Our biggest climate challenge is no longer denial, but despair
Climate fatalism stands in the way of a sustainable future but designers and architects are in an ideal position to overcome it, writes Katie Treggiden.
The mainstream media is finally waking up to the realities of climate change. As wildfires, floods and storms wreak havoc across the world, journalists and activists far braver than me are speaking truth to power to make sure we all know just how serious this thing is. And that is vital and right and proper.
However, fear doesn’t motivate action. The biggest obstacle for the environmental movement is no longer climate-change deniers – the evidence is incontrovertible to all but conspiracy theorists. It is those who are fully on board with the fact that humans are the root cause of some very real problems, but just don’t believe that we have what it takes to solve them. Our biggest climate challenge is no longer denial, but despair.
Fear doesn’t motivate action
To spark meaningful change, we need hope. We need to believe not only that a better world is possible, but that we each have the power to help bring it about.
I’m not talking about blind faith or passive optimism. I’m talking about active hope. I’m talking about waking up every morning and making a choice to believe that we can solve this wicked problem, and then choosing to act accordingly. And in today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance.
So, how can architects and designers inspire defiant hope?
The Berkana Institute’s “two loops” model of systems change proposes multiple roles that people and institutions can play in the transition from a declining system to an emerging one. As the dominant system begins its decline, “stabilisers” keep what is required in place until something better is ready, while “hospice workers” support the process of decline, minimising harm to those still within it.
In turn, the emergent system gathers pace as “pioneers” come up with new ideas, products and systems and they are joined together into networks by “connectors”. Together, they form supportive “communities of practice” that enable them to grow their influence and, eventually, rise up to replace the old system.
In the transition from the declining linear take-make-waste economy to an emerging regenerative and circular economy, we might cast architects and designers in the role of “pioneers” – problem-solvers who can create pragmatic ways to move society towards a better world.
And that is valid; if architecture and design solve problems, then surely they should contribute genuine, impactful, and replicable solutions to arguably the biggest problem ever to have faced humanity.
In today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance
However, I believe they can also play another part. On the emerging-system loop, there is a role for “illuminators”: people who paint a picture of what a better world might look like.
You see, there is no point in the model where the two loops touch, no simple juncture where people can step off one system and onto the next – they must take a leap of faith. Illuminators are the people who can give them the courage to do that.
One of the questions I get asked most often when I speak at conferences about craft and design in the transition to a circular economy is: “Okay, but how does it scale?”
Firstly, I would contend that scalability is what got us into this mess, and what we need instead are locally replicable solutions, but increasingly I am questioning whether everything we propose as an industry even needs to do that. Perhaps part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope.
Kyloe Design’s kelp chair, showcased recently as part of Green Grads at the London Design Festival, may never make it into production and it’s highly unlikely that it will drive the wholesale replacement of leather across the furniture industry. But it does showcase the potential of this incredibly renewable, climate-positive, underutilised material, while provoking the curiosity to learn more.
From responsible material sourcing and advocating for worker welfare to using smartphone components anyone can switch out, Fairphone is offering real-world solutions. But its founder, Bas Van Abel, was realistic about what he could achieve directly, so launched the company with the stated aim of motivating the rest of the industry.
There is little doubt that his efforts have had a hand in both the incoming EU legislation that will require smartphone batteries to be “easily replaceable” and the recent launch of a repairable Nokia phone.
Part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope
Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher might have criticised the “lack of architecture” at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, but what if contributions such as the German pavilion (pictured), which he described as nothing more than “piles of construction material”, are exactly what we need to inspire alternative ways of working? Entitled Open for Maintenance, the exhibition was billed as “an action framework for a new building culture” and collated materials recovered from previous installations to be used for repairing and upgrading buildings and public spaces all over Venice.
One of my favourite quotes about hope is from the author Arundhati Roy, who says: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” The question I would like to pose is: how can we, as an industry, help everyone to hear the sound of her breath?
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a membership community and online-learning platform for sustainable designers and makers, and the author of Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023).
