COP28: the pioneering architects of the city transition

While COP28 has been open since November 30 in Abu Dhabi, construction is one of the sectors that must most revolutionize its practices to reduce its emissions.

Buildings represent 26% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Emissions from their construction (8%) - the production of concrete and metals being very energy-intensive - and their use (18%), with electricity and heating powered by fossil fuels.

Not counting those due to transport (23% of emissions), partly encouraged by land use planning centered around the individual car.

The increase in extreme climatic events also raises awareness of the inadequacy of cities, underlines Mexican architect Rozana Montiel, winner of a prize for sustainable architecture in 2019.

“Cities are not prepared for these changes, which are radical,” she said, citing the damage Hurricane Otis caused in Acapulco.

To better adapt it, architects must “search for a language with the use of local materials, proportions, vegetation,” she says.

Help, mitigate, adapt

“Reconciling ecological transition and societal and social issues is our challenge today as architects. In a society where there are great inequalities, thinking about ecological transition also means ensuring those who do not have no heritage to be able to survive in extreme climatic conditions, to be able to find housing...", explains Christine Leconte, president of the Order of French Architects.

She cites several recent winners of the Pritzker Prize, the "Nobel of architecture", committed to this path: the French Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, champions of rehabilitation, the Chilean Alejandro Aravena, specialist in social housing, the Chinese Wang Shu, champion of reuse of materials...

The change is already being driven by young aspirants, she testifies.

The motivations put forward are “I want to help people, I want to be able to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, help adapt our cities to climate change,” she says. “The end-of-studies diplomas are astounding and are extraordinary, there is not one that does not talk about rehabilitation, they all talk about territory on a larger scale than the project.”

But traditional construction players are resisting and most construction continues to be done according to old plans, with concrete by default.

"You have to give up a lot of things. And there, it's complicated. Some actors manage to keep up and others will have to question themselves harder," also says Christine Leconte.

"We are here to show and say: look at the solutions that architecture provides, look at how we can create architecture that respects planetary boundaries, environments and inhabitants, and at the same time say: look at the diversity of ways that We have to do it!”

No more “clean slate”?

In Mexico, public authorities still refuse alternative materials, believing that they have not sufficiently proven their solidity, deplores Rozana Montiel, who because of this has not been able to experiment with bamboo structures.

“It’s inevitable and it has to be done. And we have to start one way or another,” she defends.

To accelerate change, we must break with the idea that a single type of urban planning can be suitable everywhere, says German architect Jana Revedin.

After the Second World War, modernism inspired by Le Corbusier, promoting “+clean slate+ cities adapted to cars, zoning and housing units”, colonized the entire planet, she laments.

“What we must develop today are not new + planetary + doctrines, on the contrary, we must eradicate the old doctrines,” argues Jana Revedin, calling for an end to “the clean slate and the blind repetition of uniform schemes".

The Bauhaus reformist movement, in interwar Germany, was, according to her, much closer to current needs.

“Everything was there: urban density, polycentrism, multifunctionality, actively lived green neighborhoods, construction techniques adapted to the climate, economical and recyclable structures and materials.”