I was asked to do a keynote that addressed the theme of Disruption for the 17th Built Environment Conference. Some of the points and examples shared are outlined below.

Change and Disruption

A prevalent characteristic of modern life is change and disruption. Change and disruption may be intentional and designed, such as the implementation of new strategies and policies and large-scale construction. It may also be imposed and unanticipated, such as floods and fires.

Factors feeding the increasing rates of change include climate change, resource depletion, population growth and migration, technology development, new business models, changing policies and economic growth and downturns. These factors are intensifying.

International frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and national plans such as the National Development Plan aim to direct change to achieve particular goals such as sustainability, economic growth and job creation. These plans are failing and many sustainability goals and targets are unlikely to be achieved.

What is the role of disruption in this failure? What should be the response to disruption? How can disruption be used for positive change?

Disruption and Regeneration

The first thing is to understand that what happens during and immediately after a disruption is important for whether there will be an improvement or a worsening situation.

This can be illustrated through an example of a fire. In nature, intense fires can eliminate vegetation from a site. If there is sufficient fertility, seeds and rain, vegetation can regrow and ecosystems can be regenerated. Where climate or other aspects have changed, the resulting vegetation may also change and be more suitable for new conditions. If there is insufficient fertility, seeds and water, and inhospitable conditions plants may struggle to grow. This may result in erosion, a loss of fertility and reduced organisms and fungi. Over time, a breakdown of systems may occur leading to conditions which do not support life such as desertification.

Thus, an understanding of sustainable systems can be used to put in place the appropriate conditions required for the development or regeneration of these systems after a disruption. It may be possible to use disruptions to accelerate beneficial change. Some examples are provided next.

Regeneration Through Disruption

COVID-19

The pandemic led to radical changes in the way live and work. It showed that up to 20% reductions in carbon emissions could be achieved in a very short space of time under emergency conditions. As a result, urban design approaches are being rethought. Cities such as Paris and London are accelerating change through measures such as the 15-minute city and congestion charges that focus on healthy people and environments instead of cars.

ESKOM Load-shedding

Increasing disruption associated with load shedding in South Africa has severely affected the economy and many small businesses. The government has responded by providing tax incentives for renewable energy generation. Banks and renewable energy installers have developed energy-as-a-service offerings that mean that onsite renewable energy systems can supply electricity for a similar or lower monthly cost than the high-carbon municipal-supplied alternative.

Infrastructure Development

In rural villages, the development of a new school, clinic or road may represent the only large investment in that area for many years. Therefore, It is worth thinking about how this investment can be used not only to build infrastructure but also through ‘’beneficial disruption’’, create a catalyst for local development. The Thuba Makote: Schools as Centres for Community Development project that I developed aimed to achieve this. One of the projects, in a small village near Kuruman in the Northern Cape, used compressed earth block technology. We made the technology available widely and many members of the community were trained to make earth blocks. When the school was being built most housing was informal and made from metal sheeting. This has changed and now many high-quality houses have been built by the community using compressed earth blocks

Planning for Regeneration – Despite Disruption

Planning for regeneration can be supported by understanding local issues and anticipating and planning for change and disruption. I have been working on an approach called the Building Adaptive Pathway (BAP) methodology that provides a way to envisage future change and disruption and plan for this in built environment projects.