Beyond tangible spaces: Adapting architecture for the future

by Michael Griffin Michael

With the tech-world transitioning to the metaverse in the future, the lines between tangible and intangible spaces are blurring. Architecture, thus, cannot exist in isolation.

There are three types of architectural firms; the first kind who adhere to set rules and norms, design to create basic brick and mortar spaces with essential functionalities. The second kind create art (that may be functional or non-functional) to stun, awe, and inspire visitors. And then there are those that create the future.

Designing the future

The Modern Design movement has used “design” synonymously with “planning”. Both are concerned about the future. However, what the future is going to be like is the question no one has been able to answer since centuries. From a “utopian” future envisaged by 20^th century thinkers and designers, we have come a long way.

In the economic realm, the fundamental problems of neoclassical economics and neoliberalism, the predominant ideologies behind modern utopianism, led to the global financial crisis of 2008. Urban design, which transformed under neoliberalism of the late 20^th century, continues. Its ethos has changed from designing ‘good cities’ to reflecting profit-oriented objectives. Consequently, we are in the midst of environmental and humanitarian crises. These have been major setbacks that have led thinkers to question the very idea of progress and development.

While on the one hand, technologically we are entering a realm no one could have dreamed of a few centuries back, on the other hand, we are on the brink of war, struggling with climate change and having just risen from the losses of the pandemic. Where does architecture feature in the big scheme of things?

Multiple dimensions

Architecture is, and has always been, a multi-dimensional field. Design of built spaces has impacted our lives beyond their functional use since pre-historic times. The monuments and relics of the past are testimony to the power spaces have on building (and even degrading) human life.

When the pre-historic humans shed their nomadic hunting-gathering lifestyle, and turned to agriculture, they set forth a germ of an idea that we humans, are the architects of our destiny. They cleared tracts of forest land to grow acres of crops. To store these grains, they built granaries. When regulating everyone’s share of the grain became a nuisance, they built systems of hierarchy. Through myths and legends of wrath of nature deities, they learnt to worship them at temples. Communities grew around these temples and community spaces, leading to bigger towns and civilizations. Taking in more and more land from the wilderness into cities, we became the masters of the world. It was almost as if, we weren’t satisfied with what the Earth provided us naturally, we wanted more. More food, more machines. And we still want more.

Utopian or dystopian?

Does this sound bleak? At a first glance, it might sound hopeless and almost prophesying a dystopian future. However, there is a silver lining, the human spirit to create and to survive. There have been tales of apocalypses in every mythology in the world. But humans have come out of these, wiser and stronger. There has always been a Noah to build the ark.

Before you think this is some sermon on existence and hope, let me pivot to the crux of the topic. The future of the world is the future of design; today architects, the world over, are shaping where the world is heading. Every small home to every massive urban complex, every built space is going to contribute to the survival of this planet. No pressure.

What can you, as architects, do?

Without a doubt, urban landscapes and spaces are the rallying ground of policymakers and politicians. Apart from the government, developers and engineers, capitalist giants determine the direction of the projects. But with associations like the AIA, architects can raise their voices and make a difference.

Apart from affecting policy, top architectural firms are changing the game by collaborating with professionals from multiple disciplines.

1.       Ecologists:

Though most of the world’s human inhabitants live in cities, 98 percent of the earth is non-urban. However, only 50 percent of Earth’s land surface can be classified as having low or no human influence. We live in an era of human dominance or “Anthropocene Era” wherein humans have completely altered the natural environment. Ecosystems that still remain relatively untouched provide a number of beneficial services to mankind such as supplying clean water, among others.

In this recent study that mapped the global human influence, Jason Riggio, the lead author and postdoctoral scholar at the University of California said in an article that if we act quickly and decisively, there is a small window in which we can still conserve almost half of the Earth’s land surface in a relatively intact state. That can only be done, if the already inhabited and utilized spaces are used optimally and sustainably. The responsibility falls on leaders and developers, but also on architects. Human civilization can still populate a landscape and have low influence over its environment by working with Ecologists, Marine Biologists, and other scientists to take a balanced approach to infrastructure development.

