Favourite books: A rallying call for long-termism

I’ve always been interested in philosophy books. As an architect, there’s a danger that you become blinkered by your profession, but it’s really important to look outside that. I read an amazing review of What We Owe The Future and thought ‘I have to read this book’. I knew it touched on climate change as well, which is something really close to my heart, and that’s what intrigued me about it.

The book is about the idea of long-termism and is a rallying call to not just think about what’s happening today but to think beyond that. As architects, we’re used to thinking about the future – designing and building often takes years or even decades for bigger projects like the Elizabeth Line. But this isn’t about needing to think about a few decades ahead; it’s about thinking tens of millenniums in the future.

I was aware of the idea of seventh-generation thinking but, until I read this book, the notion of thinking tens of thousands of years ahead had never occurred to me. The book hypothesises about the potential amount of time humanity could have and the potential value of those many lives. It argues that future lives are no less important than current ones, and suggests that there are likely to be many, many, many more future lives than there are present or past combined.

So the book gave me a kind of shift in how I think about the importance of the future and our impact on it as architects. In my work, this often comes back to materials and embodied carbon – where they have come from and how they have been produced. And importantly, what will happen to them after their use in a building has come to an end?

Another of the book's key arguments is that the next few decades are critically important to the long-term future. Issues such as technological advancement, the introduction of AI, climate change, advancements in medicine etc are described in the book as ‘trajectory changes’ – changes in values or morals that can have huge impacts on the trajectory of history. The author cites the abolition of slavery and changes in attitudes to LGBTQ+ among examples of highly impactful changes that often occurred due to small groups or individual actions, which have then built over time. Small and seemingly insignificant actions can have really big implications.

This resonates with what I’m seeing in the architectural world. For me, particularly as an educator, I have seen a significant change in students’ attitudes to climate and environmental design over the past five years. The next generation of architects is aware of the challenges they will face and is already addressing the issues in their work. In industry, I am frustrated by the pace of change and worry that the government isn’t acting fast enough to create the right incentives to build differently. But then Architects Declare, ACAN and the Don’t Waste Buildings and AJ Retrofit campaigns all give me hope.

The book attempts to quantify the biggest threats to a successful future. The one that really resonated with me was ‘stagnation’. This is the idea that, without technological and other innovations, we may stop having economic growth or scientific and other benefits, which in turn will make it more difficult to bounce back into regrowth. The book also suggests, rather alarmingly, that technology may be slowing down – and that we have already begun a period of ‘stagnation’.

This argument for the need for growth – economic, scientific and technological – is complex and strikes me as being counter to the principles of degrowth and ‘doughnut economics’ (as championed by Kate Raworth). MacAskill gives really solid reasoning and logic as to why stagnation is a threat. This challenged my preconceptions, which I think is a really good thing.

But I was also struck, perhaps more tangentially, by what’s happening today in architecture. Is the profession in a state of stagnation? Are we stuck in our traditional ways of working and approaches without really innovating and thinking differently about how buildings can be made (or reused)? Generally, I think the architect’s role hasn’t significantly changed. For me, the greatest innovations are in circular construction, material innovations and the prospect of solar power and renewables becoming much more efficient and affordable.

There’s a lot in the book about AI – his take is it’s a huge risk if misused but also has huge potential. He argues that we shouldn’t leap into it and adopt everything immediately, but should understand it first. The book flags the danger that we’re rushing into a technology that we can’t understand.

The final chapter is devoted to what we can do and uses a great analogy taken from the Aymara language (spoken by indigenous peoples from Bolivia, Peru and Chile). Aymara is one of a handful of languages where the future is referred to as being behind while the past is in front – the logic being that the past and present can be seen and understood clearly like looking ahead, while the future is unknown and is therefore like looking back over your shoulder. 

We can’t predict clearly what the future will be but we can use all our knowledge from the present and past to shape it in the most positive way possible. And for me as an architect, that means designing buildings that will have a positive impact on the planet.

The book somehow distills complex arguments about huge issues in a way that’s quite accessible – it is quite a page-turner. The author is one of the youngest philosopher lecturers at Oxford and seems really down to earth even though he’s obviously a superbrain.

At the end, he says that one of the best things you can do is to recommend the book – and I have. I tell everyone about it as I think it’s quite brilliant.

James Hampton is the founding director of New Makers Bureau Architects. He was speaking to Pamela Buxton

What We Owe The Future by William MacAskill, Oneworld Publications, 2023

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