"Radical Retrofit & Adaptive Reuse" / Master of Architecture Design Research Unit #2
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Adaptive Architecture / A multi-disciplinary field concerned with buildings that are designed to adapt to their environments, their inhabitants and objects as well as those buildings that are entirely driven by internal data.
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Adaptive Reuse / The process of taking an old building or site and reusing it for a purpose other than it was designed. Typically, it is closely related to historic preservation or conservation around cities with rich history.
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Anthropocene / An epoch or geologic time used to describe the period of earth; which is considered to be the most recent epoch, where human have had the made an impact on earth's ecosystems and climates.
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Architectural Reclamation / Architectural Reclamation is becoming a significantly widespread strategy to reuse and recycle of existing materials. This process consists of treatment of the used material and delivering them in shipping containers as a way of suppling to different companies. It is now becoming increasingly popular to use reclaimed wood for interior design. Other building materials are used in new buildings by architects as a sign that we must all respond to the challenged of environmental degradation.
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Click on a letter if you're looking for specific terms. The glossary will scroll down and take you there!
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Janine Benyus and Bryony Schwan founded in 2006 the Biomimicry Institute. It is a non-profit organisation based in Missoula (Montana, USA), and it seeks to promote and develop design and social innovation according to the principles of nature. Have a look!
Cascadia (Western USA) is an example of a bioregional approach to the future. See it more in detail here!
Biodiversity / It reflects the number, variety, and variability of living organisms. This includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. Biodiversity provides functioning ecosystems that supply oxygen, clean air and water, pollination of plants, and wastewater treatment. Check the case studies referring to Biodiversity here.
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Biomimicry / Borrows nature's blueprints, recipes, processes, and ecosystem strategies and then comes up with design principles to solve problems. In a short definition, biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature for inspiration to solve design problems in a regenerative way.
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Biophilia / The term was first used to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital. In architecture the term is broadened to describe the approach that seeks to connect building occupants more closely to nature. Biophilic designed buildings incorporate things like natural lighting and ventilation, natural landscape features and other elements for creating a productive and healthy environment for people.
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Bioregion / For a shorter definition, bioregion is a region whose limits are naturally defined by topographic and biological features (such as mountain ranges and ecosystems). And how's for a more detailed definition? Courtesy of the World Resources Institute.
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Bioregionalism / The act of working out how to create a regenerative future in any specific, defined bioregion.
In the UK, Bioregional is a non-profit consultancy led by Sue Riddlestone which supports towns and cities to develop their own One Planet Living approach to bioregional stability through 10 principles that cover aspects of social, environmental and economic sustainability.
Urban regionalism framework model.
Source: Sarah P. Church (2014)
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Circular Economy / Is synonymous with Ellen MacArthur, a retired English sailor. Although there is evidence that the concept dates back to the Romans, Greeks or even to the Bronze Age, no one has done more in recent times to promote the concept and value of shifting from sustainability to a circular approach to tackle the current extractive and wasteful economy.
A circular economy is a systemic approach to economic development designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. In contrast to the ‘take-make-waste’ linear model, a circular economy is regenerative by design and aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.
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Climate / The pattern of the weather in a certain environment over a long period of time. Weather is something that happens over the course of a day, week or month whereas climate is over the course years, decades or centuries.
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Cultural Heritage/ Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Cultural Heritage is often expressed as either Intangible or Tangible Cultural Heritage.
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Cultural Memory/ Cultural memory is formed by symbolic heritage embodied in texts, rites, monuments, celebrations, objects, sacred scriptures, and other media that serve as triggers to initiate meanings associated with what has happened. Cultural memory is the longest-lasting form of memory that can last for thousands of years.
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The diagram tries to capture the flow of materials, nutrients, components, and products, whilst adding an element of financial value. It builds on several schools of thought, but is perhaps most recognisably influenced by Cradle to Cradle’s two material cycles.
The UNESCO established in 1992 the World Heritage Centre (WHC), seeking to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. You can check the list of UNESCO's protected heritage here.
Exterior view of the Carmo Church Ruins in Lisbon, Portugal.
Photographed by Fernando Guerra.
Have a look at our Heritage case studies analysis here.
The Doughnut consists of two concentric rings: a social foundation, to ensure that no one is left falling short on life’s essentials, and an ecological ceiling, to ensure that humanity does not collectively overshoot the planetary boundaries that protect Earth's life-supporting systems.
Between these two sets of boundaries lies a doughnut-shaped space that is both ecologically safe and socially just: a space in which humanity can thrive.
The Doughnut is the core concept at the heart of Doughnut Economics.
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Doughnut 7 principles of practice, setting guidelines on how to apply the model into a practical concept and transformative action, and not just a radical idea.
Doughnut Economics / English economist Kate Raworth’s model for a just space for humanity, combining the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Planetary Boundaries and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Doughnut offers a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century - and Doughnut Economics explores the mindset and ways of thinking needed to get us there. A brilliant framework for creative conversations around innovation for a regenerative future.
