A thousand years of non-linear history

Manuel De Landa

When atoms are traveling straight down through empty space by their own weight, at quite indeterminate times and places, they swerve ever so little from their course, just so much that you would call it a change if direction.
If it were not for this swerve, everything would fall downwards through the abyss of space.
No collision would take place and no impact of atom on atom would be created.
Thus nature would never have created anything.
- Lucretius

Final poser

With the analogy of evolution we created a scenario for the future, this method helped to categorise the range of different changes we had imagined. The categories of ‘people and lifestyles’, ‘future scenarios’, ‘architectural opportunities’ and ‘sustainable futures’ were considered to be far to a segmented method of looking at predicting future scenarios.There is an interlinked flow on effect of each and our methodology helped to take a more holistic approach to the project.

Initiating these changes were our different ‘ages’ (Jurassic Age etc). From here we separated our ideas into ‘species’ – Politics, Culture, Education, Transport, Agriculture, Built Environment and Technology all playing out in the natural environment. We looked at how these would evolve differently throughout the different ‘ages’ – where we decided they would evolve more rapidly was represented with greater splitting of branches. The semi-circular form of the diagram allowed us to cross reference easily between ‘species’ for example when there was a change in cultural attitudes we could easily place the flow on effects of that within the evolution of other species for example new policy implementation, implications of policy implementation etc.

The changes we predicted were graphically represented with pictograms to allow a more visually appealing and diagrammatic exploration. Some of the pictograms represent quite complex ideas however, were able to be explained within the timeline above.

The future scenario of cultural change, the shift towards individualism and the potential of new social order will play a huge role in guiding my individual project. The resource crisis, and its affect on all the ‘species’, in particular its evolutionary affects to the exploration of retrofitting and parasitic architecture will also be a main focus for my architectural proposal.

Part content contributed from Heidi Nelsen (group member), but content discussed at length during tutorials

Individual Project One Statement

In this project we consider four key components, future visions/ scenarios, sustainable futures, people/ life styles and architectural opportunities.

Looking at the problem through an evolutionary methodology, as in the world or humanities evolution over time the out comes to these key components became perceivable.

Future Visions and Scenario’s:

The future scenario that prevailed from the evolution of the world and humanity is one that was shaped by the input factors of a world that has suffered from a sever resource crisis, compounding factors sparking economic bust and a population plateau leading to worldwide war. It allowed for the emergence of an innovative individualistic society thrust into a rapid invention mode fuelled most recently by the world conflict.

Sustainable futures:

Seven ‘species’, technology, the built environment, agriculture, education, transport, politics/policies and society, have evolved over time and led to various divergent outcomes all playing out in the natural environment. What emerged from the advances of these ‘species’ was the possibilities of an innovative society, one that is forever resourceful in finding solutions to the issues it may face.

People and Lifestyles:

Immediacy is what the people of the future demand, they want products that suit them perfectly and as such rapid prototyping and customisation have become the prevalent form of production. However this is not the end of the story, due to the resource crisis attitudes have changed over time and now society demands closed loop solutions and due to the additional expenses of the fly in fly out mining operations occurring in the terraformed regions of the Moon and mars society chooses to limit the use of these resources.

Shaping the world around them, people created spaces that previously were non-existent, with new personal transport devices leading to the disuse and repurposing of the ‘dinosaur’ transport systems of the early 20^th century. 

Architectural possibilities:

Society changed, the city changed, and the world shifted under their feet. Building in the future are repurposed and retrofitted creating a prevailing trend in parasitical architecture focusing on creative and purposeful use of space to facilitate the increased population.

To cater for societal attitude changes, local production and the death of traditional shopping trends meant shopping centres became customisation hubs, designing, manufacturing and sale-ing the goods people require then and there.  

The architectural opportunities of the future see a rise in productive vertical farming and localised manufacturing making the city the epicentre of local production facilitating the individualistic lifestyles of modern society.

Rapid prototyping

The idea of rapid prototyping is really quite fascinating, especially if you consider the possibilities for it in the future. Today with companies investigating the ability to 'print' diamond microchips, what will this mean for the future?
The ability to produce custom products instantaneously could see  rise in local production, perhaps even 'instant' printing of technologies such as phones or laptops. or even how this technology might embed itself in in the sectors of the built environment, or any of the other elements of society i have spoken about.

