The UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 is an invitation for architects from around the world to meet in Copenhagen July 2 – 6 to explore and communicate how architecture influences all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For more than two years, the Science Track and its international Scientific Committee have been analyzing the various ways in which architecture responds to the SDGs. The work has resulted in the formulation of six science panels: design for Climate Adaptation, design for Rethinking Resources, design for Resilient Communities, design for Health, design for Inclusivity, and design for Partnerships for Change. An international call for papers was sent out in 2022 and 296 of more than 750 submissions from 77 countries have been invited to present at the UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 in Copenhagen. ArchDaily is collaborating with the UIA to share articles pertaining to the six themes to prepare for the opening of the Congress.
In this third feature, we met with co-chairs of Design for Resilient Communities Anna Rubbo, Senior Researcher, Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD), The Climate School, Columbia University, and Juan Du, Professor and Dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto.
Read on to discover the conversation.
Resiliency in the context of architecture and the built environment is a broad and complex notion. What do you consider the most urgent considerations to address, and how has this been reflected in your work with the panel?
AR and JD: Resiliency is indeed a broad and complex notion. Like the word sustainability, it is overused and on the edge of losing its meaning. In its broadest definition, it is the capacity to withstand and recover from difficulties, which may apply to people, nature, material choices, and the design of buildings or landscapes, in settings that might be urban or rural. In thinking about design for resilient communities, we have attempted to instill a useful meaning to the word, through a focus on the nexus of people as they interact with and experience architecture and the built—and natural—environments. Viewed this way, one immediately gravitates towards issues of equity, not least of which is the impact of climate change on people but also the planet. In developing the initial parameters for design for Resilient Communities’ call for papers for the Congress—and within the context of the “Leave no One Behind” theme of the Congress—it has been clear that climate change, Covid, and the political upheavals in many countries reveal social, economic and environmental inequalities that threaten communities worldwide. As we wrote in our call for papers in 2022, these fault lines disproportionately affect the poor, people of color, the racially and ethnically marginalized, and women. It is important therefore that resiliency initiatives work with and empower communities—rather than impose top-down approaches on them—in global efforts for dealing with inevitable adversities.
In which ways do you find that engaging with the 17 UN SDGs can contribute to architectural research and practices? What are your thoughts on how we can grow and support a continued understanding of and commitment to architecture’s active role in driving the sustainable transformation of our societies?
AR: My view is that engagement with the SDGs can be extremely beneficial to architectural education, research, and practice. Adopted in 2015 by 193 nations, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals offer a roadmap to a more sustainable future. In their breadth—with Goal 1 (No poverty) and Goal 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) as bookends, the goals in between provide useful objectives for the design professions and an all-important “aide-memoire”, a checklist if you like that allows for a deeper, interdisciplinary approach to design than most of the sustainability certifications. I would suggest that a good LEED or other score is no longer sufficient for built environment professionals to rest on their laurels. With regard to the across-the-board transformation required for communities to be resilient, this would seem to be especially true. Adoption of the SDGs also permits a common language across sectors, a huge benefit in confronting global challenges and in driving sustainable transformation across geographies. The bigger ambition espoused by UIA 2023 CPH, “to make architecture a central tool in achieving the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals” is in my view a step in the right direction to enabling that transformation.
JD: Architecture, in practice and theory, has shaped how we live and what we consider ideal homes, towns, and cities, and there are responsibilities and opportunities for us to collectively contribute to new ideas and practices that slow down or even reverse global dangers. Addressing the challenges of a sustainable future is critical to the research and practice of architects, designers, and educators across the world. The UN SDGs are a helpful framework and resource for allowing individuals and organizations to engage the complexities of the challenges facing us, from environmental and social to economic and political to spatial and material. However, the SDGs should be considered departure points rather than goals, as the path toward the sustainable transformation of our cities and communities lies in adapting specific local contexts, economies, and cultures.
The challenges people and communities face - and the resources available to tackle these challenges – vary considerably across geographies and societies. What have your considerations been on knowledge exchange across these differences in conditions? And what reflections have you had on the significance of exchanges of practice and research knowledge across different knowledge cultures?
