EMERGENCY WHY
SCOTLAND’S homes are set to be at the forefront of our efforts to save the planet. Our living spaces could be transformed into cheaper, idyllic and local places with a built-in resilience to climate change.
Scotland, like all first world countries, is plundering our planet’s resources and, if everyone across the globe lived as we do, it would take three planets to sustain us.
A report from Architect and Design Scotland (ADS) says we have to rethink our buildings and communities by creating self-sufficient, carbon conscious “15 minute neighbourhoods”, while our rural areas would become the “green lungs of Scotland”, helping balance the country’s overall carbon emissions.
These would give people access to their daily needs like shops, within a 15-minute walk from home, and there would be safe cycling and local transport connections nearby.
Architect Heather Claridge of ADS said the report looks at what 2050 could look like if we take the places we already have and make them better.
She said: “We are only going to see increases of climate change, so inaction is going to cost us. We are saying we can live better than we do now in climate-adapted places.”
Reinvented environmentally friendly neighbourhoods would complement each other and transform whole regions.
Heather said: “The neighbourhoods work together to balance the carbon emitted and absorbed. This would help achieve a net zero carbon society and generate mutual benefits such as cleaner air, more resilient neighbourhoods, strong local economies and healthier environments for people and nature.”
Making shops and businesses
more local would also create jobs. The report commissioned by the Scottish Government looked at pilot projects in urban and rural areas such as Shetland Islands Council, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, Glasgow, Moray and Elgin.
It is estimated we will have 80 per cent of the same buildings by 2050, so instead of demolishing them, even structures like tower blocks could be retrofitted or used as “material banks”.
Here, we show you some of the report’s architectural visions of the future.