Sustainable architecture according to APA Wojciechowski Architects
We feel more and more responsible, awareness of our clients is increasing, but considering that the construction industry is responsible for 28% of all CO2 emissions, we should really stop building. More than 6 billion square meters of new buildings are constructed every year. This is approximately 1.2 million buildings with an area of5.000 square meters.
In our studio, we have been looking for solutions that will allow us to operate in accordance with sustainable development for a long time, especially since we often design buildings for the largest developers and have a real impact on the final effect. Therefore, a few years ago, we managed to move from idea to action and include activities for sustainable architecture in the DNA of our company.
How to design in the spirit of zero waste? How to influence investor awareness? We do not know the answers to most of the problems of the modern world, but we try to get to know them, have a real impact on our environment and share this knowledge with other architects.
In an ideal world, this is what we should do - stop building! This should apply to all architects. However, the reality is different. It would be difficult for us to sincerely preach refraining from building, especially since we deal with commercial architecture, it would be tantamount to closing our company. How can we make a real difference in how we design and build? How can your actions go beyond the Facebook overlay with the #architectsfortheclimate hashtag? What can we realistically do?
That's why we have developed 5 rules in our company...
Let's design beautifully
Buildings will last as long as possible when they are more than just construction and become architecture. Every architect dreams of having his building entered into the register of monuments: then we will harness bureaucracy to ensure its durability. And we will satisfy our ego... We extend the banal concept of beauty to issues such as functionality - because a beautiful building is a well-designed building. For us, beauty means timelessness - we try to ensure that buildings do not follow aesthetic trends, but are timeless. We develop this issue in the next section.
Let’s design timelessly
We do not design according to the latest fashion in order to arouse admiration of the environment and criticism. An icon does not always have to be created, but a timeless building must always be created, made of non-aging or easily renewable materials. We are looking for less harmful substitutes and trying to convince investors to use them. The building must survive the age of 15-20 years, when it is no longer young, fresh and not yet vintage. To put it aphoristically: MAKE A CLASSIC NOT A BESTSELLER.
Let's design buildings that are open to the future
Buildings will be durable if they are flexible enough to ‘carry’ the future. The future is unpredictable: so we embrace the unpredictable. The form of a building cannot be closed, but open to permanent changes, to short-term forms, to radical spatial transformations. What Aaron Betsky calls rethinking the buildings. This applies to the architectural and urban scale. Let's not impose bureaucratic corsets on ourselves: rigid spatial development plans or rigorous conservation doctrine. The Sigismund Chapel in Cracow would not have been built if there had been a conservator at the Jagiellonian court. Let's not even be afraid of radical changes in functions. Let's not design in a forced way, without reserves, for very specific needs.
Let's design based on solid commercial foundations
Let's not stigmatize the division into commercial and non-commercial architecture. Architecture is a profession of social responsibility, but this does not exclude the creation of facilities aimed at profit. Let's not underestimate the commercial basis of architecture. Buildings on a sound commercial foundation are full of life, and companies generally understand the needs of users. Something, that is commercially solid, will last longer.
Let’s design green
This point is the last one, but that doesn't mean it's unimportant. Green technologies are the technological alleviation of the violence of constructing buildings. They are now the obvious, the ABCs and sine qua non of design. Obviously, green, certified, healthy and cheap buildings will be sought after, valuable and, therefore, durable. Permanent does not mean always eternal. It is not always possible to reinvent a building. Thinking towards circularity, so that the materials from which the building was constructed become valuable raw materials and not troublesome waste, is the basis of green design. In our studio, we talk to our Clients and always try to convince them to use more ecological substitutes.