ENAC Seminar series // Building Is A Verb

Our practice is grounded in an understanding of building as an activity that can be truly constructive but which is also frequently wasteful and complicit in practices that deepen rather than address social issues and compound escalating climate and biodiversity crises. Our presentation will address the ways in which our work is concerned with both the ways in which we can act pragmatically to improve how we build today, but also the ways in which we are developing projects that attempt to address the most acute and systemic issues in the construction industry today through specific and local forms of practice.
While architecture is increasingly focused on the urgent need to decarbonize the built environment, there's a tendency to isolate its production from the broader systems and processes in which it operates. Architecture is not autonomous; it is contingent. To create a sustainable construction culture, we must engage critically and actively with the conditions in which architecture and the built environment are produced. In our work, we focus on how contemporary construction, along with its industrial infrastructure and interconnected networks of material and labour, can be adapted and improved now. This is crucial for mitigating the harmful effects of modern industrialized construction practices and is grounded in developing architectural, material, and environmental approaches that are progressively leaner, lighter, and lower impact. More fundamental change in the construction culture is needed, questioning not only how we build but why; who decides and who benefits; what materials we use but also where they come from, how they are processed and what the implications are for our society and environment.