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Ecoliteracy / "Is the ability to understand the organisation of natural systems and the processes that maintain the healthy functioning of living systems and sustain life on Earth. An ecologically literate person is able to apply this understanding to the design and organisation of our human communities and the creation of a regenerative culture.” - Daniel Christian Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures (2015).
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Ecology / This term refers to the observation and studying of the relationships between different types of living organisms. This is to understand the fundamental relations amongst humans, nature, animals and also how they relate to their physical environment.
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Ecosystem / Community of living organisms in conjunction with the non-living components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.
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Environmental Degradation / The deterioration of the environment through the depletion of resources such as air, water and soil. It is any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. There is a link between ecological footprint and GPD, understood and examined through an environmental Kuznets curve. Al-mulali et al. states that countries with low income cannot take advantage of the improvements in energy efficiency, energy saving and renewable energy, therefore poorer countries have degrade the environment at a higher rate.
The Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley (California, USA), has been instrumental in spreading its innovative secondary school ecoliteracy curriculum around California, Hawaii and now even some schools on the island of Majorca. School gardens become the living activity classroom where children learn maths, ecology and systems thinking while growing healthy food. Teachers and students, together, learn from nature, through nature and as nature. The centre defined a series of ecological principles in 2015 (which you can read here) that can help us frame questions we might want to ask as we aim to design as nature.
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Gaia Theory / Written by scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock alongside microbiologist Lynn Margulis. The principle of gaia theory is that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. Life creates the conditions conducive to life.
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Grazing Ecology / Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on low-growing plants such as grasses or other multicellular organisms, such as algae. Cattle, horses and sheep are just a few of many other species that can be considered grazers. Grazing's ecological effects can include redistributing nutrients, keeping grasslands open or favouring a particular species over another. When grass is grazed, dead litter grass is reduced which is advantageous for birds such as waterfowl. Grazing can increase biodiversity, as without grazing, many of the same grasses grow, which will subsequently create a monoculture.
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Greening / Green architecture is a philosophy that advocates for building with the environment in mind by using sustainable sources of energy, designing efficiently to reduce energy use, and updating existing buildings with new technology. A sub-set of global, cultural sustainability and architectural processes of designing, constructing and maintaining buildings in a response to the principles of sustainability. The principles are contested along with limitations of the discipline, especially within the relevant function of temporal and spatial sustainability. Tabb and Deviren, argue in their book, The Greening of Architecture: A Critical History and Survey of Contemporary Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design (2013), that the greening process can become more pervasive, connecting to all scales of contemporary life, impacting the complex, systematic and dynamic measures.
Lovelock's book, Gaia: A new look at life on Earth (1979), is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, Lovelock explores the hypothesis that the earth's living matter-air, ocean, and land surfaces forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.
Cattle, and their grazing abilities, played a big part in the rewilding of the Knepp Estate. You can read more about the Knepp's pioneer wildlife regeneration and conservation project in our Biodiversity case studies.
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Heritage / There are three classifications of Heritage: Tangible Heritage (buildings, monuments, books, works of art, and artifacts); Intangible Heritage (folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge); and Natural Heritage (culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity) (A. Sullivan, 2016). In architectural terms, heritage often refers to buildings or structures of historical or cultural importance, which are a vital part of the country's inheritance and require conservation (Bidwells, 2018). It’s important to recognise that different aspects of a building will have varying levels of heritage significance.
Find our Heritage case studies here.
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Living Systems Thinking / A theory of using frameworks and developmental processes to consciously improve the capacity of systems thinking about the evolution of human or social living systems. In the past, Western society was guided by a mechanistic view of the world – thinking that the world was a predicable machine. However, this theory is being rewritten into a system that recognises fundamental characteristics and tendencies being shared. Systems are largely impacted by human activity, leading to the idea of stewardship and aligning the pillars of sustainability (M. Holliday, 2017).
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"It is possible to define the goal of sustainability in a city as the reduction of the city’s use of natural resources and production of wastes while simultaneously improving its liveability, so that it can better fit within the capacities of the local, regional and global ecosystems" - Peter W. G. Newman (Sustainability and cities: extending the metabolism model, 1999)
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Locational Patterns / Patterns that represent the distinctive character and potential of a place and provide a dynamic mapping for designing structures that align with the living systems of a place.
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Microclimate / Can exist in heavy urban areas where brick, concrete, and asphalt absorb the sun's energy, heat up, and re-radiate that heat to the ambient air. Microclimate can be due to a lot of factors including a buildings form, material and building heat loss, human activity which can affect the microclimate of a specific location, environment and humans.
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The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit organisation funded in the USA in 1951 by Richard Pough. With the aim to create a world where people and nature can thrive, it has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organisations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of the staff and over 400 scientists, they impact conservation in 72 countries and territories: 38 by direct conservation impact and 34 through partners.