Architectural outcomes

This Ted talk provides an interesting insight into bio mimicry and how this can be related to architectural outcomes.
It also ties into how nature is incredibly efficient and perhaps how through evolution one day we too, our buildings and our society might become as efficient as the wonders of nature we see all around.
It opens the possibilities of development of new material technologies, ones that may have the same incredible strength qualities of the natural world, translated perhaps into architectural outcomes such as buildings that respond to immediate environmental changes in real time, moving to capture the best sunlight, breezes or views.
The infinite possibilities of bio-mimicry in the future development of architectural opportunities is truly astounding. Hopefully something that can be explored further in the semester.

reference: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture.html

W5 Architectural Outcomes

Using the analogy of evolution helped to categorise the range of different changes we had been imaging when we discussed our future scenarios. We began to recognise that its quite difficult to septate the categories of ‘people and lifestyles’, ‘future scenarios’, ‘architectural opportunities’ and ‘sustainable futures’ because these all have a flow on effect to each other. If we imagined future changes in policies for example, this would affect all four categories, and those affects would have a reciprocal flow on affect and so on.
Despite this, when we analysed the various input factors we considered for this project some possible architectural outcomes were parasitical architecture. This may be informed by the lack of road use (due to no cars in the city policy) hence why as visualised this parasitical architecture spans between the buildings encroaching on the road space creating new sorts of connections throughout the city.

reference: http://whitelabel.openbuildings.com/buildings/3083#

Evolutionary Diagram W4

What will become of our society? Well this is what we have come up with! Based on our seven components of society we have mapped how we will grow and change and how social norms can 'die out' or diverge creating new 'species' that go on to become part of who we are in the future.

At the end of the diagram is a wealth of architectural opportunities that can be utilised for the next assignment.

W4 Tutorial

Asked to consider what sort of 'character' might live in our future scenario we came up with this lovely lady, a shop keeper who is an industrial designer running a manufacturing 'shop' in our future Queen street. Along her life timeline we considered what 'things' might impact her personal life choices, what events or policies and procedures might come into play along her life span leading her to what she will be in the future.

The key policies we discussed were:

          - No cars in CBD (in response to climate change, carbon tax, increased population)

          - Sustainable business rebates (climate change, resource crisis, shift in retail norms)

          - No new buildings in CBD  (resource shortage, economy, social agenda for sustainable practice)

          - Global agreement on immigration (compassion, acceptant of global responsibility, population balance 

            with local carrying capacities)

These policies were all informed by the consideration of possible future crisis informed by the scientific facts of today.

W4 Reading

Time is the essence of a real design problem – Francis Duffy

The implications of future planning in relation to resource scarcity, embodied energy and sustainable retrofitting allows for a framework one can apply to design projects.

This reading explained these issues in a simplistic manner that made it easy to grasp the concepts. The idea of the eternal site however can be looked at in two ways, yes there is an eternal ‘site’ as in a location that exist eternally but it is subject to change just like any other element in life... things are not static, they are eternally changing. 

W3 lecture

The principle and the context, two components of architecture, one highly popularised the other an unspoken underlying lore. 
If we consider the principle, architecture is a shelter, a communion, a place for loving, learning, a place where we connect and seek comfort, security and insight. Context on the other hand can be considered as the site, the social setting, resource availability, economic conditions, climatic influences, sources of materials or cultural norms for example.  

For design, we might say the 'magic' occurs in the meeting of these two integral concepts. Because how can we produce good architectural outcome if we don't carefully consider the two?

This idea i believe holds an interesting point not only in architecture, but i believe on all levels of society. 

W3 Sustainable Futures

This week our group formed and we were asked to consider sustainability in an alternative manner considering rather how real issues impact our lives. Focusing on issues such as social, cultural, technological, economic, financial and bushiness sustainability in addition to the current topic of environmental sustainability.

We mainly considered future practices and strategies that were not necessarily architectural but influenced our characters way of living.

We determined that our future scenario will be influences by a number of significant crisis,  ones that humanity will need to evolve and adapt to. 

