Submission by Exploration Architecture Limited.
Being a good ancestor
Practice
1. Does the practice have a clearly stated purpose aligned with the planetary emergency? We are looking for a bold ambition here, and a practice culture which recognises the need for long-term thinking. For example, a strong mission, a theory of change, or a sustainability roadmap.
We experienced a turning point after the 2018 IPCC report. Realising that conventional sustainability had not brought society onto a safe pathway for the future, we committed to trying to transform the industry by helping to establish Architects Declare and writing a co-authored book about the shift to a regenerative paradigm.
Our long-term purpose is to be co-enablers of the flourishing of all life for all time and to work towards restoring planetary health. Out of concern that much current architecture will not benefit future generations, we only take on work that we believe could pass the test that Drew Dellinger suggests a grandchild might ask in twenty years: “What did you do once you knew?”. We also take inspiration from the World Future Council member Wes Jackson who said “If you can achieve your aims in your lifetime then you’re not thinking big enough”
2. Does the practice have a clear succession plan, which passes on ownership and protects the values and legacy of those who built and contributed to the practice? For example is the practice an employee owned trust.
As a niche practice our aim is to maintain agility in order to respond to the developing metacrisis in the most effective way. We have evolved our business model four times since we set up in 2007. We therefore deliberately do not have a long-term plan for succession or ownership but everyone who works with us is treated respectfully and is involved in all key decisions. In fact we do not set out to own anything – most of our work is effectively contributed to the commons through knowledge-sharing. The legacy we strive to create is for having shifted the industry towards more regenerative models of practice.
3. Does the practice share research and knowledge for the benefit of society and the wider world? For example, you regularly carry out post occupancy evaluation and share information with others.
Due to the increasingly risk averse / commercial nature of the industry, we have found that many clients are interested in our ideas but unwilling to engage us as architects. Following the principle that “If life serves you lemons, make some flipping lemonade” we adapted our business model to focus more effort on public speaking and training. The practice now receives approx. 30% of its income from delivering workshops and giving keynotes at a wide variety of business events – making the case for how all businesses need to rise to the challenge of the planetary emergency. We are increasingly delivering architecture projects by partnering with larger firms in order to maximise our positive influence.
We also share knowledge through writing books and articles. The founder has written four books (one co-authored), contributed chapters to two more, and written numerous book reviews and articles.
Project
1. Does the practice advocate for long-term thinking at the outset of projects? Do you initiate projects with long-term thinking and challenge the client on design life? Also, can the practice demonstrate that this approach has worked – with a shorter or longer design life, or an innovative approach to financing or payback period?
We are currently working on a project about deep time that aims to transform people’s ideas about a collective responsibility for safeguarding the future. We actively seek out clients and opportunities that allow for long-term thinking and advocate for this on all projects with reference to a range of sources including indigenous practices.
We regularly use an exercise called ‘Human Layers’ developed by ‘The Long Time Project’ at the start of a project to raise the level of ambition and promote long-term thinking. In one case this led to the client calling for ‘The Lorax’ to be represented in design team meetings (“To speak for the trees” as Dr. Seuss would put it!). On all our projects we encourage our clients to take a long-term and holistic view on cost in order to make a more compelling case for measures that deliver long-term planetary value.
2. Do your projects take account of the future climate and the need for resilience? For example, do the projects demonstrate flexibility, design for adaptation, design for disassembly, non-deterministic solutions, or demountable structures.
We address future climate and resilience on all projects by looking at the specifics of the location and what the best science predicts will be the likely conditions in 50-100 years. We are exploring the possibilities of going beyond PassivHaus to an ideal of ActiveHaus. One of the big differences between construction by humans and the rest of nature is that our buildings tend to be static whereas other species adapt to changing conditions and have evolved to thrive in extreme conditions. These biological adaptations represent a vast body of solutions that we can draw from to design architecture that is better attuned to place and future changes in climate, while using far less energy.
3. Do the majority of your projects go beyond mitigating negatives and towards optimising positives? For example, are they meeting or exceeding the RIBA 2030 Challenge.
Since 2018 this has been the aim on all our projects. For the CTB Garden City project (in partnership with another practice) we developed an ambitious brief based on four headings: Being a good ancestor, Let nature lead, Promote circular resource use, and A place for everyone (some of the content was later incorporated into the Architects Declare Regenerative Design Primer). The project was won in a competition by making regenerative design a prominent part of the pitch including ideas such as interbeing (sees all life as connected), symbiogenesis (the idea that social infrastructure can lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of improvements) and Dunbar clusters of homes that enhance social interaction.
