Ecopolis

In urban engineering, there's the concept of a bioligical city. The Discovery Channel ran a show called Ecopolis that touched on many of the ideas.

Fundamentally, the concept of a biological city comes from the ideal of a "living" city. Where the infrastructure we build is self-sustaining, to at least a degree. So that means plant life integrated with the design of the buildings and the urban layout; renewable energy in multiple forms; and a person-centric perspective on the layout of the city itself.

Discovery Channel chose Ecopolis because of the current green movement. The biggest concepts of the biological city have environmental friendliness as a result, but the vision is much larger than merely being ecologically sound. In fact, the perfect biological city would be something akin to an Arcology, just like the ones you could build in SimCity. Unfortunately, there are few who think arcologies are feasible in even the distant future. As such, engineering better cities as they are, now, is an achievable goal. It as close to an ideal city as we can manage, at least for now.

Detroit is the opposite of that ideal city. In this article from the Chicago Tribune, they put Detroit's problems into terrible focus. In it, they discuss the potential for Detroit to become America's city of the future, because everything is so bloody cheap. But being cheap isn't necessarily all that's needed. Because frequently, all that cheap attracts is the human detritus of society. Crime rates are high. Economic progress is low. Detroit itself needs a massive bailout.

But as the article points out,

"On a positive note, Detroit's homicide rate dropped 14 percent last year. That prompted mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas to tell the Detroit News recently, "I don't mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn't anyone left to kill."

At least he's honest.

S.O.D.

In an earlier post, I lamented the cost of doing business in the US, and said it has something to do with America's fall from grace in the world of architecture.

I held up Dubai as a good example, but mentioned only briefly that human rights take a back seat in that sort of development. In my plea for a middle ground, I didn't effectively communicate the degree to which human rights goes out the window.

This article for the UK's Guardian, and this one in Mother Jones, really drives home how badly the poor are treated in the pursuit of glimmering palaces and it is something anyone interested in architecture should read. It makes you feel pretty good that, even though we're not as impressive, we get some excellent buildings done while at the same time maintaining a high level of worker's rights.

That's not too bad, I think.

S.O.D.

After posting about Adam Savage's elegy for American science, it got me thinking.

I'm an amateur scientist, but I'm a professional designer and engineer. I think about design all the time and read just about every magazine or book there is on the subject. I can bemoan the same thing about American design and ingenuity.

They were once the very best in the world. While other countries may build amazing things, they would always turn to the American design and engineering firms to actually get the job done. That's no longer the case.

I can pick out any area, any focus, and the number of excellent submissions coming out of America has nearly disappeared. While there are many publications that focus on the American market, the international magazines rarely feature our country. China's new creative class is showing us how it's done, and even Europe has left us behind.

I can't even remember the last time I heard something great about an American architect. Of the 11 Pritzker Prizes for architecture handed out from its inception in 1979 to 1989, a US architect won it 6 times. From 1990 to 2008, and likely 2009, we've won it twice. And one of those years was a win by dark horse candidate Thom Mayne.

And what about American industrial design, or consumer products, or clothing? We were fairly well-represented in the IDEA awards, but those skew American because, duh, they're sponsored by BusinessWeek. And even there, of the seven design schools represented, only one was from the US. We've got Apple, but we know their language. They did the original iPod and then, six years later, the iPhone. The MacBook Air was a breakthrough only to Apple fanatics.

I think one of our major problems is exactly what these major, entrenched companies adore, our draconian and ridiculous patent and copyright system. If a company dares innovate or break new ground, they are undoubtedly sued. Apple has been sued near countless times, and Nintendo with their innovative Wii, has of course been sued. I could go on and on and ON about our patent system basically needing to be shot, but the website TechDirt explains why our system is broken apparently beyond repair in much better fashion. When your reward for breaking ground is a lawsuit, there's not much motivation to do anything.

And yet, the East Asian market (which our American companies do nothing but bitch about as a no-mans-land of piracy, lax IP laws, and terrible, uninventive, outlaws who do nothing but steal our ingenious, American ideas) is exploding on the international scene.

