41) Power and empowerment.

Many may think that nature is finished because climate change means that every centimeter of the Earth has been altered by man. In the same way, others may say that justice is over, because architecture means that every centimeter of the city is now altered by power.

Is it really so? The way we speak, our narratives, our discourses, the images we use have huge implications on whether architects should primarily serve their clients, or accept responsibility for the easing of the stresses on our planet and its population.

Clearly private projects concentrate on monetary costs and benefits; while social ones go beyond these considerations. Because of these sort of juxtapositions, we often overlook the fact that architecture is always collective. It belongs to everybody. No matter who is paying the architect. And its purpose is all about providing a path to a future that’s more sustainable, more equitable, and more desirable.

Our emphasis on solutions and on human rights should always be broad. Even when we design a private villa, not just when we design a museum or a hospital, we must look at sustainability through the lens of the public. By talking about the private project as one that lacks any public responsibility, we sometimes actually create these buildings in that way. In times of transformation, and in the changing world we live in now, luxury is a self-fulfilling, self-inflicted death sentence. While the majority of people are deprived of their basic rights, architecture cannot not just serve to consistently improve the living conditions of a small number of privileged people. If we can actually adapt to a broader theory of sustainability, the mission of architecture becomes the use of design skills to empower people to transform their cities. We are all clients of every architectural project!

The old paradigm of architecture that renders service to power and capital is now shifting to the empowerment of all human beings, allowing everyone accessibility to basic facilities. Power tends to be viewed in one of two ways, both of them extreme: command and control. Power gives us the capacity to make others do as we wish, or to reorder the environment around us.

We can imagine a scenario where collaborative practice is at the heart of shaping the built environment, capitalizing on opportunities for skills-sharing and learning, and encouraging entrepreneurial skills. That kind of engagement process—not for people but rather with people—is an opportunity to collaborate and to promote change.

If architecture is reinvented in this more strategic way, it will become a prime conduit in the creation of empowerment. Because that’s what is needed for a better, more sustainable future—empowerment not power. So we must engage the citizens of our future cities. This way of thinking is the foundation of the future practice of architecture. Why not? Some things are more important than power; love and freedom among them. And human rights.