Graham Haworth lecture

The Architecture of Engagement - Working in the Margins
Thursday, 13 December, 6.30pm

The architect’s role in the development of the sustainable city is often ambiguous. Traditional concerns of architectural style, taste and composition pre-occupy most good architects. The resulting designs whilst visually provocative, are often problematic, unable to survive the closer scrutiny of wider socio-economic, environmental and cultural imperatives.

Equally, a simple commitment to social well-being through technology, is prescribed by orthodox modernism, avoids those situations where architecture has to engage with less precise areas of reality. Architecture, as taught and published often deals only with abstract certainties and this ‘retreat’ is becoming increasingly unsustainable. The potential benefit of good architecture is denied to the wider population, and the product that we all get excited about in the media, actually probably influences less than 5% of all global construction leaving the question of who is responsible for the remaining 95% unanswered.

To be truly sustainable, architecture should be able to meet more objectives, satisfy more needs, be more appropriate, and achieve more relevance. If it is to contribute to meaningful improvements in the urban environment it must engage with the ‘junk’ of everyday reality and establish key values; values that are often generated as much by economics, social goals and politics as they are by design.