EDITOR’S LETTER

OVER THE COURSE OF 2018, THERE HAVE BEEN MANY THINGS IN AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE THAT HAVE BOTH EXCITED AS WELL AS SURPRISED ME, NOT LEAST OF WHICH IS THE INDUSTRY’S NEAR-UNIVERSAL ADOPTION OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN AND BUILDING TECHNIQUES.

Whilst this is still a work in progress and will be for many firms, a lifelong journey, the fact remains that it is industry (along with the general public) that has embraced the concept of living and working within our ecological means much more so than our current political elite.

This is both an inspiration to the nation as well as a sad indictment of the moral vacuum this country’s leaders have put themselves in.

As was written in the Sydney Morning Herald last September: ‘The Coalition has shown it cannot deliver on its claims to address the three main objectives of reducing prices, improving reliability and reducing emissions. It delivers a leadership crisis instead. That means the Coalition’s policy on emissions is a question mark and the reliability challenge in limbo, awaiting decisions by the states on what used to be called the National Energy Guarantee. For now, the government policy is lost in space. A royal commission is not enough to fill the vacuum.’

While carbon emissions are just one component of the sustainability debate, this lack of government will that is being translated into a lack of official action could have found itself easily replicated in the architecture, building, construction and design sectors, were it not for the forwardthinkers in this industry.

One only has to look at what is happening with concepts such as Nightingale, or the designs of new and upcoming firms along with the sustainability push by the various built environment industry bodies like ASBEC, marque projects such as the EY Centre at Barangaroo or the massive uptake in solar to see it’s the industry that is filling the leadership vacuum which has been created by Australia’s political class.

What will this year, 2019 bring? Well, while punditry is a science that is closest to astrology in its unscientific quackery, I think that I am on safe ground if I predict that sustainable design will now become the rule rather than the exception.

I know this will hold true because not only is the industry acting like adults, but also the financial numbers are starting to turn very much in favour of sustainablydesigned houses, buildings and other facilities.

So when the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, as Scottish philosopher Adam Smith put it, starts to influence the outcome, the recalcitrant laggards in the ruling class will surely follow.