For example we discussed how trends towards on-line shopping might leave retail space void or even that perhaps due to economic crisis retail space becomes less important and thus void, this could significantly shift focus to public spaces as the focus of the city.  So how might the city change to accommodate this shift in society?

W2 Urbane

The Site: Queen Street, Brisbane

Global scenarios that impact on the urbane specificity of Brisbane, Queen st which could lead to there being a no car rule for the city limits.

Issues - The world 

             Over population

Over population is a well known reality, so we would like to explore the what if scenarios. What effect will population growth have on our future scenario? Well, some say over population will lead to increased strain on resources, increased poverty, rapid climate change or non-sustainable lifestyles/ cities/ world just to mention a few. How do we deal with this in the future? Will there be a population plateau? Will there be policies implemented like the one existing in china today? 

             Ageing population 

Another serious concern that could impact the future scenarios we concoct is the realities of an ageing population. Places such as Japan are already feeling the effects of this reality, and upon the onset world wide, what consequences can we expect to be thrust upon humanity? This problem, created by the medical advancements which have led to prolonged life could lead to our medical systems bulge and busting and our economy coming to a stand still (due to the lack of younger people available to replace existing jobs and the extension of the retirement age, the bust of superannuation and government pensions dissolving into thin air due to lack of funding, less working aged people equals less taxable income to fund these schemes), what does this mean for our future scenarios?

             Diminishing resources

We have already reached peak oil, this is one of many resources swiftly diminishing, soon to be non-existent.So what does this mean for our future scenarios? well it means the future needs to become more innovative and find alternative solutions to fuel a growing population that wants to keep on consuming.

             Climate change

In the wake of climate change, what will become of out world? We as a people will need to grow and change to accommodate the ever-changing terrain of our natural environment. Its going to get hotter and some placed may become inhabitable, whilst others will become more desirable. This could see a massive redistribution of the population, but how will that effect the cultural values embedded in the different societies that might cross paths?

reference: http://sustainableenergysystemz.com/the-most-obvious-way-to-save-the-world/1012/
                 http://www.japanfocus.org/-Vaclav-Smil/2411
                 http://www.groenebrandstof.nl/?p=1177
                 http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/is-climate-change-treatening-world.html

W2 Future Scenarios

Urban: Brisbane city with no cars

With this scenario it is important to consider the cultural and social implications of the implementation of the no car scenario.
We suggest that the best way to move forward with this strategy is to go with an organic strategy, suggesting a slow expansion on the streets that are best suited to be transformed into a pedestrian thoroughfare. This allows the public to accept the change and integrate it into the social and cultural expectations and norms.

Suburban: Sustainable retail

So what happens to the physical retail store once we shift to on-line retail?

The physical store might eventually morph into a product 'experiencing' store this would redefine the department store possibly leading to the death of traditional marketing.

On-line tutorials could soon become in store tutorials showcasing the product in a new way to enhance customer satisfaction with the overall experience of the brand. Experiencing physical in digital virtual reality.

This would revolutionise the postal and transport systems as people will demand quick delivery of their products. 

Regional: Self sufficient community

Create a community camp site, facilitating the protection of and management of the site. This is achieved through encapsulation the lifestyle that people come to experience when attending a festival.

Virtual: Strategies for all regions

Virtual allows quick change which overcomes the barriers of space and time. Instantness allows cultural change quickly with no physical barriers. This manifests the creation of multiple realities, one person moves into the sun because to them that place seems more enticing, they are having a conversation with the person in front of them, but the person in front of them doesn't move because in there reality they did not choose to move, but both are still having a conversation  with each other face to face, their realities have divided.

Is there a need for architecture any more in this virtual reality? Yes, architecture is the management of relationships, facilitating interaction with one another. But this architecture is in flux, constantly changing with everything virtually changing opening the bridge of communication.

Week 2 Readings

The concepts contained in these readings although I can see how they may apply to this assignment and setting a scene for our 'future' architectural proposition I found the content mundane and out dated.

The ideas of high density living, sustainable design, mixed use buildings and self sustaining cities while might seem all good and well now, even has the readings pointing out the short falls of these concepts.

I think when defining the scene for our architectural proposition we should think completely out of the box, this stuff has been around for ages and it's now suddenly popular and everyone is sustainable this and that... It should be a given and our proposition should move beyond this to become something more than an ideal.