Sustainable Architecture: An Immersive Exhibition

An exhibition of students’ work from the Centre for Alternative Technology, one of the most forward-looking and innovative higher education institutions in the UK. Explore architecture that is rooted in sustainable design, within an installation that blurs spatial boundaries. Situated in the crypts of a Georgian church, we examine what part of architecture must also be buried for us to move forward into a sustainable future.
The exhibited work demonstrates alternative ways of thinking about the built environment and the architect’s role within society. The boundaries of contemporary architecture are pushed, as we ask ourselves: Is architecture doing enough? What are the boundaries of conventional practice that we adhere to? Is our aim to avoid falling below set boundaries, or should we aim higher?
Contemporary architecture is not excluded from the societal constructs that encourage the pursuit of profit for the few. The environmental crisis has made it clear that we require a shift in convention, and the exhibited work advocates a social and economic sustainability, as much as environmental.
The projects displayed each approach sustainability in a unique way, across a variety of locations, typologies and sectors, aiming to break out of the pigeonhole that sustainable architecture seems to have fallen into. Demonstrating that a sustainable ethos is not only applicable in all circumstances, but also that it requires no architectural compromise.
The profession seems to be waking up to the role architecture has played in the environmental crisis, and this exhibition encourages all to begin questioning the societal constructs and professional conventions that have led us here.