This project is a challenge to the prevailing smugness rife in the architectural industry. We face unprecedented challenges in sustainable design, community outreach and ethical practice, yet we fetishise shiny object-architecture rather than confront the opportunities available to us.

By interrogating the existing scope of an architect, this body of work poses the question: how can we move away from the culture of cheap, shiny, but harmful new buildings? The future of architecture must focus not only on retrofit, but designing-for-retrofit. A new scope - the Guardian Architect - must be formed to save buildings from being turned to dust.