RIBA Climate Change Debate, University of Brighton
Wednesday 21 April 2010, 2pm, Room 314, Watts Building, Moulsecoomb
Attendance at the Climate Change Lecture (from 2pm to 6pm) is free and open to all. You will be most welcome.
Timetable
14.00 Introduction and welcoming by Dr Richard Patterson
14.10 - 15.00 RIBA Education presentation, followed by Q&A
Break
15.10 - 16.00 ‘True Love ? Architecture & Nature’ Professor Susannah Hagan,
University of Brighton, followed by Q&A
Break
16.20 - 17.20 ‘Climate Change and Architecture’ Michael Pawlyn,
RIBA, followed by Q&A
17.20 - 18.00 Debate moderated by Dr Richard Patterson
18.00 Reception
True Love ? Architecture & Nature’
Western culture has continually fallen in and out of love with nature. The relationship is a given, but sometimes it has been flaunted, and sometimes vehemently denied. Design has by no means escaped these waxings and wanings. On the contrary, it represents with great precision our fickle affections. Surveying architectural production today, one sees some designers looking enthusiastically to nature as a model for built culture, and others declaring they “don’t do nature”. If we will all have to do nature sooner rather than later, will we all have to do it the same way? The history of architecture would suggest not; contemporary architectural practice suggests the same. The straight line between climate change and a technology driven ‘eco-architecture’ is just one expression of the current
and contentious reassessment of architecture’s relation to nature. This talk will examine others, past and present.
‘Climate Change and Architecture’
Michael Pawlyn, RIBA
Climate change has become one of the most talked about issues in contemporary life. The work of scientists has rarely, if ever, been so extensively covered in the media. At the same time there has also been an enormous rise in the coverage of so called ‘skeptics’. There is a long history of skeptics who have challenged prevailing views and helped to advance the boundaries of scientific knowledge. Generally they achieved this by developing powerful new models backed up by painstaking research and rigorous scientific thought. By contrast, the most prominent climate change doubters such as Nigel Lawson, Bjorn Lomborg, Ian Plimer and Lord Monkton do not (unless they have been keeping very quiet about it) have a single qualification in climate science between them. In spite of this they are given more or less equal coverage in many sections of the mass media which creates the impression that the scientific debate is finely balanced. It is little wonder that many members of the general public feel confused or doubtful about the whole subject.
