All photography is by Simon Punter, and print quality images are available on request

audacity was launched through the Building audacity conference at The Building Centre, Store Street, London. This was part of the month long launch event of the Institute of Ideas, dedicated to creating a new arena for critical thinking and the space for a robust exchange of views.

The conference was illustrated with a public exhibition that ran in the foyer from 5 July to the end of the month. That event was our first attempt to interrogate the many aspects of sustainability that we found contradictory, debilitating, or wrong.

As a result John Wiley & Sons commissioned Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age as effectively our second attempt through a collection of essays to clarify, criticise and counter where necessary the platitudinous presentation of sustainability in architectural practice.

The edited transcripts available on this website represent the proceedings of Building audacity, and we thank the speakers and the attendees for their enthusiasm and insight. We have unfortunately not been able to publish the full extent of the discussion that took place throughout the day, and have prioritised key answers made by speakers to a few of the many questions raised in the three sessions.

Resourcing the future - Will our children thank us for sustainable development?

Being inspired - Is everything worth building naturally precedented?

Standing up for ourselves - Does environmentalism turn humanism on its head?

We thank the sponsors Reglit Glazing and Hunter Douglas Quadroclad for supporting the exhibition that accompanied Building audacity, the conference proceedings, and the reception afterwards.

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