Watch our Forces of Nature introduction video and discover more about this theme below.
The built environment is shaped by our relationship to the forces of nature - wind, sunlight, earth, fire and water.
At a time of global climate crisis it is imperative that the way we design, operate or adapt our built environment should keep us safe and enhance our experience, whilst respecting the environments that will endure beyond it.
To meet the opportunities and threats of the future, our people, infrastructure, supply chains and systems need both the capability and agility to work in greater alignment with the natural forces that shape our world.
Every part of society faces new and emerging threats - from the infrastructure supporting it to our access to resources and opportunities. In parallel, nature faces a catastrophic threat from humanity.
Both the challenges and opportunities are wide-ranging, complex and interdependent. By bringing together disciplines that understand our true reliance on the natural world, we predict resilience needs, model sustainable futures and improve systems to protect both people and the planet.
Working with extreme forces of nature demands ingenuity. Our built environment needs to withstand more whilst consuming less - to accommodate this sustainably we need information and systems that enable effective design and operation. From better data supporting climate models to full lifecycle support strategies, both humans and our processes need to be smarter and more responsive. Our diverse experience in realising innovative, high-performance solutions enables communities to thrive in change.
The changing climate offers both challenges and opportunities for our existing built environment. Our interdependence with nature requires that we adapt both our existing environments and those of the future. From ameliorating what was built in discord with nature to ensuring that we acknowledge the meanings of risk to different communities. Through honest and empathetic collaboration our specialists truly learn from the successes and failures of the past to shape a more resilient future.
Our understanding of the forces of nature helps us positively shape the built environment to benefit both individual and community experience. From thermal comfort to the sense of welcome achieved through dappled sunlight, from the creative addition of moving water to generating cooling breezes, our specialists integrate the forces of nature into art, urban design, architecture and master planning to improve the reality of everyone’s built environment.