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“With this ink on paper drawing I explored the relationship of narrative and drawing. Drawn images often tell stories: the strongest stories often create imagery. The imagery I created is about, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book that I associate strongly with my own life. Jonathan is a seagull who leaves his flock to fly higher, explore, and learn new things. In the end, he finds his freedom and escapes from the cage where the cage represents limitations and a reality that was told to be the only reality. For me, the best way to realize that there are other realities is to travel and see people born and raised in different societies and cultures. The more I explore, the more I become free.”
“The tower of ilicity is an exquisite corpse that explores the duality of urban city life. Similarly to the SoHo block, the tower stitches together familiar, essential and mundane elements into a randomized agglomeration of components that follow a Truchet aperiodic tiling composition. This stitching together of random parts is a social and spatial condition, that challenges the occupant as they experience the assemblage through the lens of dirty realism.
“A semi-fictional view of an evening in Fengjing, China. All hand-done graphite pencil drawing with watercolour wash.
“Monsoon arrives misery every summer in the City of Chandigarh, Le Corbusier’s modernist metropolis. How does a landscaping intervention protect the city from inundation caused by climate change? Rather than obstruct the water, a network of sunken landforms and water-purifying facilities invites water into the city fabric. Waterscapes are juxtaposed against Le Corbusier’s greenery fingers across the city. Purified water will recharge the deep aquifers, an indispensable water source for commercial and domestic use.
“Alone. Confused. Frustrated. The more I try to hold on to memories that are slipping away from me, the more afraid I am that someday, there will be nothing left at all—nothing but a memory that has been forgotten by time itself.
“Nowadays, demolition waste creates the most significant waste stream in the world. By considering cities undergoing renovation, the author proposes a physical dissection of destructible buildings, their dismemberment and recycling through robotic automation according to their structure, material and condition. Specially designed machines curate and organize virtual and physical (“theatre”) archives of the targeted buildings under the demolition plan. Newly developed tectonic systems and spaces created in this way can be integrated into the urban fabric in close interaction with the existing landscape. In this way, the connection between the past and the future is built, and the identity and memories of previous generations, which are hopelessly erased in modern society, are preserved.”
“I imagine a future where the only boundaries of architecture are creativity and physics.
“Cafe Palace selected a series of plans of landmark buildings with different cultural backgrounds according to the composition of immigrants in the block, which served as the inspiration and design starting point of the overall underground space layout. Through the redefinition and blend of different architectural styles, an architectural atmosphere similar to the situationist concept was created.
“The Galveston Bay Park Plan (GBPP) project is a surge flooding protection, navigation enhancement, public recreation and environmental enhancement project that is unique in its scale, impact, innovation, and long-term adaptiveness. The GBP approach will be transformative to the Galveston Bay region by creating a permanent thirty-mile landmark that is central to the region’s resiliency strategy, economic vitality, habitat preservation, and standard of living.”
“This is a painting about the concept of architecture expressed through images in a dream world. The theme of the painting revolves around the culture of coffee and the society that is triggered by coffee as a sober dependency of people.
“A new stage in urban sprawl in a context of physical, environmental and energy insecurity: a pioneering and vertical colonization of abandoned places in urban or industrial centers. Of course, properties are being protected and mobility is being adapted, far from the architectural utopias. Factories are still running, weighing down a starless sky that vanity jets cross, each for himself, more than ever. After all, the garden is not doing so badly; as for the fauna, it is less certain.”
“This work depicts an interior view of a house we built in Whitechapel. The view is of the main ground floor living space, looking south to towards the courtyard. The space has contrasting volumes, with the large diagrid lantern light glazing contrasting with the lower perimeter spaces. I was interested examining the way in which the space is lit naturally, and how the fall of natural light affects the volumetric impression of the space. I felt that this required an image of high contrast. I tried to depict that wonderful time of day in early summer, when the sun has almost disappeared, but where the light remains vivid, and where the areas of the interior not directly lit recede into the increasing darkness.
“Iconic architecture enjoys celebrity status, a fame generated by the dissemination of glamorous images presented to the public for admiration and praise. While the formal language of this “star-chitecture” varies widely around the world, these static icons share rarified air in the top-ten lists and google searches where their images are most commonly consumed.
