A Sustainable, Inclusive and Beautiful Architecture

 A few days ago, I heard somebody say: let's work together to imagine and build a sustainable and inclusive future that is beautiful for our eyes, our minds, and our souls.

And this simple, but strong statement made me think about what we do and what we believe as architects and urban designers at JMA.

We believe that, as architects, we shall build more sustainable buildings.

Buildings use around 40% of the energy consumption, while industries consume 32% and transportation consume 28%, data from US EIA (Energy Information Administration).

Energy sources, such as fossil fuels, oils, and natural gas have negative impacts on our environment, like, air and water pollution, damage to wildlife and to public health, habitat loss, water use, land use, and global warming emissions. 

Most of that consumption in our buildings comes from Lighting, which has a higher percentage in Commercial uses (26%) than in residential uses (11%), and Cooling and heating, where the percentage is reversed between Commercial and residential uses. 26% for Commercial and 43% for residential. Residential use also has a high consumption due to Hot water usage (11%). Of course, these consumptions are subjective to many different conditions, like location, culture, etc.

So, if lighting, cooling and heating, and hot water are the main issues in our buildings, it is clear that we can reduce the impact of energy consumption by working on solutions. However, this should be part of a future discussion.

We shall also build more inclusive buildings.

As always said to my students, as architects, we design buildings that have to satisfy the basic needs of people. When we talk about people, we mean people with different needs. People at every stage of life, so we should design with inclusivity and diversity in mind. We need to design spaces that are convenient, flexible, affordable, and enjoyable to everyone.

Sustainable and Inclusive buildings have to be beautiful to our eyes, to our mind, and to our soul. In other words, buildings have to satisfy our poetic needs. And this is what differences architecture from mere construction.

But “Beautiful” is very subjective. What is beautiful for one, it may not be beautiful for somebody else. During my 30 years of experience, I came to the conclusion that although people differ in what beautiful means, everyone agrees that if a building is respectful to the surroundings, if every component of the building has a reason to exist in the design, If we use proportions, geometry, and rationalism, the building will satisfy our poetic needs.