18) Adaptive is the word.

Being adaptive in architecture is being able to actually develop targeted antibodies to threats that have never even been met before. It is more about building a better world than a better building, addressing issues such as poverty, disease, segregation, access to sanitation, and pollution. Architecture is intended to change the human habitat, not just describing the existing one.

The strong claims made on behalf of architecture and human rights frequently provoke skeptical doubts among those who see the function of architecture as being no more than building a structure of stones, wood, glass, and concrete, all arranged in a pleasing fashion. Concern for equality may at times require us to point out the unjust, but even more it calls us to highlight the sustainability of our organization of space.

Such a claim suggests that architectural decisions are not based solely on the present but on expectations for the future. Concern for the future is a call for a new radical humanism, which prioritizes human respect rather than human domination and celebrates questions instead of answers. At its core, it recognizes that human dignity needs to be respected. In other words, we need to think more creatively and subtly about when and how we can shape, rather than control, unpredictable and complex human situations. If not, the environment we create will be “unadaptable” to humans.

As central as bodily experience may be, it cannot be the only source of architectural aspiration. Architecture will not ultimately be judged by technology and design, we will judge it by how it treats people. The initial organization of the space does not depend that much on architecture. Nature provides a first draft, which human experience then revises. Built-in doesn’t mean unmalleable, it means organized in advance of experience. Due to changes in globalization, due to advancements in technology and other factors, architecture is constantly having to adapt to the needs of humankind. Architecture can be used to help people to find their place in the world both physically and socially.

But let’s not just focus on the bright and dazzling things. In the future, our design could be overshadowed by human experiences of suffering, abuse, degradation, and marginalization. Unless we address these realities, then our positive beliefs will be implicated too.

In this respect, architecture may now need to review its well-regarded traditional role. Architecture is usually tasked with the organization of spatial adjacencies—inside and outside, natural and cultural, private and public, sacred and profane; and to this list we may now need to add human and inhuman. This will occur when we understand truly profound things about being human and have no choice but to create more cities based on human rights. Because who we are, and the extent to which we are human, depends on how human everyone is around us.

The human rights properties of a given design are subject to criticism, the very purpose of which is to influence the designer toward further human-rights considerations in that design. In fact, this is the era of “always-on” transformation and architecture is at a remarkable moment in time. The reality is that this transformation is much too important to put the burden solely on the United Nations or governments acting alone. If human rights exist only because of legal enactment, their availability is contingent on domestic and international political developments.

Adaptive capacity encompasses the ability of architects to modify exposure to, absorb and recover from climate and social change impacts, and also to exploit new opportunities that may arise through adapting to our changing world.