Architectures of the People Putting economic and climate justice at the center of the construction sector’s future

In 1980 the African architect Hassan Fathy made a speech in which he said that “…according to U.N. statistics, 20 years ago there were 800 million people in the Third World doomed to a premature death because of bad housing alone, not to mention nutrition and other needs. I thought that this figure must have surpassed the billion by now. But they tell me it is “only” 900 million.”

Fathy would have been dismayed that the latest global estimates suggest that 3.4 billion people do not have adequate, safe, or secure housing, and there was a shortfall of 288 million houses in 2023, up from 251 million in 2010. 45 years from Fathy’s speech, the housing crisis is further compounded by the climate crisis. The construction sector is responsible for an estimated 37% of global operational energy-related and process-related carbon emissions.  The building sector is also responsible for extracting 50% of the world's materials, giving it the largest material footprint of any sector. If current construction methods remain, they are estimated to double global raw material usage by 2060.

Figure 1: Global share of buildings and construction operational and process CO2 emissions, 2021

In that same speech, Fathy reminds us “…that the value of any project, any idea, lies in the answer to the question: is it for people or for politics, economics, etc?”. When architecture and planning is understood this way, it becomes a site of social engagement, rather than only about the built practice.  Architectures of the People, a research collaboration between Economic & Climate Lab and Think-Tank (ECLAT) and Fundación Organizmo, was developed to show what is possible. Our first project was to develop a public policy primer on ways to integrate green industrial policy and the built environment.

As the world  reckons with a deepening climate crisis, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has come into sharp focus. LAC holds 50% of the world’s biodiversity and has lost more than 2,400 km2 of natural protected areas due to urban growth.  For this reason ECLAT and Fundación Organizmo chose to focus on LAC and Colombia in particular, as its historical planning and building policies have had a substantial erosive impact on rural areas. This is of particular concern given that the country's rural regions are home to 15% of the world's biodiversity. To ground the primer, we adopted a pilot project approach that could be scaled up nationally at a later stage. We centred our efforts on Usme and Sumapaz, two localities in the Capital District of Bogotá that encompass both rural and peri-urban terrain, have been adversely affected by the climate crisis, and have vibrant community-centred construction and territorial stewardship practices.

Figure 2: Map of the localities of Usme and Sumapaz (Created for Architectures of the People using base data from Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi and the Government of Colombia and Infraestructura de Datos Espaciales para el Distrito Capital) 

Despite its national focus, the research approach and analysis in the policy primer can be applied to many contexts in the Global South where issues of spatial equity, the built environment, rural and urban land use, industrial policy and ecological regeneration converge. Our project believes that it is crucial that governments in the Global South prioritise the built environment in their industrial policy frameworks during the green transition. A process that restructures production and consumption, as well as the infrastructure that supports them, can reduce ecological damage, shift power to workers, effect structural economic transformation, and democratise resource control. In Colombia, we therefore convened  architects, planners, economists, workers, climate policy specialists and community knowledge holders to explore public policy pathways that could support the development of a new architectural paradigm, with a particular focus on rural development and improving communities' material conditions. 

Together, we created a policy primer that combines macro political economy interventions with place-based and community-led practices. It also  integrates cooperative economics, public and participatory governance, and architecture and planning education adapted to rural realities. This meant developing climate policy that aligns with territorial sovereignty and the expert knowledge of campesino, Afrodescendant, and Indigenous communities on issues such as territorial planning, construction, and ecological regeneration. 

Concretely, we propose mechanisms like a Territorial Planning and Community Governance Committee that could function as a permanent decision-making space for coordinating decisions on ecosystem restoration, secure tenure for rural communities, resettlement mechanisms that prioritise proximity, risk management, and the protection of the páramo, a key ecological ecosystem.  The Committee, made up of policymakers, rural organisations and community representatives, would link climate mitigation and adaptation, spatial planning, housing policy, river basins and protected areas management with public participation mechanisms that are currently operating in siloed channels. For example, the Committee could create a prioritisation criterion to inform decisions on housing development, risk management, environmental restoration and broader rural development initiatives. Alternatively, it could initiate and oversee the development of territorially and culturally adapted rural housing, understood as housing solutions that incorporate the relationship between housing, rural livelihoods, water sources, land, community networks, and ecological care.

We also suggest creating a Centre for Rural Architecture which would teach territorially rooted planning, design, and architecture. The Centre would also facilitate South-South learning exchanges and experiment with regenerative building solutions, bringing together communities, builders and built environment practitioners across the Global South. 

Additionally, the policy framework aims to support green worker-owner structures, like cooperatives, operating in the construction industry through a multi-tiered process, with the intention to strengthen labour’s bargaining power. This includes a re-skilling programme that provides training in sustainable materials and low-impact construction systems for those currently employed in carbon-intensive sectors. To ensure employment for these workers, the primer also seeks to leverage the state's purchasing power through public procurement targets and fiscal and monetary policy incentives to develop cooperatives and green construction. This would provide critical support to a nascent sustainable building industry by creating more stable demand and providing low cost and patient capital, helping to scale local production and thus reducing costs over time.

Figure 3: Overview of the Architectures of the People public policy pathways.

Given the shifting political tides in the Global South, Colombia included, the principles which anchor the policy primer –  material sovereignty, defence of the commons, local economies rooted in sustainability, reciprocity and autonomy, and care frameworks which protect from displacement, privatization, and violence – are becoming ever more urgent. In a world where transition is synonymous with volatility, how can the Global South turn the opening for a green transition into a green and just transformation? The proposals we put forward for the built environment hinge on coordinated, cross-sectoral social movements and public policies that simultaneously contribute to reduce emissions, expand architectural and planning education frameworks, protect strategic ecosystems, ensure secure tenure and dignified work for communities, and build sustainable, cooperative economies. This has the possibility to create enduring structures of change that may outlast political tides and shifts.

Read Architectures of the People / Arquitecturas del Pueblo