News

As we mark our first five years and plan for our next period of work, we want to ensure AD’s approach is informed by and remains relevant to a wide range of current and emerging thought on architecture’s place in tackling the planetary emergency. 

We're therefore recruiting a student ambassador who can draw on their learning in academia and in practice and their knowledge of student architectural networks. They will help shape our thinking, how we engage with different audiences, who we collaborate with, what support we offer signatories, and where we can best intervene to change the systems that perpetuate a degenerative built environment to ones that promote regenerative policies and actions.

They will join the Steering Group as a non-voting member for a fixed term. Like all our SG members, this is a voluntary position.

See our Student Ambassador role description for full details.

Deadline for applications: 20th September.

We've extended the deadline for new vacancies on our Steering Group to Friday 8th March 2024.

We are keen to recruit new members from among our signatories, reflecting the diversity of practices as we develop AD’s programme. Our Steering Group are all volunteers and actively lead on many aspects of our work through small SG groups as well as full Steering Group meetings.

New members will contribute to the full range of the Steering Group’s discussions and decisions. It's a great opportunity to get involved in our busy work programme! You can find out what's involved and how to apply in our Role Description.

UK Architects Declare has been working hard with partners to finalise our policy document, Building Blocks to Transform the Built Environment, for its Parliamentary launch on 12th March. Key industry voices will be joining MPs and Lords to hear about and discuss the policy priorities in AD's manifesto for the next UK Government.

A 1-page briefing document, highlighting key 'early adoption policies' in the manifesto, has been endorsed by a range of industry bodies. AD will be presenting these at ACAN's stand (D40) at Futurebuild on 6th March: Come along to find out more!

UK Architects Declare and Architecture Today have launched the world’s first Regenerative Architecture Index.

Benchmarking participating practices on their regenerative policies, actions and working practices, the Index aims to share best practice, celebrate success, raise awareness across the wider construction sector and act as a catalyst for regenerative practice across the industry. We will also use the initiative to identify obstacles to progress, encourage knowledge sharing and identify tools, methods or policy measures required to support the transition to a low-carbon, high well-being and resilient future.

AD will also very soon be publishing a free Regenerative Design Primer. Complementing our 2021 Practice Guide (and replacing its short chapter on regenerative design), this Primer will support practices participating in the Index - and all built environment designers looking to make this transition.

The Index asks participants about their practice and its projects under three broad headings:

Part 1: Being a good ancestor.

This is about a shift in practice mindsets to consider truly long-term thinking. Our decisions today should consider seven generations ahead, ensuring adaptability and flexibility for the future. This requires innovative thought, as current models are rarely beneficial in the long term.

Part 2: Co-evolving with nature.

This is about recognising that we are part of nature, within integral living systems, not separate from it. Our work should actively regenerate ecosystems by learning from and working with natural systems. This requires designing for circularity and encouraging closed-loop energy, material and water cycles.

Part 3: Creating a just space for people.

This is about providing social connection, economic opportunity and wellbeing for all. Our design processes should foster a shared sense of stewardship where neighbourhoods can self-organise and build their resilience. This requires ethical, inclusive and participative approaches.

The deadline for entries is Wednesday 17th May.

The results will be published in September 2024 in a special issue of Architecture Today and on the Architecture Today website.

We plan and deliver our activities through small working groups, with Steering Group members and other volunteers from across our signatory practices and beyond. These are mostly ‘task & finish’ groups, typically working over periods of a few months up to a year.

We now wish to expand our groups with suitable volunteers. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved in any groups below! Skills you might contribute could include research, drafting, graphics & design, proofreading, building networks, and promotion - among many other ways to support us. You can find details in our Call Out.

We have new vacancies on our Steering Group and are keen to recruit new members from among our signatories, reflecting the diversity of practices as we develop AD’s programme. Our Steering Group are all volunteers and actively lead on many aspects of our work through small SG groups as well as full Steering Group meetings.

New members will contribute to the full range of the Steering Group’s discussions and decisions. It's a great opportunity to get involved in our busy work programme! You can find out more of what's involved and how to apply in our Role Description.

With Architecture Today, we are launching the world’s first Regenerative Architecture Index (RAI) as a means of benchmarking architects on regenerative projects, policies, working practices and actions.

The Index rejects the notion of ranking practices by profitability and size, instead benchmarking participating practices on their regenerative policies, actions and working practices. Its aim is to share best practice, celebrate success, and communicate this work to the wider construction industry to raise awareness and act as a catalyst for regenerative practice across the industry.

The RAI 2024 will launch with a call for entries in January 2024. Participating practices will be invited to answer questions both on the practice itself and on the projects it delivers, under three broad headings:

Part 1: Being a good ancestor, will look at evidence of long-term thinking and a concern for the well-being of future generations.

Part 2: Co-evolving with nature, will look at measures to support a mutually enriching coexistence with the natural world.

Part 3: Creating a just space for people, will look at issues around inclusivity, diversity, equality and engagement.

