During the planning process for Sweden's Virserum Art Museum's third major exhibition, WOOD 2010, it became evident that social, economical and ecological sustainability issues had to be considered. However, when they looked behind much of the popular dialogue about sustainability, green architecture and green city planning, they discovered more posture than substance and more claims than credibility. The evidence suggested that the terms had been largely hijacked by marketing campaigns and were often more about greenwashing than actual sustainability.
As a reaction and to offer a alternative position, they created the international call for an Architecture of Necessity - it was distributed during the production of WOOD 2010.
The enthusiastic responses included entries from 143 architectural practices from 28 countries. WOOD 2010 featured 42 of these entries.
WOOD 2013, now in the planning stages, it is proposed to integrate the Architecture of Necessity as an international triennial for sustainable society planning.
Visit the Virserum Art Museum's Architecture of Necessity website
Read the Architecture of Necessity Manifesto