How does FADAA's practice integrate sustainable development principles into the initial stages of design, ensuring that each project contributes positively to both the environment and the community?
We cannot afford not to have the environment as the starting point of every project. When approaching each project, we examine how we can enrich culture, advance sustainability, and empower communities through our design. Those three elements help guide us through the process, and when those elements are drivers of the design process, then their impact can be meaningful.
Materials possess inherent power, and with power comes the duty of responsibility. While material choices seem surface-level, in reality, each material choice has a backstory to it. Was this material mined using energy-intensive machinery? Does it need to be fired? Does it need to be transported thousands of kilometers? Is this material renewable? Is it harmful for the people creating it? How will it empower the people who are creating it and building the architecture? These are just some of the many questions we ask ourselves before the first sketch. As an office, we have an open dialogue and brainstorming session before beginning each project and begin to discuss our approach.
On a large-scale master plan that we’re currently working on, we approached it by looking at the resources we have available on-site and in close proximity to it, and how we can use them to influence the architecture.
As we were investigating the site, we realised that we could use the different types of stone available for structural purposes. In the modern era, stone has been reduced to only a thin veneer that hides concrete carbon-intensive building buildings. In this project, we are trying to challenge this and study the potential role that stone could play structurally. By looking at ecology and culture initially, we can have an architecture that is reflective of its culture and one that is sustainable.
FADAA's practice expresses a dedication to reimagining the relationship between architecture, culture, and the environment. Could you elaborate on a project that has significantly enriched this relationship?
Throughout architectural theory, being responsive to the context was heavily emphasised. In FADAA's practice, we instead try to flip it and begin to imagine how we can take an active role, rather than a responsive one. We began our research for the Aqaba project by investigating the ecology of the site, and material and labor networks and imagining how we can utilise them to enrich the cultural value of Aqaba in Jordan through circular economies and sustainable design.
During our research for the Decoration One Aqaba Project, we realised the potential that seafood waste has, in particular, seaweed, oysters, and mussels. Oysters and mussels are high in calcium, much like cement, so in their powder state, they can replace cement, and when they’re crushed to the size of pebbles, they have high compressive strength to use as aggregate.
Since the project was in Aqaba - the only coastal city in Jordan - we began collaborating with restaurants in the area to give us their seafood waste, and after we gathered enough and readied our mixture, we collaborated with concrete masons to cast the bricks.
We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel with the concrete factories, instead of using their mold, we gave them ours, and instead of a typical concrete mixture, we provided them with ours. Using existing methods of production meant that our new sustainable sea brick was manufactured very easily and quickly.
Our seabrick and its potential to be introduced into mainstream construction easily means it could play a role in creating a new vernacular, one that uses renewable and low embodied carbon materials, empowers local labor, responsive to the environment, and develops traditions.
We are currently working and researching numerous materials and their potential uses, from low embodied carbon materials to waste products, and they’re opening up new opportunities not only for us and the built environment but the large labor network that could benefit from using those materials and creating new sustainable processes.
Architecture has the power to build bridges between diverse groups. Can you provide an instance where FADAA's work facilitated new relationships or collaborations between communities or cultures?
The intertwining of culture and the environment is a deeply rooted aspect of human civilisation, they have been so for as long as humans have existed. Modernity to a certain extent has shielded us in bubbles, isolated us, and begun to globalise architects to create homogenous environments, and thus cultures. We are attempting to reverse this global phenomenon and rather embrace the environment and culture, architecture then comes naturally from this relationship.
Our Earth Chair is reflective of our approach to design where we always try to think about each project in a larger context, what effect our material and formal choices have on people, ecology, and the labor network, regardless of the scale of the project.
We believe that architecture can be a catalyst for that if we start to look at it from multiple perspectives such as policy, material innovation, ecology, anthropology, and many more. As architects, we need to understand the repercussions of our architecture and its entanglements with the many different actors that make this life.
While we were researching earthen materials and processes for our Earth Chair, we visited communities in the north of Jordan and studied their methods of construction using Earth. As we dug deeper into the project, we discovered that while their soil was incredibly rich and could be used for construction, their methods wouldn't be appropriate for our design. We decided then to collaborate with an Egyptian community who had an idea of how we could construct our design.
The cross-collaboration between the different communities and the knowledge that each group was able to bring to the table was an immense success and allowed us to exhibit the project at Amman Design Week. While Earthen materials have a reputation for being limited in what it can do, it is far from that. The potential that Earthen materials have is immense, and we are currently working on research that attempts to introduce Earthen Materials into mainstream construction.
Considering the global scope of your impact, how does FADAA's practice adapt its approach to sustainable and culturally responsive design in different geographical and cultural contexts?
In navigating the diverse geographical and cultural contexts inherent to our practice, we adopt a nuanced approach to sustainable and culturally responsive design that underscores the significance of locality, tradition, and environmental justice.
In other words, research, research, research. Collaborating with the community we are working with, and investigating the ecology, labor networks, and culture enables us to provide a new perspective and understanding of the context before a pen is put to paper. The world is ever more connected now and despite the reduction of cultures globally, there still remain unique cultures and ecologies in every part of the world, and we aim to highlight and aid in the growth of these networks.
Grounded in an ethos of contextual sensitivity, our methodology encompasses a rigorous engagement with local communities, indigenous knowledge systems, and ecological dynamics. Through this integrative lens, we endeavor to synthesise both indigenous methods and materials, as well as innovate these processes to address contemporary challenges.
Embracing adaptive strategies that are sensitive to climatic, socio-cultural, and economic imperatives, our practice seeks to foster holistic design solutions that resonate with the unique identity of each locale while addressing global imperatives of ecological resilience and cultural development.
Looking to the future, how do you see the role of architecture evolving in response to the increasing urgency of social and environmental issues, and what new directions is FADAA's practice exploring to address these challenges?
The built environment is responsible for 40% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Earth. Climate justice is a mission that operates along socio-political, material, and cultural parameters.
As we face an existential threat, it is imperative that we approach architecture through the lens of climate. While the world has been moving towards environmental sustainability, we still have a long path ahead of us to ensure we meet our climate goals and achieve environmental justice.
The optimist in me imagines a world that generates its energy solely from renewable sources, people living in healthy cities, circular models with minimal waste, and a just equitable world. As stewards of the built environment, architects are increasingly tasked with catalysing systemic change and fostering resilience in the face of multifaceted challenges. In response, our practice is committed to pioneering innovative approaches that transcend conventional boundaries, embracing principles of biophilia, circularity, and social equity as guiding tenets.
I believe that by looking at architecture through the lens of climate, we are forced to disrupt and reimagine existing modes of design and construction. By doing so, and addressing one of the root issues of architecture and climate, we are forced to look at materials, which in themselves take a large percentage of our 40% footprint.
Materials and the carbon that is embodied in them have both an environmental and cultural role. The concept of embodied energy is valuable, but it can be even more useful if it considers the cultural significance and effort invested in buildings, not just raw energy consumption.
While embodied energy helps analyse the environmental and political impact of construction, it can also redefine what architecture means. Ironically, for a new sustainable architecture to succeed, it needs to challenge the idea of architecture as a static form with clear boundaries.
