Whole Life Approach to Architecture

Architecture is about more than just good-looking buildings - the built environment is also a series of time-based processes with environmental impacts at every stage.  We have developed the diagram above as a tool for thinking about architecture as a 'life cycle' - in which the building is a temporary condition at the apex of the flow of materials and energy over time. 

At its apex is 'the building' as an artefact, a formal and spatial composition for human inhabitation; underneath this, at both ends of the lifespan of the building, are a series of time-based material processes through which the built environment is made and unmade; and in turn, underneath these human systems is the Earth system, the foundations of everything we make and build.

In order to engage architects, clients and society at large with issues of environmental 'sustainability' in construction, we believe it is important that this whole life approach is expressed in the buildings we make - so that ‘Form Follows Life Cycle’.