Tall & Urban News

Zaha Hadid Architects' principal Patrik Schumacher has warned that some approaches to fighting climate change would lead to "massive regressions and political upheavals."

Speaking at a conference organized by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat on Tuesday (17 November 2020). Schumacher said: ‘"I want to warn against those voices who are too quick to demand radical changes, to moralize, even talking about degrowth [and] breaking up global supply chains."

"There is a big danger there because what we can never compromise [on] is growth and prosperity, which gives us the freedom to invest more in research."

Schumacher acknowledged that the ecological and climate crises facing the Earth were "massive."

However, he went on to cite the Gilets Jaunes protests in France—against rising fuel prices and other living costs—as evidence that "putting economic prosperity at risk is a much more immediate danger."

He also suggested economic growth was necessary to fighting climate change: "We need to allow prosperity and progress to continue, and that will also bring the resources to overcome [the climate crisis] through investment, science and new technology.

"That must be built on continued growth and cannot be built on a panicked shrinking of the economy, [which would] lead to massive regressions and political upheavals."

The architect, who took the helm of the UK’s third-largest architecture practice in 2016, after the death of its founder Zaha Hadid, also said London’s density should be increased.

"As James Lovelock has recently been suggesting, the ecological footprint of civilization will reduce the more we concentrate," Schumacher said.

"Buildings should become urbanized: we have to open up internally" Schumacher said, presenting at the CTBUH conference

"The virus itself and pandemics won’t be with us so much [in the long-term], but of course the discovery of new remote working conditions will have an impact. Some of these currently commuting populations will stay outside [the city], or come in much less.

Office space will be lost and should be filled with people moving into the city. 

"Some office space will be lost, [and] I believe that they should be filled up with people moving into the city and creating even more interactions, because London is a place where there is too much commuting.

"The percentage of residents mixed in could be much increased, and then you have less traffic, pedestrianization and [greater] micromobility. The buildings themselves should become urbanised: we have to open up internally, we should have bridges and atria and three-dimensional vertical urbanism."

Schumacher was speaking at a panel on "reimagining the global city," which was chaired by Steve Watts and Hossein Rezai, of Alinea Consulting and Web Structures Pte respectively.

The other panellists were Mun Summ Wong, founding director at WOHA; Limin Hee, director at the centre for liveable cities, part of the Singaporean ministry for national development; Jon Neale, head of research at JLL; and Bek Seeley, managing director of European development for Lendlease.

For more on this story, go to Architects' Journal.