“The process of this drawing relies on previous reiterations from an earlier collage of building constructions, which fragmented into an imaginary landscape of ruins. Using a Xylene transfer of a black and white copy onto plaster, the ghostly images provide a ghost in which new constructions can be developed. The idea of the city as a continuous palimpsest evokes the nature of how cities transform throughout time by demolition, re-use or new construction. This additive transformation builds on the old to re-invent the composition. As an architectural speculation, the generative process of drawing yields new spaces and forms influenced by the pre-existing context of the ghost collage. These graphic ponderings stitch together the fabric of the old and new, complimenting and contrasting the organic and the man-made.
“The head, the heart, and Everything In Between. A Charlie Chaplin experience provides us humor, joy, and purpose connecting senses, feelings, and thoughts.
“Tied to its age-old exclusion of a ‘Colonial Party House’ Burt Hall reminiscences to days that now are gone. The drawing imagines an Adaptive Habitation future, breathing life into this melancholic giant. Home as an ever-evolving skin; shedding yet rejuvenating.
“Human race is living in the world which has all the impact of socio political, chaotic crisis and environmentally modified world. Weather its pandemic or any other natural disaster which is shaping up our society and climate. It’s the spirit of time which bring the evolution to any entity. No vision can be drawn by itself, it needs to have a situation, which brings the desire to accomplish absoluteness.
“Humanity has resorted to forsaking their flesh for the planet’s survival, and thus exists as immortal, machine lifeforms, as virtualised consciousness within vessels.
“Drawing from EM Forster’s 1909 short story “The Machine Stops”, this allegorical architectural drawing re-presents a seminal tale of environmental devastation caused by the 1860 New Zealand goldrush. Propelling the Otago region into economic prosperity, the mining operations were abandoned once the gold dried up—the forgotten industrial artefacts, environmental scarring, and their historic narratives slowly decaying over time, destined to be lost forever.
“A Dystopian metropolis constructed with on top of multiple levels of roads, Buildings and Structures. Sky ships deliver cargo from the air, while logistical lorries, tucks and cars services the city from the complex network of elevated highways. A place to explore endlessly.”
“The Choice” portrays a person standing on the brink of decision. He or she began life in today’s world, which is pictured behind them in a dim cityscape. The reason for the landscape tilt illustrates the uneasy feeling that we often get in life that things are not quite right. The personal decision that every human faces is represented: joining either utopia or dystopia.
“The wall wasn’t just there, it was everywhere. My gaze wandered endlessly and yet the wall seemed to move. What did you separate me from? The deeper I looked into it, the less I could grasp it and the more complex its structure became. It seemed to me that the wall was looking for a counterpart. She was a surreal lonely reality and my soul could see no beginning or end. Unlimited truth and infinite questions.
“Nature has always inspired architects. The famous architect Mies van der Rohe suggested that details are essential for architectural drawings as they are essential in nature. He used the term “God is in the detail” to emphasize this point. The infinite level of detail in nature is an abstract concept. In order to visualize this concept, I have drafted an architectural-themed cosmology drawing. This drawing is characterized by some scientific infographic about nature and an artistic interpretation of the universe.”
“Art cannot solve humanity’s problems, but it can be a refuge from daily frustrations or make us temporarily forget about problems by visiting a gallery, listening music etc.
“Observation and imagination. The white lines are a wireframe perspective of GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) which sits on the Brisbane River at Kurilpa Point (Queensland, Australia). Using early photographs of European settlement, explorers’, convicts’ and botanist’s’ accounts along with indigenous histories, I was able to site this existing building within a landscape which I imagine would be very similar to that the indigenous population experienced pre settlement.
“‘Living Lemon Life’ responds to the current development dilemma in Ikuchijima, Japan. Ikuchijima, a trading hub in the Seto Inland Sea, is a beautiful island famous for its popular cycling route, best-selling domestic lemons and an abundance of museums. However, population loss has been affecting the island’s population structure and sustainable development.
“Examples of architecture can too often be seen as solid objects, but of course, they are not. They contain spaces, voids in which humans interact, work and play, love and live. In this sense, the volumes contained by architecture are the collective kinetic stories of all who have gone before and will yet arrive. This drawing – “Up” – explores the energies of that process, the ideas of entrance and exit, of doors and stairways that we all employ to knit our internal lives to the external world and in some silent way, to one another and to time itself.”