AR: There is tremendous variation across geographies and societies regarding the ability to tackle challenges to make communities resilient. Political will must be high on the list, but so must the micro circumstances at the neighborhood level. “Isms’ can stifle or promote change. In many developed countries NIMBYism (not in my backyard) may come face to with YIMBYism (yes in my backyard), often resulting in gridlock that may impede or allow, for example, a composting initiative or increased housing density and social mix. Exchange across different knowledge cultures is crucial to understanding diverse geographies. To quote an old adage, knowledge is power. The Internet and now AI offers many avenues to knowledge beyond traditional and siloed domains; a key question for the design disciplines is what to do with the knowledge. How can we learn to listen to what people most affected have to say? How do we respect all cultures?
JD: This aspect is perhaps the biggest challenge with an overarching global approach such as the UN SDGs. From my experiences of working in Asia, Europe, and North America during the past two decades, there are great differences among particular cultures and perceptions regarding the acute needs and challenges of achieving social and environmental sustainability. However, knowledge exchange is absolutely necessary across geographies as some of the most innovative ideas and practices are happening in localities that we traditionally view as problems rather than sources for solutions and innovations, such as deriving principles of community and affordability for informal settlements to re-examine how we are planning and designing public social housing in more developed cities and regions.
What are the most exciting developments and promising movements you have identified in the papers submitted to Panel 3: Design for Resilient Communities?
AR: It was thrilling to receive so many papers from around the world on the sub-themes we identified as critical to making communities resilient. In our call for papers, we challenged authors to consider the SDGs. Over 12 sessions on July 3,4 and 5 authors will present papers on five topics that are the chapters in the forthcoming Springer publication, Design for Resilient Communities. These topics are The SDGs and Everyday Life, People as Partners, The Global Crisis and Designing Resilience, Housing and the Right to the City, and Design Education and Resilient Communities. Exciting developments are to be found in many, but overall, the ongoing imperative is to strive for equitable environments through good design. As such it means we need to: work with communities as partners; respect local knowledge; decolonize education and practice; persist in the attempt to provide adequate safe and affordable housing, and harness the digital tools that can best support resilient communities.
JD: Among the papers submitted to design for Resilient Communities, there was a great range of topics of focus, methods of research, theories of inquiry, and scales of intervention. The theme of Housing and the Right to the City received overwhelmingly the most number of paper submissions from the most number of different countries – truly highlighting the importance of liveability, quality, and affordability when it comes to questions of community and urban sustainability. As a collection, the papers break through the boundaries of what is conventionally defined as sustainable architecture or community design. The papers demonstrate the agency of architecture and the willingness of designers and scholars to engage with the humanistic, urban, regional, national, and geopolitical practices and policies that impact communities.
What are you hoping the Congress delegates will take with them from the UIA World Congress 2023 CPH and what legacy from the event would you hope to see?
AR: The six themes developed by the Scientific Committee have shaped the Congress' programming, from papers in the Science Track to keynotes, debates, and Next-Gen sessions. My hope for the Congress is that delegates will learn a lot about the six themes from all these sources, take that knowledge home, write articles, give talks, and share the knowledge gained in their wider communities. My hope is they will also take action: in their offices, schools, and communities. Maimunah Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, the organization charged to promote social and environmental towns and cities, frequently challenges the global community to take action. In her view, the time for just talk has passed: we must take action. So for me, a key question is: Will delegates make change at home? Will they apply the SDGs in their own communities? If design practice, research, and education take up the breadth of the SDGs as intended, this will be an impressive legacy. If through their exposure to the SDGs at the Congress more architects submit projects in the next round of the UIA-UN Habitat 2030 Award, that will also be an important achievement.
JD: I would also hope that the Congress has a lasting impact in terms of informing and empowering participants, and building local and global communities in the process. Individual efforts, in practices, classrooms, and studios, will be key to fostering present and future resiliency, but a coordinated, pervasive shift on the part of the architecture and design disciplines is essential if real sustainability and security are to be achieved. I would like to see expanding networks of exchange and future collaborations emerge from this event, with enough knowledge and experience eventually generated to potentially improve on the UN SDGs through the collective efforts of architects, designers, and scholars out in the field. Such developments would make UIA 2023 CPH a gathering of great consequence, perhaps even a turning point.
Stay tuned to the collaboration with UIA World Congress of Architecture 2023 and to our coverage of Copenhagen, the UNESCO World Capital of Architecture for 2023.
