The overarching theme developed in this week’s first article, Beyond Architecture was the concept of development and envisioning architecture. In the development in design this liberal perspective does not always take place in the general architectural body. However, will there be a forced change?
"Through every level of society and with every level of commodity, the unchanging scene is being replaced by the increase in change of our user-habits-and thereby, eventually, our user- habitats. ... We must recognise this as a healthy and altogether positive sign. It is the product of a sophisticated conSumer society. rather than a stagnant (and in the end, declining) society.32" (Salder, 2005, p. 96)
I found this quote to be most profound in relation to the ideas developed, with mention of the mobile and operable entities. There is a heavy push for the integration of the science/technology and architecture. Ironically, this is not new at all. Le Corbusier, inspired by growth of the industrial age, developed an analogy of architecture as a “machine”. Salder explores a similar notion of the "scene machine" configured and evolving with its users.
Strangely, today most used architecture is stagnant questioning the inevitable change yet to come. This new world beyond architecture is filled with the present ideas information and networking. And must not simply design for the existing requirements, but must develop for the emergent situation. Consequently, following Le Corbusier belief there will soon be an undeniable link and integration between technology and architecture.
The second literature item, 88.7 Stories from the first Transnational Traders envisioned a possible economical trading scheme supported by an ex-Soviet Arktika class icebreaker. Although quite improbable, the scenario questions possible future occurrences, such as: is the Chinese economical growth sustainable? And does a global economy need the support of a communications vessel that requires the Earth’s magnetic core? I am also confused with the latter.
More importantly the scenario develops are greater awareness of envisioning possible scenarios. It personally reminded of a speech by Michio Kaku entailing stages of civilization growth (see below). Global unity was stages to a stage one civilisation and other possible scenarios of this should be continued to be explored.
The last reading listed innovative likely to occur generally in the next few years. There was strong mix of innovations, surprisingly share on multiple fields, rather than just computer, but regarded such fields as chemistry, psychology, productivity, ergonomics, dentistry, hygiene, medicine, etc. After reading I was bitterly disappointed. Most inventions gave improvements to an aspect of human’s lifestyle, whether it would be either sleeping or having healthier teeth, but none mentioned the hoverboard, which is supposed to be invented in the next three years according to the Back to The Future II (1989) (see picture below).
(http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-hoverboard-lie-how-back-to-the-future-ruined-childhood/)
But in all seriousness these inventions will have only slight changes to our lifestyles, spanning only a few years into the future. What about 10 years or even 25years? How dramatic will the innovations and technology change our lifestyle? Will our teeth then clean themselves? Personally there is limited intuition to perceive these changes due to the rapid growth in technology, i.e. the simple USB is no longer file storage device for a measly few word documents, but hold a whole person’s necessary files.
References
Sadler, S., 2005. Beyond Architecture. In. Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. pp90-138.
Revell, T., 2012. 88.7. Master of Design Thesis Project. London: Royal College of Art.
http://www.tobiasrevell.com/88.7a.html
Koerth-Baker, M., 2012. Innovation that will change your tomorrow. Accessed 15 July, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/03/magazine/innovations-issue.html