2.       Wildlife Conservationists:

The Bee Movie of 2007 brought to the forefront insects as vital component of terrestrial biodiversity. Bees in particular are important for pollination, soil formation and control of herbivorous pest species. Urbanization has shown to be associated with decrease in pollinator species’ richness and abundance. Edward Osborne Wilson, a leading American biologist, stated that “If insects were to vanish, so would nearly all flowering plants and the food webs they support. This loss, in turn, would cause the extinction of reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals: in effect, nearly all terrestrial animal life.” Humans would not be able to survive.

An English company, Green&Blue has been working on creating refuges and incorporating nature into buildings. One of their most popular products are Bee Bricks. These are blocks that replace a brick in the wall, proving a nesting place for several species of solitary bees with the help of irregular pattern of holes. These solitary bees used to rest in crumbling brick and mortar work for years, but modern building materials have replaced their habitats.

The Living Planet Centre, the World Wildlife Fund’s UK office has been built to retain the wetlands and provide a wildlife corridor from the Basingstoke Canal to the Horsell Moor nearby. Designed by Hopkins Architects, it has aimed to maximize on-site sustainable features while keeping the WWF’s own work in mind. This is just one example of how urban spaces and buildings can incorporate wildlife protection. A sustained effort and collaboration between architects and wildlife conservationists can lead to more innovative solutions in the future.

3.     Anthropologists and sociologists:

Culture is the operating system of society, according to Ella Saltmarshe and Beatrice Pembroke, the founders of the Long Time Inquiry. They believe that culture is foundational to the way science, politics, economics, technology and our cities develop. Thus, the study of anthropology and sociology can help designers understand the human diversity and cultural differences, to solve the problems of the current and future generations.

While anthropology examines culture more at the micro-level of the individual, sociology tends to look at the bigger picture, often studying institutions, organizations, political movements and power struggle between groups. Learning where the culture for a particular practice originates can help understand what the future needs of society might be. Spaces can be built to provide not only more cultural durability, but also to shape societal structures and ideologies.

4.      Archaeologists:

Civilizations have come and gone since the time humans left the hunter-gather lifestyle behind. We are in a time when history is being written in front of our eyes. Now, the entire world is inextricably interconnected and interdependent. In the past, the collapse of a civilization was confined to specific regions. However, a societal collapse today, is a lethal prospect for human civilization as a whole.

The most reliable way to study the pre-historic past is through the monuments that survived. The power to tell the stories of the people who lived in and around it lies with the building/structure that survives generations. It is the life mission of archaeologists to understand how civilizations originated, survived, and collapsed. Then who better to help the architects and builders of the future?

Out of the seven wonders of the ancient world, only one has survived into the contemporary era i.e., the Pyramid of Giza. This colossal Egyptian structure is still studied for its simple architectural features, that still inspire designs today. As the Long Now Foundation attempts to build a 10,000 years clock, we can see the play of engineering, architecture and archaeology at work. The link between these fields is strong and a collaboration between these two fields can make for a more informed design of the present.

5.      Cognitive and Behavioural Psychologists:

The fact that architecture affects human psychology through certain elements such as color, form, shape, light, space, etc. has been a known fact for decades. In the late 1980s human-centered design evolved as a result of the focus shifting to the individual people for whom the design was intended. David Canter’s book, “Psychology for Architects” gave birth to a whole field of environmental psychology, as it was dedicated to understanding how people interact with the buildings and spaces around them.

Don Norman, the author of “The Design of Everyday Things”, championed the cause of human-centered design which emphasizes on understanding how people think and act in different situations. Norman is an expert on cognitive science and usability engineering, strongly propounds refining proposed designs with help of psychologists and other experts to meet the needs of the people. Working with cognitive psychologists to understand how people interact, feel and process information will help shape better spaces and cities.

6.       Technology Companies:

Technology goes beyond wearable devices. BIM software companies have already begun to use AI to improve efficiency and potential of their programs. As architects, you need to look at the bigger picture of incorporating the future of tech in the spaces you create. Construction will soon be managed with Artificial Intelligence and Robots. Understanding the extent of where you can introduce technology, in the design as well as the building stages, will be a game changer. The biggest firms already work with consultants and are designing spaces that are futuristic and efficiently utilizing the limited resources.

7.      Agricultural Scientists:

Across the world, there is an increasing pressure on our agricultural systems to deliver food. Research in current farming practices centers around the challenge of feeding everyone on the globe without rendering the earth uninhabitable. Lenora Ditzler uses digital technology to enhance agricultural practices is critical of monocultural, soil-sapping practices of agriculture. These require large tracts of land and crops are planted in single rows, as opposed to a biodiverse model, where plants are grouped together in such a way that fertilizers are not required. If agriculture isn’t reformed, soon we will reach a point where we will have to find a way to grow our own food in our homes. Vertical farming is slowly becoming the norm.

