In a world that has always taken nature for granted and humans have exploited the earth, we as Architects have a major role to play on multiple fronts, to reverse the impending catastrophe. As sensitive professionals, we cannot divorce ourselves from social and environmental exigencies. In the past architects have almost always laid the larger focus on building envelope, active and passive energy systems, pure aesthetics or short-term economics of materials.
The latter has not been studied with respect to long term gains and have remained at experimental levels in small sporadic pockets across the globe.
Building materials though are omnipresent. They make up the spaces in which we live, work, study, get well and commute, they create our villages, our cities and our built environment. They have social, cultural, moral and environmental implications and often subconsciously control our behavioral patterns and reactions to a space.
