In the second episode of the interview series, the Swiss architect Barbara Buser, a pioneer and expert in resource-saving construction in existing buildings, has her say. Her construction office in situ transforms properties that have left economic, social and infrastructural developments as vacancies. For the conversion expert, preservation instead of demolition and new construction is the only solution to reduce CO₂ emissions in the construction sector as drastically as is necessary to save our climate from collapse in the time we have left.
How complex and profound her demand is, shows itself in the 25-minute conversation with the architecture journalist and studied art historian Christine Müller. Fundamental for the architect is a change away from a linear (profit) pursuit to a circular action. This paradigm shift must apply to everyone: "for planners, craftsmen and builders".
Barbara Buser has been dealing with the conversion of buildings and the reuse of components for three decades. She founded the Baubüro in situ from Basel and, among other things, the Kantensprung Foundation for the Promotion of Urban Transformations and the cooperative "wohnen & mehr".
Christine Müller is an architecture journalist. In 2002, she began her work at "Österreichischen Wirtschaftsverlag" as a specialist editor of the architecture magazine Architektur & Bau Forum, whose editor-in-chief she took over in 2012 and held until her appointment at the end of 2020.