Designers and architects need to think beyond the technical scope of their disciplines to participate in this global movement that reimagines a world that is run on completely different energy sources than fossil fuels. A professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Billy Fleming wrote a hard-hitting article titled “Design and the Green New Deal” that criticized the design world for professing “green” ideas but not recognizing the fundamental challenges that we face today. The diseases that have taken the world by storm, like Ebola or SARS or Covid-19, are a result of habitat destruction of animals that got too close to our livestock as a result of over farming. Design has played a major part in this, and there needs to be a collaboration between Architects and Agricultural Scientists to find a better solution for survival.

8.      Epidemiologists:

When Louis Pastuer, French chemist and microbiologist discovered that diseases were passed on by imperceptible microscopic bacteria, it led to an unexpected transformation of the society we lived in. The germ theory made the public more conscious of the need to sanitize, cascading into a global hygiene movement. During this time, many architects and designers began to break the old methods of design to accommodate for larger and clean-living spaces.

After the pandemic this seems to be repeating itself. The lessons from Covid-19 are enough to show us the limits of our built environment. While the world is still coming to terms with the work from home experiment, the initial findings point to a hybrid model for the future of the workplace. How we use spaces has drastically changed over the course of the pandemic, so has the design considerations. Architects, need to not only work in tandem with Epidemiologists to mitigate the spread of future diseases, but also with Disaster Management experts to prepare for better crisis management when it comes to epidemics and other disasters. At this stage, it is important to remember that the architect who built one of the first pyramid in Egypt, Imhotep was not only the chief architect but also a healer, later deified and worshipped as the god of medicine.

9.       Indigenous Communities:

In 2021, New York-based studio Diana Kellogg Architects designed a girls’ school in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, India utilizing the community knowledge and local material. In a part of rural India, where the rate of female infanticide is high and literacy rates are extremely low, creating a safe haven for girls to study and become independent required the support of the community. Kellogg was sure that this was the way forward. She involved the local community of artisans who make carved furniture to make the benches and chairs for the school. This school is part of a wider project commissioned by non-profit organization CITTA that aims to equip and support communities across the world.

Don Norman, recently released a chapter from his upcoming book, “Design for a Better World” stating that to create a meaningful future, design has to now be to be humanity-centred, which expands on the principles of human-centred design to include the larger community. Architects should serve as enablers, facilitators, and resources, aiding communities to meet their concerns.

10.   Global Teams:

As historian Yuval Noah Harari says, “Every crisis is also an opportunity”. He reiterates that the future depends on the choices we make today. Countries and leaders can choose to compete for scarce resources and pursue egoistic and isolationist policies, or they can choose to help one another in the spirit of global solidarity. We are moving towards a global economy without boundaries, and it is only wise to utilize the talent, knowledge, and practices of designers from the world-over to build the future.

Aligned Studios enables design firms to leverage talent from across the globe, making the best use of the growing technology and indigenous knowledge. Global teams are the future in all spheres, and more so in architecture, the profession which is shaping our built environment.

Systems thinking

You, as an architect, have tremendous power to shape the world. This power lies much beyond the use of sustainable material in place of concrete, or any other material, for that matter. As designers, you have the power to envision the future of the world. Building pragmatically, rather than for aesthetics, and building consciously, rather than for gains.

However, architects cannot find the solutions of the problems alone through their imagination. They need to observe, listen, and collaborate. Multi-disciplinary global teams, collaborating on projects is going to be the norm in the coming years. Isolating the technical from the social knowledge and discourse has harmed the profession and the world.

That is why we need systems thinking i.e., not concentrating on individual features but on the design as a whole. Design must be a synthesis of knowledge and technology, building on the interconnectedness of economic, moral, and social lives of communities of the world.

If we don’t include the voice of the people, we are just playing into the hands of the big conglomerates and money-hungry leaders, building an imaginary tower of wealth that will someday topple down on them, as well as us. If the pandemic wasn’t an enough wake-up call to the fraternity, then let this be.

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Created on Apr 11th 2022 13:59. Viewed 230 times.

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