The selection of Edward Mazria, FAIA, as the recipient of this year’s AIA Gold Medal transpires at an auspicious time for architecture and the world. The U.S. has rejoined the Paris Agreement, emissions-related policy is actively being discussed in the government, and climate-responsive design and practice are becoming normalized. Having worked with Mazria for several years on climate change advocacy through his organization, Architecture 2030, and through AIA and its Committee on the Environment, for which I serve as a senior fellow, I wanted to know what he thinks about the state and future of the profession.
You were just awarded the AIA Gold Medal. Does this seem like a significant departure from past recipients and a signal about how we view, practice, and celebrate leadership in architecture?
Mazria: Definitely. In January, [Archimage co-founder] Richard Buday, FAIA, wrote in a provocative Common Edge article that we are in desperate need of a new “style” of architecture and proposed “buildings of the earth not on it” as an opportunity, evoking Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian design style.
By awarding me the Gold Medal this year, AIA forced the issue of architecture and style into the open, recognizing that we’re transitioning toward an “Architecture of the Earth”—not just as a style, but also as substance and actions—integrating existing and new architecture with the Earth’s systems, renewable resources, and energy, while protecting the planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity.
Some architects still balk at transitioning toward climate-responsive design, saying “clients aren’t asking for it” or “it costs more.” This is despite the fact that clients are increasingly demanding solutions that address climate and resilience factors, that the AIA Code of Ethics requires practitioners to address climate with clients, and that projects and communities face increasingly clear, costly, climate-related risks.
That response is a red herring, a deflection, a way to abdicate responsibility. Look, change is not easy: It requires work, education, and retooling, and it can be threatening. There are no additional costs to designing responsibly. Architects have almost total design flexibility as long as a client’s programmatic requirements are met and the project is brought in on budget.
During design, architects make hundreds of decisions, and each has environmental and cost implications. In my 50 years of architectural practice, I’ve never heard a client say they wanted an inefficient building that costs more to operate and damages the environment.
How is the AIA 2030 Commitment, with more than 800 signatory firms, many of them responsible for significant square footage, progressing?
The 2019 AIA 2030 Commitment Report details a 49% average reduction in energy use intensity (EUI)—the actual energy a building uses regardless of the source—for buildings reported that year. For these projects, most of the energy and emissions decisions were made in the early stages of design, in 2015 to 2017, or even earlier.
The 2030 Commitment called for a 60% fossil fuel reduction prior to 2015 and 70% from 2015 to 2020, with the reduction accomplished by energy efficiency—measured by building EUI—and by adding on-site and/or off-site renewable energy for up to 20% of the total reduction. To meet these targets, a building’s EUI would need to have a minimum 48% reduction from baseline if designed before 2015, and a 56% reduction if designed after that. So the average 49% EUI reduction reported in 2019 is an incredibly encouraging sign, and it is why the U.S. building sector’s emissions reduction today is so promising.
How do you advise architects who are exploring the role that climate justice plays in climate action?
Fossil fuel emissions and climate change have a disproportionate and often devastating impact on low-income and underserved communities, which have also been hit the hardest by COVID-19. Tackling emissions is fundamental to seeking a healthy, equitable future for all. Our opportunity to slow emissions and then reverse global warming is right now—and it requires urgent and sustained action from every designer.
Learning how to design, plan, and build for a 1.5°C carbon budget and world is critical. To see the recorded sessions from the Architecture 2030 Teach-In that occurred in September 2020, visit carbon-positive.org.