“Perched in the soaring West Coast treeline, accessed by pully operated elevator cabs, the Lift Cabins provide the ultimate nature-immersion experience. Ride up as a solo cabin’er or get extra cozy with a +1, enjoy your time way up high, just below the sky!”
“In cold grey concrete and abstract forms, spomeniks are monuments imposed on remote historical sites as the symbol of unity during the socialist Yugoslavia. However, as they became associated with opposing ethnic groups during the 1990s Yugoslav Wars, many were destroyed and vandalized as the prime targets for hate crimes. Today, they are the embodiment of war and violence.
“In cold grey concrete and abstract forms, spomeniks are monuments imposed on remote historical sites as the symbol of unity during socialist Yugoslavia. However, as they became associated with opposing ethnic groups during the 1990s Yugoslav Wars, many were destroyed and vandalized as the prime targets for hate crimes.
“Long, long ago in a galaxy not so far away… there was a place named “Meeting of Cultures” which marked in Sarajevo where the eastern Ottoman empire kissed western Austro-Hungarian. On this historically diverse landmark where nobody is meeting, and among the ruins of Yugoslav Brutalist monument laid like scars to the ethnic division, clouds of simple materials – wood sticks and nails – formed modular polyhedron units. They bonded into seats, tables, movie screens, theatrical platforms… all of which allows for long-lost nostalgic dialogues. Eventually, Urban Sijelo was concieved.
“Urban Sijelo is the materialization of an old Yugoslav concept Sijelo – a social evening gathering featuring traditional music and amusement. The assembly intends to bring people together through endless possibilities in forms, allowing for various leisure communal functions illustrated. The versatile spirit is enabled by multiple 1′ – 6″ polyhedra, the homage to our inspiration K-67 – a modular, spaceship-lookalike kiosk associated with day-to-day memories of the united socialist Yugoslavia.”
“Hsinta Ecological Power Plant really wanted an innovative design to establish its green corporate image. Yet is it possible to design the three chimney stacks that breaks away from the industrial past? How do we deal with this issue honestly while balancing the fact of energy consumption vis-à-vis conservation of wildlife? What if the building’s skin generates wildlife, becoming an interface for social and environmental uses?
“Every year, we build taller buildings. Our cities are becoming taller and taller without taking into consideration the natural surroundings. Our cities become more polluted as they become more crowded. Have you thought about the future? Have you considered our children? They are our future.
“The people of Bosnia & Herzegovina yearn for a sense of unity, once shared by South Slavs during the golden years of late Yugoslavia. The loss of unification in a diverse field of ethnicities, coupled with following years of ravishing war, have instilled an intense feeling of what was now only a nostalgic memory. The government inflicted Spomeniks of the Yugoslav era, now represent the conflicts further perpetrating division and plaguing the Bosnian people.
“Design Image for a Modern house in the Hudson Valley. The perspective drawing shows the easy transparency of the public rooms, fostering an inside-outside connection for the family who will dwell here. The house employs western red cedar, local sandstone, and salvaged oak flooring to lend a rustic feel to the architectural crispness. The soft pencil drawing helps to convey this feeling.”
“This is a drawing of the near future in Hiroshima Hatchobori intersection.
““Civilization has done little for labor except to modify the forms of it’s exploitation” – Eugene V. Debs
“The etymology of a Monsters is to not scare, but rather to show and reveal hidden truths.
“The Woven City – an interlaced architectural landscape with a complex array of structures, materials and textures forming part of a cohesive whole.
“Mercato, Africa’s biggest open-air market located in Ethiopia, is a neighborhood of informalities under the danger of urban erasure by insensitive developer projects. Searching for a solution that can both densify and respect Mercato’s existing social networks, the project looks at architecture through the users’ daily lives and traditions rather than standardized formal methods architects are trained to use and investigates architecture’s potential as a stage that allows creating stories. Through the use of the section cut, the drawing reveals a glimpse of daily lives of Ethiopian women in the project. Nothing is static about the project but the constant dynamism. The section welcomes us to the center with all of the market’s smells, noises and textures, but finds calmness in its architectural expression.”
