An old proverb says, ‘Your land was not given by your parents but by your children’. Today, we are offering a world in a worse state than when it was given to us. How can we, experts of shell and spatial structures, contribute to alleviating current and future planetary crises? The question remains open. Fragments of answers exist, but we shall hope that other fragments can still be identified. The objective of the following essay is to spark a much-needed conversation within the IASS community.