These Two Pills made Architects Limitless

No.061 — Read old posts on Tinyfarmlab.com
Reading Time 4 minutes

A century ago, our skyline was modest,
constrained by the limits of materials and engineering.

Thick load-bearing walls.
Complex arch forms.
Smaller windows.
Buttresses.

Then, came two materials that changed the world of architecture forever:
Concrete and Steel.

Portland cement was patented as a form of “artificial stone” in 1824 by Joseph Aspdin in Leeds.

It joined forces with steel rods or mesh to create reinforced concrete.

These two pills made architects limitless.

Suddenly, architects had a license to build EXTREMELY TALL AND EXTREMELY WIDE.

With these powers, we could tame nature.

Concrete is a material with remarkable potential.
It is a substance without inherent form, capable of becoming anything we envision.

Steel’s tensile power allowed us to make skyscrapers, bridges, and vast spans, that symbolize human achievement.

These very qualities seduced architects and designers,
who yearned for freedom,
to mold structures as they saw fit.

Without a doubt, these materials pushed boundaries and created spaces that soared and curved with artistic precision.

After the world war, the brutalist architects followed by modern architects poured rivers of concrete into our cityscapes.

These two materials became the foundation of modern life.

This material bound politicians, bureaucrats, lawmakers, and construction companies, resulting in a strong nexus, a lobby.

We started building too fast,
too much, and,
too recklessly.

We used these materials so extensively that concrete is now the most widely used substance on Earth, after water. Some believe it has become the most destructive material on the planet.

Concrete sucks up almost a 10th of the world’s industrial water use.
It outweighs the combined carbon mass of every tree, bush, and shrub on the planet.
The construction industry is the largest carbon-emitting industry.

Concrete shelters us from nature, keeping us dry, warm, and clean.
But in doing so, it seals off the fertile ground,
blocks rivers, disrupts wildlife and creates a hard shell that separates us from the natural world.

In our misguided efforts to reach the sky,
We killed the natural environment.
Built an ecological debt.
Created sterile environments devoid of emotional depth.

You can only resist and tame nature up to a certain point.
Beyond that nature pushes back. Countless hurricanes and floods are examples of nature reclaiming itself.

We agree that concrete is a revolutionary material.
But we need to rethink how much and where to use it.

As Anna Heringer says, “Less concrete, More Earth.”

As architects, builders, and creators, we must move beyond the illusion of limitless power. There is profound freedom in building with humility,
with an acceptance of the limits of nature.

The future is not about transcending physical limits,
but about embracing boundaries that honor our planet.

This calls for a new era of architecture,
one where we turn to biobased materials,
explore passive design techniques,
and revive ancient building methods that work in harmony with nature.

We’d like to end this post by remembering the words of Ed Abbey,
“ Concrete is heavy and steel is hard, but the grass will prevail. “

Love,
Raghav and Ansh

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What you can watch -  Anna Heringer Interview: Leave No Waste, But Knowledge

“ Less concrete, more earth – we can’t continue to build like we do.
Here in Germany I figured out that the cheapest solution always is the least sustainable, while in Bangladesh the cheapest solution also is the most sustainable. ”

What you can listen to - Concrete: A Ticking Time Bomb. Can We Fix It?

This video talks about the dark secrets of concrete.

What You Can Read - The cities stripping out concrete for earth and plants

From Australia to Ontario, cities are taking up unnecessary stretches of concrete and asphalt, allowing nature to take hold in their place. Read why.

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