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. We welcome applications from all backgrounds, including underrepresented groups.

Deadline for applications: 20th September.

We were excited to have over 120 people join us and our hosts HaworthTompkins on 24th July to celebrate UK Architects Declare's first five years.

Around 80 organisations were in the room to celebrate how far we've come together over the past five years, including signatory practices and partners in our programme to move the built environment to address the planetary emergency. The energy, dedication and creative thinking to drive our collaborative action forwards is more prevalent than ever.

Members of our Steering Group shared their insights from AD's inception in 2019 and impetus to bring the sector together around our declaration points for systems change, the successes in producing our Practice Guide and Practice Action Masterclasses, and our more recent achievements with the Regenerative Design Guide, Regenerative Architecture Index and Building Blocks manifesto for transformative built environment policies.

Tom Gibson, one of our new Steering Group members, welcomed us to HaworthTompkins. Michael Pawlyn, AD's co-instigator alongside Steve Tompkins, told everyone how "Five years ago hardly anyone was talking about regenerative design, and now everyone is. That’s something we’ve all created together - the potential for architects to reclaim our agency as shapers of the future, as integrators and systems thinkers.”

Zoe Watson said "I think everyone in this room can be extremely proud of the community we’ve grown together and the collective action we have taken over the past 5 years"

Deepthi Ravi, one of our newest Steering Group members, painted a picture of our future focus: "Let’s embrace and transform the built environment that we all work with for 2030, and do it such that we plan, construct and operate within planetary boundaries.."

Julia Barfield led us in a toast to AD's programme and partners, and Carrie Behar reminded us of all the people and organisations who have made AD a success and whose support is fundamental to our work - and of the opportiunities to support us through a financial donation or to get involved in our work. Over the years, AD has worked closely on publications and events with many partners, including the RIBA and ACAN!, with an array of organisations on our Building Blocks policy work, and most recently with Architecture Today to launch the Regenerative Architecture Index - which will announce its first year's results in September.

Carrie then guided us through a short discussion, asking guests to become gather in the corners of the room designated with AD's key themes, according to where they think we should focus our activity - 'influencing local and national policy', 'supporting signatory practices', 'advocating for industry change', and 'something else' that they wished to propose for us.

Our Plan for Change sets out our approach to supporting signatories and demonstrating where leadership can replace the system that has created the climate and biodiversity emergency with one that builds a better future for us all.

Thank you to everyone at HaworthTompkins for all their help organising this special event, making us welcome at their offices - and making a special cake! - and all who made this such a great evening!

We're encouraged by the number of people who have begun registering to join the innovative Regenerative Architecture Index scheme with Architecture Today! But we appreciate that it's a process to complete the application, involving discussions across a practice's team. We've therefore agreed with Architecture Today to extend the deadline by a week to Friday 24th May.

It's also been good to see questions coming in as people explore what the Index involves. For example, do you need to be able to answer all the questions? No!

The Index captures good practice across many aspects of a business's approach to regenerative design in its policies as well as its projects. With a set of 19 questions in all, we do not expect all applicants will be delivering across every facet of our three core principles of Being a Good Ancestor, Co-evolving with Nature and Creating a Just Space for People. As such, it is not necessary to be able to answer every question in the application, and we expect there to be gaps. Having said that, we're also interested in the problems that practices encounter as they explore regenerative design, as well as their achievements.

The over-arching aims of the Index are to share knowledge and to support organisations making real efforts to incorporate regenerative thinking into their practices and projects. The Index won't be ranked 'top to bottom' in the conventional way, but will highlight practices that have performed well on each individual question, with examples where appropriate. From this, we will end up with a compendium of best practice, rather than a conventional ranking table. The Index will also anonymously highlight barriers, challenges and obstacles to help learning across the sector.

The Index is open to all organisations involved in the design of our built environment, and we welcome entries from beyond the UK.

As well as the Index, UK Architects Declare has also recently launched our first Regenerative Design Primer to help organisations explore and implement the principles of this transition to design with a positive impact.

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 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 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.

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.

We have vacancies on our Steering Group and are keen to recruit new members reflecting the diversity of signatory practices as we develop AD’s programme.

New members will contribute to the full range of the Steering Group’s discussions and decisions, and will also bring specific areas of expertise. We are seeking individuals with expertise in any of the following: financial management, fundraising, or communications and social media.

Please click here for the role description and details of how to apply.

With the crucial COP26 UN Climate Change Summit taking place in Glasgow, leading architectural, engineering, planning and construction companies are demanding the government introduce a carbon tax/law on ecocide to tackle the climate crisis and say VAT should also be reformed to promote refurbishment over new-build projects. Uniting as the umbrella group Built Environment Declares - in which Architects Declare is a partner - they say these changes are needed to meet the UK’s net zero carbon targets and the wider response to the climate crisis.

They are also pressing for changes to building regulations and planning systems such that:

• embodied carbon calculations and targets are mandatory at planning stage and planning authorities should have embodied carbon quotas
• embodied carbon regulated through building regulations
• post occupancy evaluation should be mandatory
• building regulations should regulate performance in-use and health and wellbeing metrics

“We are strongly committed to making changes in our own practices, but changes in regulation, taxation and legislation are essential to achieve the rapid and profound reduction in carbon emissions legislated by the UK Parliament.”

In the lead up to COP26, a survey of attitudes across UK built environment professional firms has measured the level of their concern and commitment to change. This survey was returned by over 200 UK businesses, including architects, contractors, building services, civil, and structural engineers, interior designers, landscape architects and project managers strive to “...meet the needs of our society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries will demand a paradigm shift in our behaviour”.

The survey took the form of a questionnaire to discover the level of a signatory’s commitment to specific changes in their own practice, in regulation and in legislation. The short report and results are available here.