Yep. Oh, and back to that list of design schools: Samsung Design Membership (Korea), Hong Ik University (Korea), Seoul National (Korea), Hanyang University (Korea), Royal College of Art (United Kingdom), University of Wuppertal (Germany). Those sad, wannabe schools of design. Stealing all of our ideas and winning awards with them. Tragic.

Another grand example, and by grand, I mean GRAND. Where are all the new buildings being built? Where are all the limits being pushed? Where do the structures look like they sprang from an imagination unhindered by reality? Oh right. Dubai. And China. And Taiwan. And Russia. Hell, even South America. Just not here.

I think a lot of that has to do with how expensive the US has gotten. It's SO pricey to do anything here, nobody is bothering anymore. We have unionized workers who get paid $40 an hour to lay brick (nothing against bricklayers, it's quite a skill). The other countries may have poor workers' rights laws, but boy do they get stuff done. There has to be a middle ground.

Or insurance costs. It costs more to insure an architecture firm, the construction, and everyone involved in the US than in any other country on Earth. You can be sued because your idea is cool, sued if idea takes off, and sued if your idea fails. Big surprise no one wants to do anything in our fucked-up country, anymore.

Wind Farms

Wind farms are one of our best hopes for reliable, renewable power. They can go day or night, are easy to maintain, and are, importantly, comparatively cheap to set up. Still, a frequent criticism I hear is that they're eye sores. Now, I don't know if people are actually saying this or if it's just part of the campaign against anything that doesn't burn, but... what?

Eye sores? I just don't see it. I think they're tall, elegant towers of design. They are one of the few things that look like something out of a sci-fi from fifty years ago. They look cool! How the hell can you call them eye sores? Do these same people call houses eye sores? Or anything that people build? Are they just out of their fucking minds? Would you rather have a belching, coal-fired power plant?

They look like giant, man-made, moving flowers. Hell, we can even paint them pretty colors. I look at them and see a future of mankind living in a deeply connected, symbiotic relationship with nature. They represent a world where we can get everything we want and cause no damage at all. Well, except for a few birds. I think they're beautiful and anyone who thinks otherwise, though artistic merits are by their very nature subjective, is wrong. I don't think you could be any more wrong than if you called the Sistine Chapel amateurish.

Towering

Not to let Dubai hog all the limelight, yet another disgustingly rich arab guy has decided that the way into the Western world's heart is to build huge fuck-off buildings. My first point is that, no, I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. The average Westerner has a hard time remembering where Paris is, much less the conglomerate of sand-covered metropoleis that these men call home. You do not "buy" your way out of being a backwater, horrid culture by spending your oil money to build the very shimmering towers of excess that so many in your countries decry. You will remain "those fellers that wear towels on their heads" to most of American for many, many years. And, in my eyes, you remain a bunch of savages as long as you have separate entrances for men and women.

But enough about that, the mile-high tower is very cool. It's sad, too. I was hoping that America would be the first to build the mile tower with the Illinois, Frank Lloyd Wright's swan song. Ah well, how they overcome a number of design issues is of immense interest to me.

• The temperature between the top of the building and the bottom is going to be immense. Aside from the fact they're in the fucking desert, a mile difference straight up is going to play havoc with the materials used. Most buildings aren't used to 20-30 degree differences at the same time.


• In the Illinois, the height would require an immense number of elevators to reach the upper floors. So many that a large portion of the lower floors and even middle floors would be taken up just servicing elevators. Large towers, today, have express elevators that reach certain levels which allow people to take slower, smaller elevators to their desired floor. Still, a mile high would require multiple stops, and express elevator speeds close to 60mph. Even still, times to get to your desired floor could be in excess of thirty minutes.
  
  Would they follow FLW's idea of massive, five-story elevators on the outside of the building? An elevator that large would have to make so many stops for all its passengers that you would be in the elevator for an eternity waiting to get to the top.


• Just getting stuff moved around the building is an amazing problem. Getting water to the large population above is an engineering feat in and of itself. Would they let the waste water down and run generators from its flow to power more water up? Would they have recycling centers in the upper floors? Would they store reservoirs that would supply peak usage times and recharge during down time?


