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Although repetitive (as in the topic has been broadcasted for all our studies), this course had excellent points on why and how we should meet the challenge of sustainability. The future predictions are dim and probably unreachable but not trying isn't a solution either. Our generation and the ones after that will for sure face great challenges as the world changes. People and humanity as a whole achieve their greatest accomplishments under suffering and duress and that's what is probably needed here too.

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We need to make a change for a better tomorrow and make decisions that are good for us and our one and only planet.

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we need to make a change for a better tomorrow

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I think that the environmental responsibility still lies too much on the end user. Everyone shouldn’t have to be a sustainability specialist to be able to make sustainable choices. Consumers are starting to have a hard time trusting products and services that claim to be green until proven otherwise. I feel that we really need reliable tools as professionals and consumers not to continue producing and consuming greenwashing until it is too late to take real action.

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I have followed the evolution of log structured multistorey concept designs in Finland. Often when we are taking about building that are recyclable or can be de constructed and transported to new location we think of big elements and modular buildings. But what if the way to actually to succeed in this is not to make element bigger, but smaller. Small log can be transported whit smaller machinery and also meaby makes it easier to renovate the building by taking bad logs out and butting new ones on their place. But for now only time will tell what kind of concepts are cost effective and how will these building look like.

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After graduating me and friends from school, as probably lot of other students, have been thinking of starting an office of our own. In my dreams this office would only do sustainable designs too…And slowly start destroying the ideas that sustainable is more expensive or limiting of architectural design. This has to change. Also it seems to me that surprisingly lot of architects are really petty and think too highly of themselves, I find this hilarious. There’s really a problem in the field of thinking “art and economy first”. I’m even afraid of writing anything bad about bigger companies or unions so that it wouldn’t affect of getting a job later. I guess in the future I will still be fighting with my ethics and how I think things should be, against taking the easy route and just work, work, work without any “higher purpose” …

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Nature is the oldest living thing on earth. Buildings can last way longer than a human being. There will always be life after me, you and humankind. When looking to the future, we build not only for ourselves and those around us but also for the others to come.

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Moving on from thinking of buildings as ”complete” on the day the construction is finished. They can and should be learned from and improved on. And buildings are nothing without the people who use them, and care for them.

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It was nice to end with a somewhat positive message - albeit provocatively challenging. The purpose of the architect is to ensure the quality of the built environment. As such, we need to act accordingly. The holistic sustainability is a requirement to reaching a good quality built environment.

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In our architect office we have talked how important is to collect feedback about the building from users both during the building process and after that. This tells a lot of users needs and helps to prevent repeating same mistakes.

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Arrogance and excuses do not help anybody. We have to look back learn from our mistakes to become better professionals.

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We all have our responsibility as (future) architects, but also as consumers.

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We need to be brave but very careful how brave.

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The title says it clearly; "what happens next matters". About to be taking my own steps in the practical world of work rather soon, what I wish for my own career as well as for the future of our planet is that we, as humans living our everyday life and architects designing for the future, will find our way to mitigate the challenges and meet the goals of sustainable development. It is not done overnight, but requires questioning and development of practices and understandings, trials and errors, dreams and visions. On my part, I pledge to contribute to creating a better and more sustainable world; not requiring perfection but honoring a promise to do my best!

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Designing today, we are designing the future. We need to remember all the time that buildings lifespan is at least 50 years. To design sustainably we need to consider this time at least in a twice multiplier.

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Its about learning the fact that the buildings we design are our responsibility until the end.

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Sometimes I wonder what did Reima and Raili Pietilä think when they designed the beautiful glass dome of the Metso Library. Often it happens when I sit at the café on the second floor and inspect the trickling bird feces that almost blend in with the clouds floating behind the transparent surface.

Luckily this example is one of the least harmful ones. I do think that in this case the arching ceiling with natural light filling the space also balances out the defects of the bird poo. Still, there are countless examples of architects’ ignorance and egoism leading to really inconvenient and detrimental results.

No ought from is – or in this case:

NOT EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE, SHOULD BE DONE

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In the end, this is merely the beginning

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In the end, this is merely the beginning

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It’s kind of ironic that modern people once thought we would experience the end of written history on the 21st century, i.e. that we would enter ”the happily ever after” phase of human history. If anything it feels like we’re still taking first steps to even figure out the basics in anything really. The tools we use may have evolved but we’re still figuring, for example, how to build houses. On some aspects, it feels like we’ve taken steps backwards – like how we no longer know how to live in harmony with nature, how to preserve resources for the future generations or how we’re creating huge amounts of waste. There really isn’t any excuse to think we’ve achieved an ideal world or are about to reach one. That goal is still far away. And we’re only at the beginning.

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I want to reflect on ‘sacrificial spaces/basement’ as it was and perhaps still is an approach used in buildings to avoid and escape bad living conditions by leaving the ground floor for parking, storage and so on. In Kosovo, this was what they did in buildings, except that first floor was also a place for keeping animals during winter. Later the society started to be involved in craftworks [https://www.ecmandryshe.org/repository/docs/PRIZRENI-VENDTAKIM_I_CIVILIZIMEVE_eng.pdf] and the ground floor started turning into workshops. The street state as well as street namings changed; urban areas were known of the crafts that were active in certain streets instead, like the blacksmith street (Farkëtarët), the saddler street (Saracët) etc. Now, however, things are quite different from the start and instead of learning from the past and the existing examples, the industry is still trying to replicate certain global trends of building. It means that for my home’s context, the social media and wrong placed admiration for luxury and aesthetics, decides on the new buildings rather than experience and research based knowledge which is a fundamental mistake. We happen to have skipped the part where we had to go back to these ways of living, evaluate their performance (both building performance and habitant experience) and then better them, working together with the users.

