The creation of spaces is an act in service of people. The comfort generated by these spaces is social, thermal, hydric, visual, acoustic, economic, accessible, and inclusive comfort. However, contemporary architecture has lost the ability to create such spaces without resorting to excessive consumption of resources, artificial climate control through machines, and the use of cheap energy—embedded in an urbanism of asphalt, built by and for the automobile.
Creating comfort today requires the architect to step into the realm of discomfort, uncertainty, exploration, and going against the current.
The architecture of today and tomorrow cannot be the architecture of the present. There are too many substantial changes taking place on our planet for the past alone to provide answers for the future. We need different materials, different scales, different relationships, different boundaries, different demands, and different needs.
Global urgencies such as decarbonization, the recovery of biodiversity, access to decent housing, local employment and innovation, freshwater management, poverty, equality, and ocean health are, among others, the challenges to which architecture must respond.
Architecture cannot rely on standardized models that are applicable anywhere. Architecture must prioritize social responsibility over financial imperatives.
For over 15 years, GBCE has been providing tools to the sector to make architecture more sustainable. It collaborates with numerous entities to bring coherence and common sense to the development of new regulations, new methods of measurement, new financial products, increased academic knowledge, and greater cross-disciplinary integration across scales—territory, city, building, and materials. It seeks ways to support all stakeholders, each at their own pace: design tools, measurement tools, certification, European and regional projects that facilitate co-creation and knowledge development.
Activity promoted by the Gipuzkoa Delegation of the Basque-Navarre Official College of Architects and the Donostia Sustainability Forum.