Things We Build

One of the hallmarks of civilisation is building things. We build things and we grow things. Since our ancestors first settled to farm and live, the signs of our advance as a species can be traced through the things we have built – our homes, our roads, our viaducts, our plazas and squares; our high-speed rail lines and 5G networks and sewers and our great galleries, libraries and towers.

We can see the stories of civilisation traced in the dust and the rubble of Aleppo – our oldest city; and in the lights and sparkle of Tokyo, our biggest. And now, for the first time in history, as digital technology injects exponential change into our cities, what we build is shaping the planetary systems on which we rely – the climate system, the oceans and the ecosystems that support Life.

Our built world is changing fast, and that change is accelerating. What it changes to will determine the success of our species.

A question I have grappled with is that when the things you design determine the fate of the world, what is the role that engineers, thinkers and advisors should play in shaping them?

Who do we serve?

How do we make decisions and decide priorities?

I suppose ultimately I have been trying to answer: “are we culpable?”.

And the only conclusion I can come to is that in our industry at this junction of history, we have unprecedented leverage, the power even, to meaningfully shape the Things We Build to support the systems that support life. There are things we must start doing, things we must do better and things we must cease to do at all. The challenges for the built environment have never been bigger, the importance of high quality, innovative and creative design never more urgent and the opportunity to truly shape a world that works, never greater.

The responsibility to do better is ours. In the words of John E. Lewis: If not us, then who; if not now, then when?

This has led me to consider how a professional and design services community can materially addresses the social and environmental challenges facing humanity through the built environment.

What might such a community look like and who might it serve?

What is its purpose?

I remember when choosing the engineering path, how the concept of professionalism was brought to the forefront of my mind. Not just delivering to a brief, but accepting a duty of care to society – a custodial responsibility that transcended the transactional relationship of service-provider and client.

I believe that at the core of this professionalism, in this place and at this time, should be the public interest – a recognition of the leverage we have as designers to put a liveable future world at the centre of our ambitions.

I believe we need an industry that can consider public interest issues as a priority as well as the needs of shareholders, clients and staff and invest in the thinking and innovation to change trajectory. An industry that is committed to collaboration over transaction.

To build an industry like this, we must draw long lines of logic, choosing to deliver shared value over time and have the courage to set a bold vision for a better future and the determination to pursue that vision with every ounce of grit and creativity we possess.