Foster + Partners sustainability lead calls for more refurbishments and fewer basements to help fight climate change
Architects should reuse existing buildings where possible to reduce embodied carbon and emissions, according to Christopher Trott, head of sustainability at Foster + Partners.
Other ways of lowering emissions include not building basements, reducing spans, using less materials and making greater use of wood, Trott said.
"The kind of immediate things that we can do are things like reusing existing buildings and perhaps reducing spans in existing structures," Trott said. "You can simply use less material and perhaps avoid basements where they're not necessary."
Top: from left to right, Marcus Fairs of Dezeen, Cassie Sutherland of C40 Cities, Christopher Trott of Foster + Partners and Cécile Brisac of Brisac Gonzalez. Above: Trott said architects should consider the "carbon investment" when designing buildings Trott was part of a live panel debate on Dezeen discussing the outcome of the COP26 climate conference, which he attended in Glasgow earlier this month.
Making buildings reversible is another way of reducing emissions, he said, although he felt that viable alternatives to steel and concrete are a long way off.
"Timber is a great material for the right types of buildings. It's not going to solve all buildings, it's going to solve certain types of buildings and it's come a long way," he said.
However, Trott added that mineral-based materials such as concrete and steel would still be used "for quite a long time yet", and sa...
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