Talk Series 25

The End of More

Speaker:

Ben Berwick, Director & Founder of Sydney practice Prevalent

Summary:

In an era of climate collapse, architectural practice faces a crisis of liability, materiality, and relevance. The built environment generates 40% of global emissions, creating an urgent mandate for architects to cut project carbon by a staggering 98% to meet climate targets. This talk argues that incremental changes are insufficient. It moves beyond ‘sustainability’ to explore alternative modes of practice founded on active ecological reparation. We will investigate strategies including radical material reuse, the transformation of industrial waste into valuable resources, and degrowth frameworks that design for sufficiency, fundamentally redefining the architect’s role in a volatile future.

This talk was delivered online on 20 August 2025. Talk duration is 60 minutes.

Speaker Bio:

Ben Berwick leads interdisciplinary Sydney practice Prevalent, which focuses on the integration of architectural rigour, industrial innovation and ESG-driven design. His award-winning work is informed by experience with leading Japanese architects SANAA and Sou Fujimoto, and by roles as a strategic advisor to groups such as the Sydney Nano Institute and Climate KIC.

CPD Details:

This talk is offered as a formal CPD activity for architects, mapped to performance criteria PC10, and PC35 in the Australian 2021 National Standard of Competencies for Architects.

A copy of the CPD questions can be accessed here. If you take notes in digital format during the video, you will be able to copy/paste your answers into the questionnaire form at the end. 

Upon completion of the video, a link to the CPD questionnaire will be unlocked. Submit your answers via that link to earn 1 formal CPD point and receive your certificate for record-keeping purposes. Note: The questionnaire link will only load if the video is viewed from this webpage. If you navigate to YouTube to view the video, you will not be able to access it.