2022-2026
Groundwork
Building Landscape Resilience Towards Biobased Construction
Summer Islam

Advisors: Prof. Dr. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard (ETH/ Arquitectura Agronomia)

Over a quarter of the construction industry's emissions derive from the manufacturing and building phase (United Nations Environmental Programme, 2021). At the same time, the industry’s material demand is at a high level and growing rapidly: tripling from 6.7 billion tons in 2000, it reached 17.5 billion tons in 2017, despite demand for building materials stabilizing in Europe and North America (Huang et al., 2020). RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTRIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTRIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIORIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTTGroundwork pursues an analysis of the feasibility of a decarbonised built environment which centres around the use of low emissions, biobased materials and components. 

The research focuses particularly on the impact of a biobased construction industry on the landscapes of northern Europe. Many biobased materials are manufactured from plants grown in forests or on agricultural land, either as primary crops or as secondary waste streams from food production. RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT Land is a finite resource, however, and the landscapes of Europe are subject to pressures from a number of industries, many of which, such as farming and forestry, are in direct conflict with one another. Failed economic initiatives and agricultural policies have fuelled environmental degradation, growing levels of social inequity, and competing views of the land and its use. Industrial monocultural agriculture, whilst offering a means of producing biobased materials at scale, is also increasingly contributing to biodiversity collapse. Agroecological farming is now advocated as a more sustainable means of producing food within biodiverse, and climate resilient landscapes. RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTRIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTRIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIORIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOT RIOTTGroundwork explores how agroecology, landscape regeneration and decarbonization can develop hand-in-hand. 

Low emissions materials will be studied through the lens of building envelopes, particularly insulation. Research focus will be plant fiber insulation products which already exist within the European market but experience limited growth, and are generally considered to be inherently risky, due to the absence of knowledge and skill within the industry, in addition to concerns around combustibility. This component stream will be explored through its impact on land use, biodiversity and rural economies, in contrast to existing, business-as-usual insulation products, such as stone wool insulation.

The goal of the thesis is to build evidence for, and demonstrate a means of, a transition to a biobased construction industry which can support our natural environment and local economies: to explore whether it is both possible and desirable, at a regional scale across Europe. The research addresses the most pressing questions around the contemporary built environment: the tension between our landscapes and sites on which we build, and the conditions in the fields, forests, quarries and factories that we draw materials and products from to do so.

Image Credits:
|1| La Science et la Vie, 1921. photographie restaurée par Topophile

|2| Wheatfield with Agnes Denes standing in the field. Wheatfield — a Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, downtown Manhattan. Copyright 1982 Agnes Denes.