Climate Crisis, Urban Flaw and Global Architects - Part III

Lagoon dries up as Peru’s Southern Andes faces drought – PERU

Alaska Native community relocates as climate crisis ravages homes- ALASKA, USA

Having already destructed the priceless ecosystem of Planet Earth to a point of no return, now, we humans are trying to play GOD / NATURE by trying to control the uncontrollable poisonous emissions so as to better the living conditions. It is truly the real irony of our present as we are heading towards our end. I often wonder as to why the scientific communities are misleading the world population with their findings and dare to declare the ‘harsh truth’ – that humans cannot save Planet Earth now!

I am amazed at young student-architects, who are so focused about the truth and refuse to believe the demonic myth about climate crisis. Aditi Shaw, a young architect from Orissa observation and understanding is truly very mature in many ways. “The land is the most valuable resource available to us, not in the hope of destruction and waste disposal. Due to the impact of industrialization and urbanization, people often tend to fall into the real estate business and decorative lifestyle, which causes stress to nature, land and the very consumers of its availability. Architects have enormous power and authority to override climatic catastrophes by following steps of passive and sustainable techniques in their designs.

Aditi Shaw

There are different strategies and attempts like those of designing spaces without wastage of materials by reusing waste, reducing embodied carbon by the usage of carbon-smart materials, and retrofitting existing buildings to meet high-performance standards for reducing near and mid-term carbon emissions. Along similar lines, my thesis ‘Handling of the Waste with Social Acceptance’ explored adaptation of a decentralized waste management system by saying ‘No’ to the landfills and creating awareness about waste segregation towards fostering community well-being.” – ADITI SHAW, ‘Architectural Professional Training’ Intern @ Architecture Paradigm, Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA

Climatic catastrophes are happening every single day of the year in some or the parts of the world destructing lives, property, houses, animals, roads and everything one cannot even imagine. At each climate summit, the same old results become the headlines for global leaders and scientific communities, and then within hours everything is forgotten about saving Planet Earth. Is it not astounding? When ‘greed’ becomes ‘callous’, there is no looking back.

To counter yearly flood, Hong Kong invested billions of dollars to construct the ‘Rain Tunnel’. The astounding result of a united effort makes Hong Kong the only city in the world, which does not gets flooded even during heavy to very heavy rains. This is such a magnificent example in front of the whole world, so why cities prone to flood cannot adopt the same technique to counter their respective cities from getting flooded? Bombay gets flooded since time immemorial and nothing happens as people have become immune to the yearly flood. Maybe, the city will wake up when it starts to get sinking just like Jakarta, the Indonesian Capital.

One sure way to counter urban flaw and yearly flood in all the urban cities is to overhaul our drainage and sewage network system. Urban Planners of the world need to emphasize that drainage and sewage network system needs to go deeper down the earth. The tunnels need to get bigger, so that massive volumes of water can flow without making cities getting flooded. This is certainly not rocket science but very much a practical solution and possible. If we can drill tunnels below the sea surface and riverbeds, why cannot we dig deeper to make our drainage and sewage network system more effective in its operation?

Greek architect Marilena Sifaki reflects her take on how architects can help minimize the effects of climate crisis. “I may sound redundant, but I am a firm believer that the key for architects to be able to minimize the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis is through implementing the three Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – in their design and construction approach. There is greed to produce new and striking architecture. However, the earth is unable to respond to this mass consumption. Hence, it is essential for architects to take a step back and work with the earth instead of against it to safeguard its future.

Marilena Sifaki

Rethinking waste management to reduce the surplus produced during the construction process, reusing existing structures instead of expropriating them using heavy machinery, to minimize CO2 emissions and the amount of additional materials needed for construction, as well as to use recycled materials or scraps from old projects when working on something new will benefit everybody at large. Reusing and preserving the on-site resources is also a good starting point for innovation, as it renders each project more unique by pushing architects to come up with creative ways of thinking that could lead to diverse architecture.” – MARILENA SIFAKI, Managing Director @ Chωros – Sifakis Architecture Studio, Athens, GREECE

We humans are really the most intelligent species on Planet Earth, yet our greed has made our intelligence redundant. Look at the amount of destruction all over the world due to war. In total, trillions of dollars are being spent yearly by war in various countries by various countries to destruct each other for the sake of egocentric leaders. However, as UNO always informs that to accumulate $100 billion to fight climate crisis yearly, the rich nations have always failed so far to contribute their respective shares. It shows just one thing – Saving Planet Earth is not at all important as compared to few humans’ greed!