Purposeful Charge
How can we do the least environmental damage when we build? Web Structures’ Founder and Director Dr Hossein Rezai shares his thoughts on the design industry’s need to advocate sustainable design and building that will reduce waste, carbon footprint and da
Engineer extraordinaire, design visionary, educator and the Founder and Director of multi-disciplinary firm Web Structures, Dr Hossein Rezai is the initiator of the concept of ‘Fusion Engineering’ – a philosophy that reconciles the agendas of good design with cost efficiency. Iran-born and London-trained, he has been based in Singapore since 1991 and is the only engineer to receive the prestigious Designer of the Year accolade in Singapore’s President’s Design Award program (2016).
More than 23 years of practice and research help Dr Rezai realise a host of gravity-defying structures across 26 countries. As a frequent collaborator with many of the world’s top architects, he works on a roster of projects where the disciplines of architecture and engineering are inextricably and poetically fused. But his current preoccupation is a return to some sobering earth-bound realities. With characteristic eloquence and renaissance scope, he articulates how the perspectives and actions of the design industry must change in the face of the current global climate emergency.
“My higher purpose currently, my entire preoccupation and apprehension, is for the climate and biodiversity. Anything I can do to avert the current destructive trend, through any project, any initiative, I’ll be more than happy to take part in,” he says. “For us, environment is paramount. But how do we deal with that, if we can’t not build? The minute we build, we have carbon footprint and we damage. So the idea is we damage less by harnessing technology.”
Environment and technology are two sides of the same coin for Web Structures. “In our case, technology is parametric, advanced computational design and biomimicry, understanding the ways of Mother Nature, and then empowering our processes in order to mimic nature,” he explains. The outcome of such an approach is structural designs that are lean to the extent that contractors have approached the firm to review other engineers’ works in order to be competitive in pricing.
“We’re also actively engaged with research on materials, but the direction we’re looking at is, like nature, coming up with materials and processes that don’t have any waste,” he says. Dr Rezai’s research into alternative materials with an inherent circular loop includes studies on mass-engineered timber (MET) with NUS, and collaborations with the Singapore-ETH Centre on mycelium and bamboo composites (the latter also with Widuz). With NUS, a pavilion designed using patented Cloud Arch was built as part of Archifest in 2014.
He is astute about who can make the greatest possible difference to the task of preserving the environment. “Everyone cares about the environment, but there are different ‘cares’. There are people who care but are not equipped to do anything about it beyond knowledgeable concern. The next level is those who advocate, talk about it and spread the word. And then the next step would be physically doing something about it – changing your own lifestyle, so maybe you stop eating beef, or you stop using concrete.”
“And then,” he continues, “there are those who go and try to influence people with higher powers, influencing the judiciary and policy makers – who are most important. You should legislate against damaging the environment, rather than the opposite, which is incentivising... Because you’re not paying for the damage, but the planet is.”
With the enormity of the challenges ahead, Dr Rezai is hopeful that Singapore can adopt the Living Building Challenge certification system, encompassing the world’s most stringent criteria for the built environment. “Back in the ’80s, people were talking about a three-degree rise in atmospheric temperature compared to the
1880s as a calamity, the end of the world. We’ve had one degree so far. From today, if we design and build all our buildings to Green Mark Platinum level, by the end of 2100 – this century – we’ll still get 2.5 degrees more. Our best bet now used to be our worst-case scenario. This won’t cut it.”
“If every building cell could produce its own energy, which is possible with current technology, then why not?” he asks. “And sometimes, produce even more, so every building is a mini-power station for streetlights and other things.”
Web Structures’ current work in Singapore includes megaprojects such as the New Science Centre by Zaha Hadid and Architects 61, and the SIT Campus by WOHA. “One of the things we’ve always tried to have is purpose in our work. At the most basic level, our structures are in the service of architecture. We have absolutely no qualms about that… But architecture should also be in the service of a higher purpose – the environment, biodiversity, the betterment of life for people, attributing to equity, and of course, dealing with waste.”
“Our best bet now used to be our worst-case scenario. This won’t cut it.”
Dr Hossein Rezai