Watch our Robert Garland Treseder Lecture featuring Philippe Rahm.

Architecture and urbanism were traditionally based on climate and health, with exposure to wind, sun and variations in temperature and humidity influencing the forms of buildings and cities.

These fundamental aspects of urban planning and architecture were largely ignored in the second half of the 20th century due to the widespread use of fossil fuels, which contributed to the greenhouse effect and global warming.

The fight against climate change now compels architects and urban designers to seriously reconsider climatic factors in their designs, emphasising greater consideration of the local climate and energy resources.

In the face of climatic challenges, we propose resetting our discipline to focus on its intrinsic atmospheric qualities. Air, light, heat and humidity are real building materials – and convection, thermal conduction, evaporation, emissivity and effusivity should become design tools for shaping architecture and cities.

Through dialectical materialism, we can revolutionise aesthetic and social values.

About the speaker:

Principal of Philippe Rahm Architects, Paris, Swiss architect Philippe Rahm extends architecture from the physiological to the meteorological and has received international acclaim in the context of sustainability.

His recent work includes first prizes for the Farini competition in Milan (2019), a masterplan for a 62-hectare new district and 15-hectares park, and the 70-hectare Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan (2011), completed in 2020.

Rahm has held professorships at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and Columbia, where he is the Dean’s Visiting Associate Professor. He is a tenured associate professor at the National Superior School of Architecture in Versailles, France.

Rahm is the 2024 Treseder Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. This Fellowship enables artists, business innovators, designers, policy leaders, start-ups, architects and scholars dedicated to the development and promotion of design-based innovation to visit Melbourne.