RIBA’s foresight programme, Horizons 2034, looks ahead to the next decade and invites response. How will our lives, the built environment and the practice of architecture change? How can architects respond to global megatrends?
The Horizons 2034 final report and executive report, downloadable below, gives the full findings of the RIBA Horizons 2034 programme. Using the forecasting method of horizon-scanning, the programme describes the forces influencing our shared future.
In four themes and 16 scans, the programme uncovers the megatrends shaping our society, the built environment, and the architectural profession. It aims to equip decision-makers with the valuable foresight needed to make informed choices in a rapidly changing world.
The four themes covered are:
The Environmental Challenge
The climate crisis demands radical change. This theme explores how the built environment, responsible for almost half of all global emissions, must recognise its accountability and become an agent of change.
How can architects address this urgent, generation-defining challenge?
The Economics of the Built Environment
Global economic systems and forces drive development.
How money is spent directly affects social equality and individual life chances. The built environment is increasingly becoming the embodiment of buildings as financial mechanisms.
How are financial dynamics shaping our surroundings and how can architects respond?
Population Change
Demographic patterns vary widely worldwide. Some regions experience rapid growth, while others face ageing populations and contraction.
How can design professionals respond to urban-scale changes while fostering social cohesion for ethnically diverse and intergenerational communities?
Technological Innovation
The technological tools available to the profession are rapidly increasing in sophistication, scope, and ability. With the rise of AI, the prospect of autonomous tools is becoming real.
How will the role of the architect respond to rapid technological innovation?
Each of these themes is explored by a range of leading experts.
The report is not, however, the future predicted, nor a statement of RIBA policy. Instead, it is an exploration of emerging and present trends. More than an exploration, however, the report is also a call to action. By understanding these trends, the profession can shape the future world.
Already we can see huge changes coming, changes that will radically alter our lives and the environment in which we live them. Not all these changes are benign. While we still have time to act, the collective failure to address carbon emissions is set to be humanity’s most expensive mistake at best, and an existential threat at worst.
But there are also huge opportunities: greater social cohesion, reduced inequality, successful urbanisation, increased global prosperity, and a safer, more efficient, construction industry, better meeting society’s needs, transformed through technological innovation.
Reflecting on the Horizons 2034 programme, RIBA President Muyiwa Oki said:
It is difficult to get the headspace to consider what is ahead of us when our current concerns and energies are all focused on surviving in the present: obtaining and retaining work during an economic downturn and operating amid complex regulatory changes.
However, it is pressing that we do pay attention to what is coming down the tracks at us, so that we can be prepared. Whether it is for environmental challenges, fractured global economic conditions (impacted by the climate crisis and geo-political rifts), population changes or technological innovation.
It is not, however, just a matter of being ready. If architects are to reassert their position in the design and construction industry and wider society, we need to assume agency and lead from the front. This is why a priority for me this year is Architecture Without Boundaries. As architects, we are educated to have a complex skillset that should enable us to punch above our weight. When working in practice, those skills and competencies are fully tested.
We have an important contribution to make to communities and wider society, not just as designers of individual buildings but as problem-solvers and thought leaders.
An important piece of work that sits alongside horizon scanning is the 2024 RIBA Artificial Intelligence Report. Delivering the findings of the recent AI member survey, it reflects on the current and near-term realities of the application of AI in architecture. In the report, I call for a “critical yet optimistic mindset” to what is emerging as one of the most “disruptive tools of our time”. When scanning the horizon for 2034 and looking at wider emerging trends, I also urge you to have a similar outlook, paying attention to both risks and opportunities.
The initiative represents the opportunity for you to engage with big-picture emerging trends and expert voices from across the world. Whether you are on the starting blocks of your career or an experienced professional, I urge you to invest a little bit of time reading the scans, carving out that essential thinking time to engage with the near future.
