At the end of my last post I talked about the importance of reducing the carbon imprint of construction.
I have recently read an interesting article about serious attempts to improve the cement industry, a notorious contributor to global warming. This involves investment in expensive carbon-capture technology, which will only pay off if there is sufficient demand from the construction industry for ‘green’ cement and its by-products.
New technology has always been a challenge for those who design and construct buildings. It costs time and money to explore new, untried approaches, compared to sticking with what you already know. However, the benefits for those who are prepared to take a risk can be immense. Equally, those who fail to modernise can suddenly find themselves going bust, left behind by the innovators.
So deciding how far we can go in construction is a bit of balancing act between adventure and safety. Too much of the former and there may be a user backlash, too much of the latter and we may all suffer from knock-on consequences.
Such choices have been faced by past societies, which is why history can be a useful tool for analysing our modern-day problems and reflecting on future-oriented solutions. I could have said ‘future-proof’ solutions; but, as with the term ‘fireproof’ used inaccurately by the first inventors of reinforced concrete systems over a century ago to describe a key benefit of their product, it helps to use precise language when describing novel technical approaches.
Future-oriented solutions might include for example using new building techniques that combine natural and synthetic biomaterials. Or they could produce inhabitable structures suited to extremely hostile environments, such as the NASA-supported Lina project which is planning to construct on the Moon.
