ETH Global Lecture Series: No Time to Waste
27 May 2021 - Online Event - Sage Lenier, lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and Philippe Block, professor at ETH Zurich, discuss the topic of sustainability from their own research perspectives and how they would tackle societal and architectural challenges.
It is time to move from discussion to action when it comes to the climate crises. There are many ways to do this, and each is to be celebrated and encouraged. How do we move a conservative industry? How do we capture the hearts and minds of the next generations? What are some of the actions we need to take? It’s time to move from talking the talk, to walking the walk.
The negative impact of the construction industry on the environment is huge, due to large volumes of primary and secondary greenhouse gas emissions and waste through inefficiencies of all kinds. This sector is very risk-averse, so the adoption of new technologies is slow and all too often, even tedious. Yet, change needs to happen. Urbanization requires more and more buildings that are also more efficient than ever, challenging the industry to provide sustainable solutions that can be implemented across the world.
Solutions-oriented approaches are also at the crux of what needs to happen in the global movement to curb climate change. Creating a society with a circular mindset means helping all of us consumers understand the power we hold as determinants of purchases and as global citizens. Thus, education needs not only to focus on understanding the problems created by climate change, but it needs to empower young people to actively contribute to the shift to a circular economy.
In this dialogue, we will ask two experts with different backgrounds working in different fields how they each tackle the same question: when good ideas are no longer enough, how do you create meaningful impact and implement change? By comparing and contrasting the cultures of innovation and adaptation in Zurich and California, our speakers examine how to incrementally scale solutions that work, and consider how change can be accelerated.
Free public online event
Moderated by Chris Luebkeman, ETH Zurich
Thursday, 27 May 2021
20.00 - 21.00 Zurich (CEST)
Sage Lenier is a 22-year-old educator who has been teaching and organizing in the environmental sphere for four years. She began as an undergraduate at Berkeley teaching to her peers and her course, Solutions for a Sustainable & Just Future, has now been taught to over 1,000 people. She is currently teaching with Zero Waste USA and working on turning her curriculum into a book.
Dr. Philippe Block is Full Professor at the Institute of Technology in Architecture at ETH Zurich, where he directs the Block Research Group (BRG) together with Dr. Tom Van Mele. Philippe is also the Director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Digital Fabrication. Philippe studied architecture and structural engineering at the VUB in Belgium and MIT in the US. Following the motto “strength through geometry”, the BRG applies research into practice on the design and engineering of novel shell structures, developing computational structural design strategies utilising digital fabrication and pushing construction innovation to address the grand challenges posed by climate change.