The results will be published in September 2024 on the Architecture Today website and in a special issue of Architecture Today. Graphs and tables indicating practices’ progress in specific areas will accompanied by case studies, commentary and analysis designed to produce a comprehensive compendium of best practice in the transition to regenerative architecture. Just as importantly, the RAI will also identify obstacles to progress, encouraging peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and advice, but also identifying any tools, methods or policy interventions required to support the transition to a low-carbon, high well-being and resilient future.

The Index is not a conventional awards programme – the focus is educational rather than competitive, with an evolving series of activities based on benchmarking, sharing experience and acknowledging challenges and mistakes. That said, a practice, or practices, that have performed particularly well will be rewarded with a bespoke retreat at Schumacher College in Devon, as an opportunity to recharge and establish a roadmap to regeneration for the year ahead.

We're looking forward to sharing more details very soon. For further information, in the first instance contact [email protected]

It is clear that 30 years of sustainable design has not got us where we need to be. The United Nations concluded in 2022 that current policies and pledges do not create a credible pathway to achieving the Paris goals and limiting temperature increases to 1.5°C. The best science tells us we are heading for horrific climate impacts globally, particularly in some of the poorest parts of the world. Even before the UK Government's recent retrograde policy shifts on Net Zero, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's revamped strategy itself admitted its policies will achieve only 92% of the cuts required - which many experts said could be a generous estimate.

We are in a period of inaction on the climate and ecological crises. Since the formation of Architects Declare in 2019, the construction industry has offered many practical solutions to these crises, to create a regenerative and just built environment – but these have not been incorporated into national policy. We now require true climate leadership by a goverment that embraces far-reaching system changes and implements them at a national scale.

Our mission is to turn a climate catastrophe into a climate opportunity. The Architects Declare Building Blocks aims to create a regenerative built environment that enables society and nature to thrive – creating jobs, improving health, and restoring the natural world. The Building Blocks, underpinned by a foundation of systemic change, offers a practical, impactful and implementable set of policies to transform the built environment.

We have worked with industry partners to develop the Architects Declare Building Blocks draft and are now sharing it publicly. We welcome your feedback at our online event on 19th October, and at an industry in-person event in November (date to be announced very soon). If you have specific experience in influencing policy or connections with policy-makers or politicians, please do get in touch via [email protected]. We will be revising the document over the coming months, ahead of a final launch early next year.

UK Architects Declare Communications Position

UK Architects Declare is hiring for a flexible, part-time position to support our social media engagement - either freelance or secondment.

We promote AD through Twitter, LinkedIn & Instagram, our website and newsletters. Our communications priorities are: Make the urgency of AD’s mission relevant; Be strong on AD’s achievements so far; Be positive, practical and focused in face of the Climate & Biodiversity Emergency.

Ahead of the COP27 talks in Egypt last November, Built Environment Declares surveyed UK signatories to understand what government support is needed in the form of strategies, regulation, and funding. In the UK, as well as Architects Declare, BED includes the declaration groups for Landscape Architects, Interior Designers, Structural, Civil and Building Services Engineers, Project Managers, and Contractors.

The survey, now in its second year, received responses from more than 150 companies and revealed that signatories to the declarations are calling for:

• Planning reform to incorporate incentives such as offering faster planning periods for retrofit and regenerative schemes
• National and local plans to raise biodiversity cover in the UK to the global average
• Rigorous carbon budgets for all publicly funded and procured buildings
• Quotas to be set for each planning use class to support reduction of embodied carbon budgets and embedding of whole life carbon targets in building regulations
• Reform of the UK’s housebuilding strategy to end homelessness and stabilise house prices
• Tax incentives, interest-free loans, and grants to enable home retrofit
• A network of storage and remanufacture facilities for building elements, products, and materials
• Bringing water infrastructure into public control and/or ownership

The survey results show a clear appetite for ambitious co-ordinated climate action from businesses and governments to address the environmental crises.

Smith Mordak, Director of Sustainability and Physics at Buro Happold and Built Environment Declares steering group member said: "I was particularly excited to see such widespread support for reforming the UK's housing strategy and housebuilding targets. To tackle embodied carbon, and the wider ecosystem impacts of the built environment, we need to devise ways of retrofitting and more fairly distributing our existing housing wealth. This means tackling the ways that housebuilding is often used for economic and political ends that often seeps outside of meeting housing need. The results showed that the industry believes that ending homelessness, stabilising house prices, and protecting nature are key goals of a good housing strategy and I believe that achieving this within planetary boundaries requires some innovative thinking in terms of design, planning, and policy-making."

Alasdair Ben Dixon, Architect and Co-founder at Collective Works and Architects Declare Steering group member said: "As a sector we are once again calling for improved regulation and a fundamental rethink of policy to address the planetary emergency. This survey captures the latest thinking on reforms which will help create a healthier, more equitable and truly sustainable built environment. Across the industry organisations large and small have been collectively developing and sharing new knowledge and standards required to guarantee our built environment performs better. These should now be embedded at a national level to ensure we can swiftly and fairly deliver on the UK’s essential net zero target.”

The report, with the full results of the survey, is available here.