Our proudest achievement is the Sahara Forest Project Pilot Facility in Qatar which proved that it is possible to restore even deserts to a level of biodiversity that, according to historical records, was common in many arid regions.
C0-evolving with nature
Practice
1. Does the practice use biophilia within the office or regularly host meetings and retreats in natural settings? For example do you have extensive planting within the office or rely on natural patterns and imagery for stress relief or quiet areas.
Our workspace was designed based on biophilic principles as described by Terrapin Bright Green (visual connection with nature, thermal and airflow variability, natural light, material connection with nature). We participate in managing a green space for wildlife and compost all our biodegradable waste. Since last year’s RAI we have worked towards greater nature connection, marking the equinoxes and solstices with office activities in nature. Due to diary challenges and the abundance of wild fruit in late August we had a ‘solstinox’ gathering (yes, that’s another of our great contributions to regenerative culture!). We conducted staff appraisals while walking (a much better dynamic than sitting opposite each other in a meeting room) and foraging. We discussed ideas, future plans and company policy while making hedgerow jam together.
2. Can the practice share examples where it has considered nature in decision making? For example by having a nature proxy to encourage eco-centric decision making, using natural systems as inspiration for the company structure, recognising the seasonal nature of people’s capacity and workload or celebrating equinoxes and solstices together.
We have started the process of appointing nature to the board as a non-executive director, following protocols developed and shared by the company Faith in Nature. Our long-term purpose is to be co-enablers of the flourishing of all life for all time and to work towards restoring planetary health. By having nature on the board we believe it will enhance our performance. We also represent nature in the design process by regularly asking questions like “What would other species want from this project?” or “What would this landscape look like if it were fully self-expressed?”
Our business plan was developed using biomimetic principles. By translating all the common functions of a business (for instance publicity, ideas generation, training, etc.) into biological equivalents (for instance signalling, fertilisation / mutation / variation, and adapting / evolving) it’s often possible to arrive at innovative approaches.
3. Is the practice supporting nature locally and nationally? For example, does the practice support local gardens, gardeners, planting programmes, rewilding programmes or advocate for changes in legislation to protect nature.
Over recent years we have made donations (amounting to 5% of our profit one year) to the charity ‘Trees for Life’ which is rewilding a large area of land in Scotland and to Stop Ecocide International, the group that is campaigning to have ecocide recognised as a fifth crime against humanity. We have also written in two books about the case for nature rights and involved Jojo Mehta (main spokesperson for Stop Ecocide) as a speaker in an event we organised. A significant amount of the principal’s time over the last five and half years has been dedicated to Architects Declare which has consistently advocated for systems change that would protect and enhance nature.
Project
1. Can the practice demonstrate projects which strive to match the performance of a mature ecosystem? As a minimum this would mean achieving biodiversity net gain.
The project where we achieved the most in the respect is the Sahara Forest Project Pilot Facility where we demonstrated a very substantial increase in biodiversity. The ecology survey at the beginning showed there was virtually nothing on site (it was a bare patch of desert) and a year later we had a wide range of plants, birds, mammals and insects. In this respect we went way beyond biodiversity net gain to demonstrate the feasibility of revegetating deserts. We showed that it was possible to grow cucumbers throughout the Qatar summer with half the amount of freshwater of conventional approaches while also generating renewable energy and restoring biodiversity.
2. Is the practice working on material stewardship? For example, evidence could be shown through repeated use of low carbon materials, extensive material libraries and research or publications supporting responsible use of materials and elimination of waste.
An idealistic scenario that we are working towards is to completely eliminate toxins, to focus on the same safe subset of the periodic table as nature and to do what most animals species other than humans do: rather than transporting materials over large distance to the site it is better to bring evolved ingenuity to the materials that exist on or very near the site. We are developing a high performance structurally insulated panel entirely from wood waste and plant material.
A separate research project that is also exploring ways to make buildings from atmospheric carbon is our Biorock Pavilion. This is a way of growing an entire building in seawater through the electrodeposition of minerals onto a lightweight steel frame. As far as we are aware this would be the first time a building has been grown from minerals (calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide).
3. Do the majority of projects demonstrate the use of biologically-inspired approaches such as Bioregionalism, Biophilia, Biomimicry, Ecomimicry (also referred to as Ecosystems Thinking, Industrial Ecology or Industrial Symbiosis) or BioTRIZ?
