5.1.11 Scenario London 2066: Pyrotechnically Purging Pandemics

Mineral-based materials having become in ever-shorter supply, thus priced out of the mainstream construction market, new-builds have been largely built of wood since 2030. The sum of innumerable urban ecology initiatives has seen the metropolis’ biodiversity multiple. Additionally, environmental shifts have led to migrations of faunal species, birds and insects in particular. Permafrost has continued to melt across the Arctic tundra, releasing innumerable pathogens in the process, one of which has travelled from its site of origin to the city via a host species, but scientists have yet to establish which one? What comes next? Will technology alone mitigate the threat, or will the period in which the pathogen spreads through stealth be long enough that, as in times past, the pandemic passes a tipping point that renders its spread beyond control, but, perhaps, for the application of a method that empirically-proven to work in the wild, may have all but eradicated the plague from the city in 1666. Might the next time London burns be not born of ‘accident’, but intent? A foresight ‘wildcard’ in the truest sense.

>Continue to Chapter 5.1.12 here.

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.