Why we are interested in Venezuela

If there is one country that could offer a good glimpse into what the future might look like, that is Venezuela. We consider Chavez-led country to be witnessing the consequences of planning failures compounded by climate change, while social tensions are generated by a polarization of wealth.

The country has been experiencing one of the longest droughts which has contracted its hydroelectric capacity responsible for about 70% of its energy needs.” The management of electricity has been addressed by taking too many risks, making too many demands on the system and betting on rain” said Miguel Lara, former director of Caracas-based Office of Interconnected Systems Operation. Consequently the country is now plagued by constant blackouts. Electricity demand has increased by 38 percent since 2003 to an average of 14,100 megawatts (MW) in 2009 after the country enjoyed five years of high oil prices and consequent economic growth. The heatwave that is currently striking the country has simply increased energy consumption even further.

For us, Venezuela is the perfect experimental ground to develop an architecture that responds to the economical, environmental and social challenges we will face in the “teenies“. Since buildings are responsible for about a third of overall energy consumption, whose spin is creating social tensions in the country, architects need to be “part of the solution”.

Caracas could be, with the adequate political will, the metropolis of the future.

A cold shower

The British government has committed to cutting the country’s carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, both relative to 1990 levels but a group of experts has warned that this will be “physically impossible”.

Quite a slap in the face and a worrying prospect. To address the problem they suggest a “war time” mentality is needed. More and more is clear that the solution to the climate problem does not rely only in the implementation of renewables, but first of all in cutting our addiction to energy consumption. More and more it is clear that efficiency is the key. The construction industry is warned: large part of the solution lies in their hands, they need to be part of the solution. Otherwise we’d better get used to cold showers.

French revolution

Mr Ghosn’s fervour is missionary. He argues that with the world facing an unprecedented environmental crisis “those of us who make cars need to be part of the solution” and become “pioneers of sustainable mobility”

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Mitigation vs. Adaptation

A link to the recently published Climate Adaptation Strategy by the state of California.

The challenge of Munich

The city of Munich has decided to source all its energy from renewable sources starting from 2015.  Many low carbon cities are being built around the world in these years and many towns and villages are transforming their energy systems, but Munich is the first major city and economic powerhouse  to aim at this. The challenge is to design an energy mix that not only will be “clean” but will also allow energy prices to be competitive so that the economy of the city will not falter. If they are successful, it will be a major breakthrough and would give Germany (and Europe) a strategic advantage in the phase of adaptation to the effects of climate change. But key to the success though, is reducing the energy dependency of the city itself. Our contemporary cities are very wasteful machines, the era of cheap energy introduced by the use of fossil fuels has led to the creation of cities and buildings that are morphologically inefficient. Saving energy is cheaper and easier than producing it, that’s where the real challenge lies if large urban areas want to succeed in transforming their energy strategies. Form, orientation and exposure of cities and buildings affect deeply the amount of energy they use and it is there where the real gains can be found as they are also the cheapest systems and devices that can be implemented. The work we have done in the last three years with our team at Foster+Partners has revolved around un-tapping the creative potentials of such systems and has triggered our imagination.