We concur with the view expressed by leading regenerative thinkers that the ultimate aim of regenerative design should be to overcome our separation from nature and reach a point where we are co-evolving as nature. In the third edition of ‘Biomimicry in Architecture’ (RIBA Publications’ best-selling international title) our principal has described what it means to design as nature. We do not see this as an aesthetic – it is a way to integrate everything we do as humans into the web of life.
Biologically-inspired design approaches have been the founding basis of our practice since the beginning. All of our projects use one or more of these methodologies. Our principal also co-authored ‘Flourish’ which describes how a deep philosophy of biomimicry can help us address critical challenges for the future. Our practice has developed two versions of a software tool that makes it easier to design ecomimetic systems.
Creating a just space for people
Practice
1. Does the practice have a progressive EDI policy and can you evidence many forms of diversity, which are welcomed and acknowledged, within the practice?
For us, creating good working conditions is an essential part of creating a fairer world in which everyone can participate and shine in their own specific way.
We welcome all forms of diversity and are familiar with the social science which proves that diverse groups of people consistently produce better outcomes than less diverse groups.Since the firm was established we have employed people from a wide range of nationalities, ethnicities and sexual orientations. We also take active steps to make the teams that we assemble diverse. The principal includes a clause in his public speaking contracts calling on clients to acknowledge the benefits of diversity and stating that he will not appear as part of all-male panels and will only speak as part of event programmes with fair gender diversity.
2. Does the practice operate a no overtime culture, meet the living wage consistently, and stipulate a fair salary ratio between staff of all levels?
We rarely work overtime and very rarely at weekends. We have always paid staff according to industry benchmarks and we have never asked interns, or any other staff, to work without pay. We are committed to never having a salary ratio of more than 3 to 1 between the highest and lowest paid members of the office (averaged over 5 year periods). The reason for averaging this over 5 years is because the principal regularly reduces his salary for extended periods in order to be able to maintain a steady salary for the rest of the staff.
3. Does the practice support charities, community groups, social enterprises, action groups and others through pro-bono work, charitable giving or in-kind donations?
We have supported a range of charities including those connected with rewilding and cancer research. Approximately 20% of the principal’s time over the last year has been dedicated to pro bono causes connected with the planetary emergency.
4. Does the practice publicly refuse to work with certain clients, suppliers or organisations on ethical grounds?
We publicly refused to work on the recent British Museum project because it was funded by a fossil fuel company. We have frequently declined offers to work on projects in Saudi Arabia and will continue to do so until such time as the human rights situation improves substantially. We generally decline to work with any client who we do not feel is committed to meaningfully addressing the planetary emergency. We have an ethical policy which commits us to not working in countries with poor records on human rights and to not working on projects involving the expansion of fossil fuel production infrastructure or for the military (we would consider projects for UN peace-keeping forces as reasonable exceptions to this).
Project
1. Do the projects demonstrate deep engagement with local stakeholders and end users? For example, is there evidence that your project engagement goes beyond consultation towards co-design?
Most of our current work involves technical research, consultancy and public speaking. We are only working on one project where deep engagement would be the norm and this is happening. A specific consultant has been engaged by the client for the CTB Garden City project to lead on public engagement.
2. Do your projects create connected and resilient places which positively contribute to their neighbourhoods and allow equality of access? For example, do your projects create economic opportunity, retain value locally and generate social value?
As stated in the previous response, the only project that we are currently working on that presents this kind of opportunity is the CTB Garden City project. Collaborating with another practice we have developed a comprehensive regenerative design brief which includes stretch targets for a wide range of socio-economic issues including social cohesion, local distinctiveness, bioregional sourcing as well as design measures that promote ideas such as ‘interbeing’.
3. Do the majority of your projects promote equity in society, and consider all people, not only the building inhabitants? For example, do your projects show due regard for workers within the supply chain and take active steps to avoid modern slavery?
We take the view espoused by Cedric Price that ‘the client’ includes everyone who uses or will be affected by the development. We strive to source all materials ethically and are exploring bioregional ideas on a number of our projects in order to further enhance aspects of equity. For our Sahara Forest Project Pilot Facility in Qatar we stipulated strict controls on working conditions to safeguard construction worker wellbeing and also inspected living accommodation provided by the contractor to ensure that it complied with the requirements of the contract related to wellbeing and the eradication of modern slavery.