Towards an Ecocene: An Architecture of Hyper-Ecology

The Anthropocene epoch, at last, identifies the role of human activity in influencing the climate crisis. Buildings contribute significantly to society’s current condition of ‘unsustainability,’ modifying the planet beyond their physical boundaries. As building impacts are vastly greater than performance energy, hyper-ecological architecture requires a fulsome tally of its embodied energy and externalized impacts, socially and ecologically. The current architectural discourse should consider first not to build, but to reclaim and reconnect. The thesis project takes a 1960’s Brutalist science museum, exploring how we might approach the act of design, from one of demolition and reconstruction to one that preserves and enhances the existing built, natural, and social infrastructure. By re-envisioning the museum as a 21st-century environmental centre, the project becomes an educational instrument, demonstrating ecologically sensible design ideologies to undergo a paradigm shift from the Anthropocene - towards an ecologically aware and responsible era of the Ecocene.