The footprint of architecture

What impact does the work of an architect have on the planet? What is the point of trying to implement bioclimatic architecture or create ECO Friendly buildings, if the architect, in his role as a designer, continues to succumb to the monumentality of his work in order to amaze.

As a professional, it saddens me to see how this personal need for recognition or to impress is put first, forgetting what in my point of view is the true essence and reason for architecture, which is to cover and solve the needs of society.

Shouldn’t it be time for architects to recognize the impact that our work has on the planet and put an end to that monumentalist architecture of large concrete blocks and boxes, with impressive, expensive and challenging cantilevers, of dubious function; of disproportionate spaces that require twice as much energy to acclimatize; and return to rescue the architecture of the great masters who understood that architecture was an art at the service of society. A changing society, forced to adapt to new circumstances, needs and problems that arise. In other words, a society that is increasingly concerned about the ecological footprint that people leave on the planet through our actions and decisions. A society concerned about the impact that human beings have on nature, about climate change, about the shortage of raw materials, about the energy crisis, about a constantly destabilized economy?

Shouldn’t we as architects and planners act and take responsibility for the role we have, in and with, our society? Shouldn’t we learn from masters like Le Corbusier or Walter Gropius who committed their work to give answers through their creations and projection capacity, to the social needs of their time; sensitized by the arduous circumstances that their compatriots were going through; and in spite of it, they created some of the greatest masterpieces of modernist architecture.

They understood that this was not the time to satiate their own creative desires, but that they had to fulfill and contribute to the common good. And like them, we as architects should accept that we are in a changing moment, at a turning point. And that not everything goes. That we must go further, that we must, through our design and projection capabilities, contribute to reducing the ecological footprint of our creations. We are committed to an architecture that respects the environment and causes the least possible impact; an architecture where the quality of the project takes precedence over its monumentality. Without fear of simplicity or loss of value, and not forgetting that in the end “Less is more”.

Davinia Catalá