President Ursula von der Leyen in Vatican

Ursula von der Leyen

Rome/Vatican [ENA] Today, 9th June 2022 at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is taking place the event whose title is:” Reconstructing the Future for People and Planet Conference”, hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) and Bauhaus Earth, at the Casina Pio IV, the PAS headquarters, in the Vatican Gardens. The conference opened with a speech from Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission

and brought together world-renowned scientists, architects, spatial planners, and policy makers to discuss the transformation of the built environment from a driver of climatic and societal crises into a force for planetary regeneration. In his game-changing encyclical Laudato si’ on the “care for our common home”, Pope Francis addresses, inter alia, the deplorable state of the contemporary built environment: “Nowadays, (...) we are conscious of the disproportionate and unruly growth of many cities, which have become unhealthy to live in (...), huge, inefficient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water.

Pope Francis

and brought together world-renowned scientists, architects, spatial planners, and policy makers to discuss the transformation of the built environment from a driver of climatic and societal crises into a force for planetary regeneration. In his game-changing encyclical Laudato si’ on the “care for our common home”, Pope Francis addresses, inter alia, the deplorable state of the contemporary built environment: “Nowadays, (...) we are conscious of the disproportionate and unruly growth of many cities, which have become unhealthy to live in (...), huge, inefficient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water. Neighbourhoods, even those recently built, are congested, chaotic and lacking in sufficient green space.

We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature.” The built environment is also a crucial factor in the climate equation: Buildings and infrastructures are directly responsible for roughly 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, if one adds up the effects of construction, operation, and demolition. The program includes keynote speeches from Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of Bauhaus Earth and PAS Academician; and Francis Kéré, architect and this year’s Pritzker Prize Recipient. The June 9 program is going to be concluded with a conversation between Kéré and von der Leyen at the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome.