Vision, Mission, Values, and Charter
Our Vision
A world where everyone loves where they live.
Built environments across the world are failing people and the planet, creating places that are too often unsustainable, disconnected, and unloved.
Traditional building, architecture, and urbanism offer time-tested, forward-looking solutions for creating places that are sustainable, healthy, and beautiful.
We envision a world where the places people live, work and gather are beautiful, sustainable, healthy and rooted in their local context.
Construction is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Between now and 2060, estimates suggest a global addition of 230 billion square metres in new construction – equivalent to a new city the size of Paris, every week for 40 years.
Alongside this huge demand for buildings, towns, and cities, we are at a point of unprecedented awareness of the impact the built environment has on the health of people and the planet.
A growing body of research in the fields of urban design, neuroscience, environmental psychology, and medicine demonstrates the important link between our built environment and human health.
And, as we enter the decade leading towards the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, we need to work together as a global community to make our built environments inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
INTBAU’s vision is that every building and place is made with a conscience, drawing from and developing traditional knowledge and techniques to uphold everyone’s right to a place to live that is resilient, adaptable, beautiful, and supportive of local identity.
Our global network of chapters works in support of a world where
– local knowledge and methods adapted to climate and context, based on the inherited wisdom of generations, are the established norm in architectural teaching and practice
– built environment professionals are permanently and significantly reducing the sector’s environmental impact
– new construction is balanced with the maximum opportunity for adaptive reuse, because ‘the greenest building is the one that is already built’
Our Mission
Advancing traditional building, architecture and urbanism for a better built environment.
Since 2001, INTBAU has worked to advance traditional building, architecture and urbanism. By 2040, we want to see these approaches become the norm, not the exception.
We want traditional approaches to be increasingly visible, credible, accessible and widely adopted, informing the places we design, build and inhabit around the world.
Achieving this will require a fundamental shift in how we understand and create the built environment — moving from exceptional projects and individual advocates towards a broader culture in which traditional approaches are recognised as relevant, practical and forward-looking solutions.
Our Values
Connected. We give a global platform to locally rooted solutions and build connections across professions, cultures and continents.
Harmonious. We seek balance between the built and natural environments and the people who inhabit them.
Forward-looking. We empower emerging generations to design and build a better world.
Our Charter expresses the values and aspirations that unite INTBAU’s global network of members.
