werk, bauen + wohnen 6 – 2023

How does ecological progress work?

Those who leaf through this issue may well ask themselves where are the spectacular highperformance structures? And it is certainly true that most of the examples of resource- and climate-friendly progress presented here come across as robust, simple, crafted: built with natural stone or delicately articulated in small spans. The continued use of existing structures articulates the ecological idea just as clearly as
inventive concepts about using regionally available resources. If we talk about progress, we are also talking about an alternative to the usual striving for growth, which feeds on superlatives like even faster, even bigger and even higher. The examples shown are steps on the way
to a more sustainable and CO₂-reduced way of building. Despite all the unknowns it is clear that this must become the basis of architecture.
The path is marked out by several possibilities: in conversation the civil engineer and the digitally proficient architect explain that
research-based architecture can actually get in the way of quantitative development. While lighthouse projects define new, ecological stand-ards, they are often tied to knowledge processes that take a long time — but for which we actually have no time. We have to act.
How things can be done differently is shown by a sustainable housing programme on the Balearic Islands. This experiment is divided up into small evolutionary steps and several projects and therefore quickly develops a wide-ranging impact. The goal is not just a sing le solution but possible variations. The process is not concluded with one building, newly acquired knowledge flows directly into the next project.
In this field of tension of different directions architects are in greater demand than ever. In short: it is no longer enough just to say that sustainability was not possible because there was too little demand for it from the client. This theme should be present at every meeting from the very start, for some it has long since become a productive design factor. This issue shows that, in the process, the kind of construction and the decision on a particular method of building assumes an important role. — Lucia Gratz, Tibor Joanelly