Experts estimate that at least 30 percent of the world’s annual carbon emissions are tied to the built environment, due to its heavy reliance on burning fossil fuels to produce materials like cement and steel, and to heat and cool buildings.

That statistic places architects at the center of a societal debate, Jeanne Gang, architect and founding partner of Studio Gang, said during a Jan. 16 discussion at Stanford University.

“We’ve been occupied with this question about what is the most powerful way for architecture to play a role in sustainability,” Gang said during the event, which featured a conversation between Gang and Sarah Billington, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “The way we build is key to zero carbon.”

The discussion was part of Big Ideas in Sustainability, a series of conversations hosted by the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

“As a society, we must rethink and reimagine our approach to construction and urban planning,” Dean Arun Majumdar said during opening remarks. “Through design, Jeanne Gang draws insight from ecological systems in creating places that connect people with each other, their communities, and the environment,” he added.

Studio Gang is an architecture and urban design firm headquartered in Chicago with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Paris. In 2023, the firm was selected to design the school’s Sustainability Commons, a set of new buildings and outdoor spaces that will welcome all those at Stanford with an interest in sustainability, regardless of academic focus, as well as partners in government, industry, and other outside entities. The Sustainability Commons will align with the university’s goals to achieve zero waste by 2030 and net-zero Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Built to build upon

In her opening remarks, Gang discussed how the studio prioritizes sustainability by increasing the density of urban areas. Not only can increasing density reduce carbon emissions, but it can also create stronger, more tightly knit communities. Gang noted that architects can achieve this by making urban communities more walkable, reducing or eliminating the need for cars, and using bio-based building materials.

“I wanted to talk about two strategies that I think are big ideas,” Gang said. The first touched on “architecture as a catalytic force that brings people into the fight for the environment.” While discussing her studio’s research and built work that have helped to revitalize the Chicago riverfront as an ecological and recreational destination, she added that “it can really inspire [citizens] to act, which is greater than just designing any one particular building.”

The second idea revolves around the reuse of buildings. Borrowing the term “grafting” from the horticultural practice of joining plants together, she described an application of this technique to architecture as a way of improving existing buildings. The idea in horticulture is to “make the plant produce more variety, more tasty fruit, more beauty,” she said. “And so grafting is not just about preservation. The point is expanding capacity.”

Lead by example

As a case in point, she highlighted Studio Gang’s work at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, which was a “jumble of buildings built at different times,” as Gang put it. Her team sought to renovate and expand the building in a way that would bring new life and inspiration to the museum. “Each building has another future, and by grafting, we’re adding to it,” she said.

Gang’s second example was New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, where she and her team sought to “inspire people to understand nature in new ways” within a historic institution. The result was the museum’s Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, which is home to classrooms, collections, exhibitions, and research.

“It’s really about connecting all these things so people can make mental connections between these subjects,” Gang said. “This became our model for building onto these existing foundations and creating spaces that intrigue and make you want to go and check it out.”

Reflecting on recent destruction from wildfires in Southern California and floods in North Carolina, Billington asked whether catastrophic events are changing Gang’s thinking about design and how the built environment can be “good for the environment.” Gang replied, “I’ve seen more and more of these disasters, and it’s made me more interested in how to build more resilient communities.”

For architects interested in taking on that challenge, she continued, the key is to build processes and skills that include listening to local communities and then creating a vision for a built environment informed by their needs and goals, as well as resilient against future risks. “We have to start really paying attention and training ourselves how to work with communities and get consensus, because the tendency is to just build back the same way,” she explained.

Questions submitted by registrants before the event prompted Gang to discuss how to overcome barriers to sustainable building in the U.S., align with clients’ values, create a sense of delight through design, use local materials, and more. The final question, submitted by a current student, asked Gang about her biggest concern for the future of architecture.

“I’ve seen people that love the environment are going away from architecture because they feel that we’re the bad guys,” Gang said. “And there is a movement we’ve seen in France – also architects, young architects – saying, ‘we’re not going to build.’ So my biggest concern about that is we have a growing population, obviously, and we need structures, but if we lose that – young, ambitious, innovative young architects – we’re going to not be able to meet the needs of the future.”