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Even though the construction methods are developing fast, still feels like the same mistakes are repeated over and over again. Learn from eachothers and share your knowledge.

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Aiming for holistic design decisions, learning from the outcomes and striving for even higher goals should be a discussion everyone has with themselves. Better sooner than later.

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We need learn from mistakes more efficiently. Feedback and openness are important tools for this.

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I live in a house built in the 60's. They have changed the windows and maintained the heaters to keep us warm. But it's not the windows leaking or batteries not working. It is the draft coming from between the seams of concrete elements between floor slabs and walls. Has it always been like this and can it be fixed?

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This is a picture I took when visiting the city I'm from. The now demolished school building was built under 20 years ago. Unfortunately this is not a rare sight. How could we change the attitude towards our built environment?

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It is astonishing to me how little we know about the ways that actually work. We are only (with the best of intentions) trying to solve a big scale issue with many small scale solutions (green walls, shared cars). I feel like we are stuck at that stage when people still thought that the earth was flat and the big realization is yet to discover.

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Some things haven't changed and some things never change. The realization of surrounding is what keeps us thinking critically. We have done it before and we are continuing to do so.

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We cannot control other people, the past, nor the future. What we can do is go back and learn from it.

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Going back and collecting feedback of the completed buildings is something that should be more common. In addition, hearing the user’s opinions also in the design phase is very fruitful. For me it has been very educational to get to interact with the users. Different people in different lines of work see the design from their perspective and they can tell us things we might be too busy to notice otherwise.

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Self-criticism should be practiced regularly.

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Self-criticism should be practiced regularly.

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An issue you encounter with creative endeavours is that people find it difficult to be self-critical and this manifests in at least two ways. The first reaction is defensiveness, you believe that anyone giving a critical opinion just doesn’t understand where you are coming from. The second is avoidance, you may recognise that something you did does not work in a desired way, but instead of going back you move on to the next project while trying not to think about it. But like we’ve seen with the course, instead of these we should see criticism as an opportunity to learn. The more regularly you reflect the less uncomfortable it gets and the more you acquire knowledge.

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Sustainability should not be an option but requirement. But also I believe that when things are made easy for people, they are more likely to do things a certain way. So sustainable choices should be made easy and clear in every step in the design project. And that is possible if we speak up and share our knowledge.

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Ville Radieuse (Le Corbusier) do not come true.

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Ville Radieuse (Le Corbusier) do not come true.

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In my city, many skyscrapers are being built quietly and neatly. But do we really need to respond to the influx of urban population and urban development and expansion through this extreme method?

This reminds me of Ville Radieuse of le conbusier. The tall skyscrapers are neatly arranged, leaving a lot of green area on the ground.

A large number of city planners were influenced by him, and the city became very similar. I hope that there can be more humane, more sustainable, and at the same time able to meet the rapid construction proposal generation instead of an appeal template.

Maybe we architects do not need to formulate a unified future development at all. What we need to do is to design a good building instead of thinking that the building can solve all problems.

link about Ville Radieuse (Le Corbusier) https://www.archdaily.com/411878/ad-classics-ville-radieuse-le-corbusier

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The lenses have provided a lot of new perspective. On other courses there's a little bits of information here and there, and a coherent knowledge about building sustainably is difficult to obtain. This course was a great start! I still feel I need to know more, and I'm a little worried to enter to the working world, where I need to have a voice through all the lenses.

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Architecture in general should be sustainable, there shouldn't be a division of the two. In the end, it is all about justice to nature and people.

https://9gag.com/gag/a9nD3Gm?ref

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One of the most important target we should have in future, I think, is written to The Hannover principles (McDonought & partners, 1992): 6. Eliminate the concept of waste.

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The course has been an interesting rollercoaster of emotions, understanding, ideas, anger, frustration, all of it. You know, human emotions. And one of my biggest takes from this course is in fact a reinforcement to an idea that emerged while doing my bachelors. It's all about the people. Its all about what people want to do, feel like they have to do, what people fear, what strengthens them. What people engage with stands time. What people do in their everyday life makes the change. What we buy, where we go, how we talk, all of that. Do we feel like we have resources to act. If we feel empowered, we can make a big change. It's always been the ideas, hope and non-violent actions that make an actual change.

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When architects re-design old buildings to "new"... what happens there? It is kind of a learning process for the designers. How to improve? How to maintain the original design and feeling?

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The lectures of this lens highlighted the importance of post-completion feedback. I think in order to be able to learn from existing projects, the whole building process has to change in Finland. Today, many projects are planned in a terrible hurry and once the building is completed, all are already working on the next project. Also, there isn't really a culture of building together but everyone is only doing their part of the task list. If the client isn't interested in tracking the performance, nothing happens, which in long run decreases the quality of our buildings.

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I agree with that we think the architects’ job is done when the buildings are built. We need to more look into how it is used and if the place is used as we planned or not. At the same time, i hope the simulation programs that consider the context help us to make a wise decision. It is really a time-consuming, money-consuming work to change the building after it’s constructed.