The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
Opinion: Let’s do away with sustainability categories in architecture awards
Architecture which fully answers the challenge of the climate crisis is starting to become a duty, not an achievement worthy of applause, argues Kunle Barker
Opinion
Comment from leading voices in British architecture on news, practice and discourse
Thank goodness there’s a growing commitment to work positively with buildings that are already around us
The retrofit projects featured in our latest issue show how – with expertise from today’s architects – great buildings can be timeless
Think GGBS will fix concrete’s carbon problem? Think again
Concrete’s environmental credentials are pretty terrible but there are far more effective ways of reducing a building’s embodied carbon emissions than using ground granulated blast-furnace slag, argues Anna Beckett
Energy ratings have transformed fridge design. Why aren’t new houses following suit?
Architect Richard Hawkes questions whether Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) have improved how new homes are designed
Poor housing and Covid deaths: it’s the same damn map
Poor housing does not just reduce life expectancy, it kills people suddenly – as the Covid pandemic grimly demonstrated. The solution involves a whole-house retrofit approach to existing homes, says Tania Jennings
Poor housing is the logical outcome of the system you work in
In the context of environmental and social crisis, it is essential that architects view the built environment as pivotal to achieving political and economic change, argue Charlie Edmonds and Immy Kaur
How Westminster City Council plans to put retrofit first
New policies in the pipeline will make it clear that retrofit is the best solution for the vast majority of buildings in the borough, says Westminster councillor Geoff Barraclough
Why is Keir Starmer ignoring the concrete and steel elephant in the room?
The Labour leader’s macho posturing on housebuilding ignores the 60 megatonnes of upfront carbon that building 1.5 million new homes would produce, writes Alice Moncaster
To green up British cities we need a ‘right to plant’
Street trees are a wonder drug, aiding public health and the battle against climate change. Yet urban greenery is in decline. How can we turn this around? asks Eleanor Broad of Create Streets
A call to arms: mass timber extensions can help pay for a retrofit revolution
We can make retrofit the norm by making it more profitable, adding storeys to existing buildings made of renewable low-carbon timber, argues engineer Kelly Harrison