• Materials! What the hell would they make it out of, or I should say, of what the hell would they make it? Steal flexes a lot, as does aluminum. Would they use composite materials, such as the layered fibers with which they make plane fuselages? Giant beams of reinforced carbon fiber could certainly fit the bill, but they aren't very resistant to heat. A good, two/three-inch coating of fire-resistant material could do it.


• Powering the beast is another immense challenge. The size of the power infrastructure to get electricity to the upper regions would be amazing.

This reminds me a lot of Sky City, the never-realized super project to be built in the heart of Tokyo. It was on that show on Discovery that also had the floating city that was a mile long. I think the primary importance of this building, if it does get built, is the answer to all those technical questions. We're covering the globe with the pestilence that is us, and we have to build up. Towers measured in miles are truly the future of our species, and if our addiction to oil is what funds it, I can think of no better use for the money than our very survival.

P.S. Did I use the word immense, enough?

It's Not Easy Being Green

In a recent post I said, in regards to a lack of innovation in design, "Housing and architecture is in such desperate need of it the world is now aware of it." While we have plenty of hot, edgey designers, the designs that actually make it into mass production are always sad, pale retreads of existing ideas and directions. We have not had a fundamental shift in general design trends, especially industrial design, in a long time. I attacked housing and architecture specifically because the world is cruising for an environmental bruising, and our houses are some of the worst culprits. As such, this article at SciAm was of special interest.

One thing pops into my head: regulation. The government has one tool, regulation, and when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. DO NOT REGULATE! ENCOURAGE! I have a hard time naming moments when laws actually helped a situation. Instead of simply trying to pass regulation, then, when it fails because it was a dumb fucking idea, blaming the populous who didn't want your plan, enact government funded encouragement. Subsidize environmental building. You can even come up with a cool name that you can make a logo for, like GreenHouse. Give tax breaks, hand out money, sponsor education and workshops. Make an actual difference as opposed to shooting your mouth off.

Green Buildings May Be Cheapest Way to Slow Global Warming (Scientific American)

Architecture as Life

In my recent post, I discussed advancing design in various areas. I thought about Frank Gehry, who has done some of the more iconic work of the 20th century, such as the Bilbao Guggenheim. I then came upon an article at the Project for Public Spaces discussing how the Bilbao museum is a piece of shit. Not artistically, mind you. The author avoids discussion of that to focus on the practical problems of such a strange building and how it has actually damaged Bilbao as much as it helped it.

I agree with the primary assertion that the building sits not to be integrated, but to literally stand out. Obviously, that was the purpose, to stand out and put Bilbao on the international map, but the building stands out in an unfriendly and impractical way. It does not accommodate life, it accommodates itself, and that's it. It has no interest in being part of anything. It is an icon that stands on its own. It has no forums, no public spaces, no areas where people can gather. You go there to marvel and then move the fuck on because there is nothing else to do.

This reminds me of an article about Frank Gehry's supposed arrogance, and how that shows through in a building that is built under the assumption that people should be grateful to have the building, to look upon it, and nothing else. I frequently deride avant garde films because they are tragically self important and tearfully unentertaining. A movie is entertainment. If it is not entertainment, then it is a very long, moving painting. Art is fine, but do not create art under the guise of making a movie, because if you call it a movie, it damn well better be entertaining. Spielberg recognizes this and makes great films that are also great to watch. The self-important wannabe film makers than call him a sellout. I scoff in their face. There's a damn good reason he's rich and you're a loser. Do I sound venomous enough?

Architecture is the same thing. A building must be a building first and art second, or it sucks. I'm sorry. If it's not a building, it's a HUGE fuck-off sculpture that a few people can sort of stand in. Not a building not a building not a building. Any great architectural achievement must, by virtue of being great, be integrated with, be absorbed with, and augment the surrounding area.

Granted, any arrogance on Gehry's part would pale in comparison to Frank Lloyd Wrights supposed arrogance. And Wright was also guilty of architecture as art when he butted heads with an engineer/contractor over some trusses at Falling Water. The engineer said part of the house would collapse unless it was reinforced, Wright disagreed. The Engineer went behind Wright's back and reinforced the building, and today if he hadn't, that section of the house would have likely collapsed. When you're not an engineer, listen to one when he speaks. Jackass.