The construction industry is at a crossroads. While sustainability is now central to industry discourse, mainstream solutions often fail to address the full environmental impact of building materials and processes.

In particular, there is a growing recognition that whole-life embodied carbon – the emissions associated with material extraction, production and construction – is just as critical as operational carbon over a building’s lifetime. As the sector grapples with the urgent need to decarbonise and meet net zero targets, a growing number of architects, designers and researchers are pushing beyond conventional green building strategies to explore deeper, systemic change.

Among them is Material Cultures, a practice on the cutting edge of decarbonisation, working with the kind of innovative, plant-based materials and techniques that the built environment will likely need to embrace.Their work challenges assumptions about materiality, circularity and scalability – raising crucial questions about what a truly post-carbon built environment might look like.

…