How has the book informed your practice or shifted your thinking?
One of the key aspects for me was the way it spotlighted Greta Thunberg in order to show what a big knock-on effect a single individual can have in creating change, her school strike for climate created a wave with huge impact, it has prompted a number of other movements.
Another realisation developed through the book is the idea that the growth imperative is not the answer – we do not always need to reach for a greater GDP. This can relate directly to how we design and build – instead of being carbon hungry we can minimise our carbon consumption and our carbon emissions, instead of building new, we can turn to the circular economy, retrofit and reuse. We can adopt the idea that growth and quantity are not the answer, but quality is. Also important, is the idea that everything is interlinked. For us to achieve more intangible things like social value you have to put people and planet ahead of profit and growth.
This has impacted on how I practice architecture through the things we, at dRMM, are working to get underway with regards to how we conduct post occupancy and social value evaluations and how we select materials for our projects. We are giving a structure and vocabulary to the good work that we have previously done inherently, I feel this comes from the wider cultural shift which is prompting people to recognise these things. Now, my new focus and preoccupation will be how to communicate this in order to make it accessible to wider audiences.