Natural Resource Management / Sustaining the utilisation of primary natural resources including water, land, air, forests etc. It is vital to preserve these natural resources as they are important to our ecosystem which provides a good quality of life to humans. There are many societies that depend on the supplies of these natural resources so that they can develop and survive.
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Nature / The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations. It underpins our economy, our society, indeed our very existence. Our forests, rivers, oceans and soils provide us with the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we irrigate our crops with. We all depend on nature for our food, air, water, energy and raw materials. Nature and biodiversity make life possible, provide health and social benefits and drive our economy. Healthy ecosystems can also help us cope with the impacts of climate change.
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Nature and Biodiversity are always interlinked. Have a look at our case studies, where we analyse a number of projects that have their identity and success driven by this connection.
Seriema at the RPPN Fazenda Bulcão, the reforestation project led by Sebastião and Lélia Salgado in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Photographed by Leonardo Merçon.
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The 12 design principles of permaculture as rules of living.
Permaculture / An innovative framework for creating sustainable ways of living. It tackles how to grow food, build houses, create communities, and minimise environmental impact at the same time. By thinking carefully about the way resources are used - food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs - it is possible to get much more out of life by using less.
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In short, the essence of permaculture is the design of an ecologically sound way of living in households, gardens, communities and businesses.It is created by cooperating with nature and caring for the earth and its people.
"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system" - Bill Mollison (Introduction to Permaculture,1991)
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Preservation / Simply, preservation is the act of keeping something preserved, or safe from loss or danger. In an architectural sense, it can mean the act of preventing something from decaying over time. This can mean making minor repairs to a building’s fabric throughout the course of its life in a way that maintains its original character.
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Rewilding Europe is a non-profit organisation funded in 2011 by Frans Schepers, Staffan Widstrand, Neil Birnie and Wouter Helmer. Based in the Netherlands, the organisation is working to create rewilded landscapes in at least 10 different regions across Europe. These will demonstrate how Rewilding Europe’s vision works and how it can be put into practice on a far larger scale.
Regenerative Design / A process-oriented, whole system approach to design. The term "regenerative" describes processes that restore, renew, or revitalise their own sources of energy and materials. Integrating sustainable design that goes beyond having no negative impact and achieves a net-positive impact on the environment (Equiterra, 2020). Regenerative design can also address both, improving quality of life, as well as promoting economic growth.
See our case studies referring to Regenerative Design here.
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Restorative Design / A design system that returns polluted, degraded, or damaged sites back to a state of acceptable health through human intervention. It’s an intentional process, one that creates a built environment promoting wellness, economy through conservation, and a more meaningful connection to nature.
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Rewilding / Rewilding activities are conservation efforts aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and wilderness areas. This may include providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species. It is about letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes. Through rewilding, wildlife’s natural rhythms create wilder, more biodiverse habitats.
Our Biodiversity case studies tackle Rewilding projects. Have a look here.
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Sociocultural / An identity that its basic requirement is the formation of the individuality and is based on a solidarity of language, territory, historic memory and concept of the world. It describes the respect of cultural traditions and historic value to people’s way of life and the buildings that are connected to that.
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Sustainability / The dictionary definition relates to the ability to maintain something at a constant level or rate. The term sustainability remains an open concept with a myriad of interpretations. An overall summary analyses three interconnecting ‘pillars’: economic, environmental and social impacts (Purvis, Mao & Robinson, 2018). There is also a move to include a fourth pillar that incorporates culture and generational equality. All these areas are important, but various people argue over which pillar is more important.
In terms of the project, a key focus should be on environmental and social interventions, with economics considered, but not as highly. Within architecture, sustainability is linked to minimising the negative impact of buildings by efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem. Sayigh (2013) suggests that the design of buildings should move beyond regionalism and bioregionalism to a more site-specific response that incorporates Genius Loci principles that provides a sensory and experimental environment for the occupants, whilst responding to site opportunities and constraints.
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Sustainable Development / Defined by the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987 in intergenerational terms as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". There is a key focus on those in society with the least amount of say. Combining geographical and systems thinking, sustainability can be seen a philosophical proposition that supports a dynamic process that is thoughtful to changing needs within the built environment. (Tabb & Deviren, 2014)
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Urban Decline / Deterioration of the inner city often caused by lack of investment and maintenance. It is often, but not exclusively, accompanied by a decline in population numbers, decreasing economic performance and unemployment.
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Urban Social Exclusion / Social exclusion is a complex and multi-dimensional process. It involves the lack of, or denial of resources, rights, goods and services, and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities, available to the majority of people in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas. It affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole.
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Urbanism / Observation of populations of cities and towns (urban areas) interrelate with the constructed environment. It is also known as the study of urban planning where we focus on the material aspect of the design and administration of urban structures and how urban sociology comes into practice.
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