When architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal were invited to redesign a small, triangular plaza in a residential district in Bordeaux, France in the mid-1990s, they decided that the best design would be no design at all. After studying the site and interviewing its residents, the architects informed the city that the best plan would be to leave the park alone. “Embellishment (装饰) has no place here,” they wrote in their project statement. “There was no need to rebuild,” they noted. “Quality, charm, and life already exist.”

The pair runs a firm named Lacaton & Vassal. Most of their built projects lie in locations around France, within a train ride of their Paris studio. They are as focused on preserving existing buildings as they are on building. In the words of London-based architect Dieter Kleiner, their work is almost anti-architecture. Now their anti-architecture is receiving institutional attention: In March 2021, Lacaton and Vassal were awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The jury (评判委员会) noted their “democratic spirit” as well as “a commitment to a restorative architecture that is at once technological, innovative and ecologically responsive”.

In 2017, when tasked with the redesign of some 1960s apartment blocks in Bordeaux, Lacaton and Vassal chose not to tear down the structures. Instead, they upgraded the existing 530 units with garden terraces (露台) that expanded the size of the dwellings and increased access to fresh air and sunlight — all without asking a single tenant (居住者) to move out while the work was done. They used materials common to greenhouse construction, such as silver solar curtains, which allowed them to create cost-effective indoor and outdoor spaces that could be adjusted according to the weather: admitting light and air on pleasant days, or blocking the sun when summer heat is at its peak.

For the architects, this is part of their motto: “Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform and reuse!” The selection of Lacaton and Vassal by the Pritzker jury marks a socially minded turn for the prize, which — with a few exceptions — has generally awarded form-making above everything else.

Artists with a Green Message

Chris Jordan

Photographic artist Chris Jordan takes pictures of ordinary objects like bottle caps, light bulbs and aluminum cans and turns them into art by digitally rearranging them to construct one central image. However, it’s the tiny pieces that drive home then environmental message. For example, his 2008 work “Plastic Cups” shows 1 million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the U. S. every six hours.

Nele Azevedo

Visual artist Nele Azevedo is best known for her “Melting Men” interventions that she stages in cities across the globe. Azevedo carves thousands of small figures for to watch them melt. Her ice Sculptures are meant to question the role of monuments in cities, but Azevedo says she’s glad her art can also “speak of urgent matters that threaten our existence on this planet.”

Agnes Denes

One of the pioneers of environmental art and conceptual art, Agnes Denes is best known for her land art project, “Wheatfield- A Confrontation.” In May 1982, Denes planted a two-acre wheat field in Manhattan on Battery Park Landfill. The land was cleared of rocks and garbage by hand. Denes harvested more than 1,000 pounds of wheat She says her works are “intended to help the environment and benefit future generations with a meaningful legacy.”

John Fekner

John Fekner is known for his street art and the more than 300 conceptual works. Fekner’s art typically consists of words or symbols spray painted on walls, buildings and other structures that highlight social or environmental issues. His stenciled (用模板印的) message, “Wheels Over Indian Trails, “was painted on the Pulaski Bridge Queens Midtown Tunnel in 1979. It remained there for 11 years until Earth Day 1990，when Fekner painted over it.

Take a good look at the American burying beetle. Once found in 35 states, the insect is assessed by the International Union for Conservation of. Nature as critically endangered. Like the tiger, the American burying beetle has orange and black stripes, like the tiger, the beetle is declining in number. The, tiger is an instantly recognizable symbol of species preservation, but most people aren’t familiar with the beetle.

This difference is an example of the domination of the so-called celebrity species — the fascinating creatures that nonprofits and government agencies use to raise public interest in conservation. Most nonprofit funds for animal protection go to species such as apes, elephants, big cats, rhinoceroses, and giant pandas. Tigers are often rated the most popular animal — and India, ho me to the majority of these big cats, spent more than $49 million on tiger conservation alone in 2019. Meanwhile, many lesser-known species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, and birds weaken in namelessness. Worldwide, more than 35,500 plant and animal species are on the edge of disappearing forever.

This leaves us with a tough situation. Conservation is underfunded, so how do we decide which species to save?

One potential solution, the debatable idea of conservation triage, holds that experts need to quickly decide which species can be saved while realizing that others can’t be saved. Conservationists have developed analytical tools to approach the question in a less emotional, but more practical way. Fish and Wildlife Service now uses this knapsack method — inspired by a hiker’s need to fit the most valuable items into a small space — to get the “most bang for their buck” in saving species. The method calculates the most efficient conservation strategies using factors such as costs to recover a species and its likelihood of going extinct.