Changing Our Footprint

How do we succeed in creating a sustainable transition of architecture? Explore materials and methods of the future which can help pave the way for building on the planet’s terms.
The built environment accounts for almost 40% of the world’s annual carbon emissions. If stakeholders in the built environment are to take their responsibility seriously, there will have to be a shift in perspective, so buildings are based on the planet’s terms instead on our own terms as human beings.

Danish architecture firm Henning Larsen has been working on this shift in perspective for many years. This manifests itself very clearly in the way in which the architects at the firm design. A good example is Moesgaard Museum, which was completed exactly one decade ago. With its generous architecture and dual function as an indoor and outdoor gathering point, it is a project that Henning Larsen is still very proud of to this day. However, the museum was built in a way that would never be repeated today. This is because the building consists of 9,500 m3 concrete, with an astonishing 2,850-ton carbon footprint. The project was even awarded a prize for its use of concrete.

Today, many of Henning Larsen’s projects are designed in biogenic materials, and overall the firm is working on almost 400,000 m2 of timber building in Europe alone.

With Changing Our Footprint, DAC and Henning Larsen want to instill hope for the building industry of the future. The architects roll out their sketches and invite us into the architecture studio where they work systematically with scalable, climate-friendly solutions, which are developed gradually through studies of new materials, methods and research. All these are small steps towards the desired total green transition of the building industry.