 113-114.

16. Sonja Geier, Retrofitted Buildings Go Solar-Active! (Freiburg, ISES: Proceedings Eurosun 2010, Graz, Austria); see also AEE Intec, Renovation of residential area Dieselweg 3-19, Graz and Dieselweg 4, Graz, IEA ECBCS Annex 50, Prefab Retrofit, (Leonding: GIWOG Gemeinützige Industrie Wohnunge AG, 2010); for this and other examples of Passivhaus retrofits see Reto Miloni, Mark Zimmerman, Sonja Geier and Chiel Boonstra, Building Renovation Case Studies: IEA ECBCS Annex 50 Prefabricated Systems for Low Energy Renovation of Residential Buildings, (Dübendorf: Empa Building Science and Technology Lab,  March 2011).

17. Alfredo Ramos and Stefania Barca, Vaubon Sustainable Urban District, Freiburg, Germany: Period of Implementation 1993-1996, (Barcelona: UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participative Democracy and Human Rights, 2010).

18. Colin Porteous with Kerr MacGregor, Solar Architecture in Cool Climates, (London: Earthscan, 2005), pp. 121-123.

19. Mira Heinze and Karsten Voss, Goal: Zero Energy Building, Exemplary Experience based on the Solar Estate Solarsiedlung Freiberg am Schlierberg, Germany, (Glen Allen VA: Allen Press Vol. 4(4), 2009), pp 93-100.

20. Rafael Gomez-Moriana, Another earth brick in the wall, (London: The Architectural Review, September, 2024), pp. 90-99.

21. Robin McIlveen, Fundamentals of Weather and Climate, (London: Chapman & Hall, 2nd Edition 1992), p. 98.

22. Gale E. Christianson, Greenhouse: The 200-year story of global warming, (London: Constable, 1999), pp. 110-111.

23. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2021, The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Makers: Working Group 1 Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, (Switzerland: IPCC, 2021).

24. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate change widespread, rapid and intensifying – IPCC, (IPCC Press Release: 9 August 2021).

25.  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2021, The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 425-551.

26. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2022, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Working Group II Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

42a. Ibid, pp. 953-954.

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2022, Mitigation of Climate Change, Working Group III Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p31.

43a. Ibid. pp. 955-1048 (e.g. pp. 961-962 and 981-982). 

  43b. Ibid. p. 1797.

1. Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu and Jeremy Till, Architecture & Participation, (London: Taylor & Francis, 2005), pp. 25-30.

2. Ian Abley and James Heartfield, Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age, (Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 20010.

45a. Ibid, Ian Abley, Introduction, p. 6.

1. Karina Montoya, Save the planet, eat the world (London: RSA Journal, 2024, 3), pp. 12-17.

2.   Tom Morton, A Climate for Change in Scottish Construction, (Edinburgh: SEDA Magazine, Autumn 2023), p. 35.