5.1.2 An Anthropogenic Fire Regime: Mineral-based Architectures

“For the speedy Restauration whereof and for the better Regulation Uniformity and Gracefulnes of such new Buildings as shall be erected for Habitations in order thereunto, And to the end that great and outragious Fires (through the blessing of Almighty God soe farr forth as humane Providence (with submission to the Divine pleasure) can foresee may be reasonably prevented or obviated for the time to come, both by the matter and forme of such building.” Charles II, 1666, An Act for the rebuilding of the Citty of London.

While Lavoisier’s discovery of oxygen, and thus understanding of the biochemistry of combustion was over a century away, architects, and men of science, Wren and Hooke nonetheless recognised the potentialities of mineral-based architectures. Potentialities so great that, at the molecular level, the city of today remains the city as, in the capable hands of these two University of Oxford graduates of physics and chemistry, rose, phoenix-like from the ashes of the Great Fire: its materiality born of understanding that in none but prose would stones burst into flames.

However, for all its flammability, the architectural paradigm as precedes that of the present had its virtues. Built of locally, thereafter nationally sourced timber and other cellulose-based materials, even accounting for whatsoever the sum of the Great Fire’s CO2 emissions [110] , its biomass structures boasted a low-carbon footprint by comparison to that of many of the stone, and more recently steel and glass structures as stand about the city of today. But, as the 21st century unfolds, carbon isn’t the substance that requires consideration.

An estimated 47 – 59 billion tonnes of raw materials are mined annually, of which 68 – 85% are sand and gravel (Steinberger, et al. (2010). “Modern cities are built with, and often on, sand” (The Economist, 2017, online), which is a primary constituent of cement, asphalt, glass, and computer chips (Delestrac, 2012). As sea levels rise, ever greater quantities of sand, more specifically that which originates not from deserts, for the grain thereof is too fine for most industrial purposes, but from beaches about the world, is being used in land reclamation by nations including UAE and the Maldives (Ibidem). In construction, every tonne of cement used requires approx. 6-7 tonnes of sand and gravel (USGS, 2013). In rapidly developing Asian states, such as Vietnam (Torres, 2017), demand for sand now exceeds national supply. Compounding the issue, sea floor erosion in coral reef ecosystems (USGS, 2017) and ocean acidification (Madin, 2010), both consequences of climate change, are dissolving the source of origin of coastal sand: calcium carbonate – the stuff coral and seashells are made of.

Yet, despite sand’s under-pinning, literally, of the present predominant architectural paradigm, its supply chain is woefully under-regulated. In consequence, a “sand mafia” now operates in nations including India and Italy (Ibidem; The Economist, 2017). The point of resource origin thereof is beaches and wetlands that are being systematically stripped of their materiality, and thus their capacity to protect coastal communities from storms surges, amongst other vital ecological functions. In their wake, illegal miners leave stagnant pools that serve as nurseries for disease-carrying mosquitos (Torres, 2017). Such is the scale of organised sand crime, as to be a matter of inter-nation dispute between Singapore, and Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia (Ibidem). Bringing a sense of scale to the issue, “illegal sand extraction is the third biggest crime in the world just after counterfeiting and drug trafficking”, its proportions such as to be “pushing critically endangered... closer to extinction as the last remaining habitats are wantonly destroyed in our quest for sand for the construction industry” (Pereira, 2018, online).

Annually, 46 million tonnes of cement are recycled for use in the UK construction industry (The Concrete Centre, 2017). But, this sum falls some 295 million tonnes short in meeting Britain’s present building material needs (Ibidem). In the absence of a new paradigm in architectural materiality, in the short to medium term, both the UK and the global construction industry, can anticipate exponentially increasing material costs. In the long term [2050>] we might reasonably expect the building blocks to run out, and not least given the probability that demand in sectors external to the construction industry, i.e. coastal landscaping, could be coupled with rising sea levels.

Calcium carbonate sand isn’t the only natural resource running comparatively scarce. All glass, steel, cement, and electronics assembled into stratosphere scraping tower blocks, innumerable are the publications, conferences, and media outlets as assume the ‘smart city’ to be a future-fit vision. This city, will so-say, be connected by umpteen devices, some even embedded into a ‘singularity’ species of humans: Homo techne, as Linnaeus may have called them. However, these various visions may be described as ‘big on ideas’, and small on detail, more specifically, the matter of how humanity will continue to deploy ‘smart’ technologies as are reliant on electronics at a time when multiple studies indicate that accessible virgin supplies of copper will run dry by 2050, silver by the early 2030s, and gold likewise (Mining, 2014).

Scanning the mineral materials horizon, a team at Imperial College London have developed a biodegradable construction material from desert sand, which called ‘Finite’ has “half the carbon footprint” of conventional concrete, but “is as strong”, thus able to “outperform” its calcium carbonate equivalent “on key sustainability metrics”, according to its creators (materialfinite.com, 2018; Block, 2018). However, the impermanence of its materiality aligns Finite not to the purposes for which calcium carbonate-based concrete is used, therein supports an alternative architectural paradigm to that of the present.

One might muse that, were Wren, Hooke, and Evelyn alive today, upon contemplation of matters including resource shortages, virgin habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, and climate change, they would recognise that mineral-based architectures present no panacea, and with that, there an imperative for contemplation of alternative urban materialities as not merely accommodate of local needs, but of global needs [Fig. 52].

>Continue to Chapter 5.1.3 here.

Footnotes

[110] Although an approximation of the Great Fire’s CO2 emissions has yet to be quantified, given old London’s urban density, upon burning, the biomass therein would likely have emitted more CO2 per acre than its wildland equivalent [i.e. a Pacific southwest stand replacing fire]. But, the small acreage [436 acres] makes the sum thereof nominal in the context of wildland fire CO2 emissions, which in the U.S. alone are estimated at 290> million metric tons per annum (National Science Foundation, 2007), in relation to acreage burned of 9,318,710> (NOAA, 2008), the sum thereof rising, and accounting for between 4-6% of national CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.