“Dear Diary,
“Three iconic pieces of modernist architecture, one each of three architects that we might call pillars of modernism, stack upon one another forming a pedestal. Sitting atop rests a piece, studied and acknowledged, yet somehow less celebrated. Eileen Gray’s E-1027 built upon foundations developed by Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, to develop a design that would become coveted by at least one of them. The piece is held together by its own voids, also acting as the glue holding the pedestal intact to further build upon.”
“A Garden Reconsidered explores the notions of divine beginnings/middles/ends and of earthly past(s)/present(s)/future(s) that exist simultaneous, cyclical, and linear. It is an exercise of what might lie behind the facade of divine follies conceived of centuries ago.
“This drawing essentially warns us about what it would mean for a country such as the US to re-elect the ‘unmentionable’ back for president in 2024 — just in case people forgot about him already.”
“The main character in the story is based on a building from hundreds of years ago, the Sendai Mediatheque.
“Boyle Heights is often seen as a separate entity to the overall Downtown Los Angeles area. This separation translates physically by this historic district barriered between Eastern Los Angeles freeways and the LA river. However, part of this barrier renews and keeps Boyle Heights prominent and preserves the present Hispanic Community. But, part of this separation has been slowly deteriorating in certain sections like first street that bridges Boyle Heights with neighboring communities.
“The architecture we know now is created with the elements of the “body” that is the earth. A bird’s nest is just as architectural as any man-made structure, but one is considered “nature” while most man-made architecture is not. Partly this is because much of human architecture is, whether desired or not, harming the body of the earth.
“The cathedral as a cross roads signifies a convergence of the community at large. The plaza opens wide to embrace all that approach. This edifice’s presence symbolizes the community’s strength and beckons all to gather. Its towers reach to the heavens reminding one to embrace the beauty in daily life. The cathedral endures and embodies the community’s past, present, and future.
“Through the interlacing of two distinctly different cities – Downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights – the relation of consistent, cyclical geometry provides a moment for distinct views to take place, fragmenting each cityscape into an abstract piece of solid and void that come together as one.”
Hannah Feniak: Congratulations on your success with the One Drawing Challenge! What sparked your interest in entering the competition, and what does this accolade mean to you?
“In New York City, the world-famous concrete jungle, people live their lives up in the air. But there are always oases of peace on the ground, providing breathable green places among concrete and steel. The gaps in Central Park’s foliage naturally form a viewing window, showing the vertical lifestyles of New Yorkers.”
“This image was taken at the Tampa Museum of Art. There is an opening on the building guiding your eyes towards the sky. I laid there with my camera on my face to avoid shake and trying to capture the best angle using the lines in the structure towards the clouds. I noticed there were paragliders in the area and I waited patiently for one to appear in my frame. I am glad I did.”
“This image is my photographic translation of a space-dissolving surface design of a stairwell interior. Its design is part of the conversion of a bourgeois house from the 1900 into an apartment building.
“This photo was taken in Dia Beacon in upstate New York. Looking out, the surrounding nature has become vague silhouettes and paint brush like colors around the clear glass at the window. One then focuses almost only at the limited pocket of beauty, details highlighted, colors embellished, like a camera focusing on a target. When the light shines through, it’s the most magical moment.”
“Photograph taken at the plaza of Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan designed by Ishigami Junya.
“POPCourts!, a 7,000 SF community plaza in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, was born from the pandemic and civil unrest and developed in concert with Mayor Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West initiative. The goal was to provide a safe community space that residents could enjoy outdoors during the pandemic while also creating a visible presence along Chicago Avenue.
“My intention from this project was to reduce the minimalist architecture design of Jameel Arts Centre to a single frame and presents its white façade and clean lines in the simplest way possible. What made the capture more interesting is the passing mechanical guy which was a happy accident that contributed a human element to the otherwise too pure of a picture.”
“This is the story of a monument: a sculpture that talked to a building, the sun, the sky and to me; a conversation that gave me a photographic understanding I had never encountered before.
“Parkaden (Car Park) 1964 by Hans Asplund in Stockholm, Sweden. Between a steady flow of cars going through the centrum, there was a 1-2 second moment with this man walking. This was one of the two shots I managed to quickly capture. It was only later that I noticed that the patterns in the wall are the floor numbers in mirror!”
