Fire Triangulation: Past meets Present meets Future Case Study

“When it is possible to compare similarities and differences between systems, activities that are difficult to observe and understand in one complex system can often be related to activities that are easily accessible and understandable in another”. Holland, 2014b

5.1 Overview

Transcending the boundaries of space and time, whereas the 5-part case studies series is exclusively focused on recent western U.S. wildfire complexes and the future WUI insights as can be gleaned therefrom, this triangulated case study extends across continents and centuries to discuss parallels between events that have historically been considered as mutually exclusive, therein studied in silos.

Traversing transdisciplinary information as relates unto both wildland and urban fires, a system of systems approach is employed by means of illuminating how, at the level of biochemistry, physics, and the wider sciences, fire behaviours as are witnessed in wildlands have become manifest in cities past and present, and why the matter thereof it pertinent to architectural and urban design futures. While informing the new WUI paradigm this thesis puts forth, the purpose of this chapter is that of highlighting the wider applicability of the findings of this research programme, and of critiquing construction, and other built environment concepts as evidence vulnerability to fire.

5.1.1 The Great Fire Triangle: Urban Environment meets Natural Forces

“with one’s face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops.” Pepys, 2015.

Standing 61m tall atop the site of the first of the 87 parish churches to be destroyed by the Great Fire of London [Fig. 43], The Monument both commemorates the “most dreadful” event (Charles II, 1666) and celebrates the rebuilding of the City of London thereafter. Designed by Surveyor General to King Charles II and architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Old Royal Naval College, Sir Christopher Wren, and curator of experiments at the Royal Society and Surveyor to the City of London, Dr. Robert Hooke, architecturally, the memorial marks a paradigmatic turning point.

Famously igniting on the evening of September 2nd 1666 in a baker’s house in Pudding Lane, the fire had reached temperatures as high as 1250°C (Museum of London, 2017) before incinerating 436 acres, and with them the homes of 90% of the city’s 80,000 citizens. The scene was so bleak as for author and diarist Sir John Evelyn to state that London “was now no longer a city” (Evelyn, 2007).

But, 17th century Londoners were no strangers to fire. Indeed, in a city made of dried biomass in the presence of innumerable open flames, fires were frequent, though usually contained. Hence, “big fires were the exception, not the rule” (Garrioch, 2016, p. 319). However, the Great Fire was not the first major incident of its kind: all but destroyed by a conflagration in 1132, London had again been engulfed by flames in 1212 (Ibidem).

In years past, whereupon one of London’s many watchmen had sighted a fire he would alert the citizenry with a peel of church bells. Locals, including militia, would then arrive at the scene equipped with the likes of firehooks, axes, and in some instances, explosives, which, much like modern-day fire fighters working to contain a forest fire, they would use to create firebreaks whereupon the application of water via buckets and hoses was insufficient to extinguish the flames. However, as far-sighted individuals such as Evelyn had anticipated, the city’s architectural materiality in combination with its urban design was a disaster waiting to happen.

In the aftermath of the Great Fire, rumours of its causations “spread faster than the blaze”, (Rodriguez McRobbie, 2016), with possible culprits including the French, Dutch, Catholics, and God, the latter said to have inflicted a penance on the city’s sinners. However, while Wren, Hooke, Evelyn, and their peers had not access to the wide array of scientific equipment, therein such data as is available today, the findings of a Parliamentary report published in 1667 evidence recognition that Earth Systems, including weather, had impacted upon the event, noting “nothing hath been found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry” (Robinson, 2011).

Meteorologically, 17th Century London was the in grips of the onset of the period dubbed the Little Ice Age. While well known for its severe winters, and the frost fairs that stood atop the Thames, the city’s citizenry had rather more than extreme cold to contend with. Tree ring reconstructions and the dendrochronological records built therefrom, together with weather observations that were noted in parish records (Schove, 1966), evidence that the city of the 1600s experienced a juxtaposition of bitterly cold winters and hot, dry and drought-ridden summers. Parish records also reveal the chronology of church collections for they whom had lost their homes to fire (Ibidem). 17th century London, like 20th and early 21st century California and Oregon, experienced a fire season, which running from April to September (Ibidem) saw the city behave much like a forest. However, in the years 1212 – 1633, “there is no record of London experiencing any [major] fires” (Garrioch, 2016, p. 319), which suggests that, as in present-day western U.S. wildlands, fire probability was coupled to the climate regime.

The summers of 1665 and 1666 delivered a duo of droughts so extreme as for Pepys to note, “even the stones were ready to burst into flames (Allaby, 2003, p.128). Three hundred and forty years later, historical climate reconstructions would indicate that the latter, together with the summer of 1669 were “the driest on record”, (Sheffield and Wood, 2011, p.87). Thus, with two sides of the fire triangle [fuel and oxygen] in ample supply, all as was needed was a spark, and when that spark came, and in combination with strong eastward winds as were noted in parish records, the urban equivalent of a high intensity variant of the mixed fire regime ripped through the city.

In the eyewitness visual accounts thereof, we see topography, including the natural boundary formed by the river Thames, framing the fire’s path [Fig. 44]. We see the fire creating its own weather, as flames, towering high above the rooftops of London, drew down oxygen, fuelling the fire’s rapid advancement in the process. We see flames engulfing the surface to the urban canopy, thus forming a continuous wall of flames, as the fire moves through an urban schematic of predominantly closed structure, but for its narrow streets and occasional clearings, such as the parameter of the Gothic masterpiece that was Old St. Paul’s Cathedral. As this active crown fire rapidly spread, both the colouration and the height of the flames in visual accounts, together with the fire’s footprint, and forensics [i.e. analysis of pottery shards from sites including Pudding Lane], evidences that a combination of radiative, convective, and conductive heating would have pre-heated the buildings’ various biomass components to combustible temperatures. In and of itself, the fuel loading, compactness, chemical properties, horizontal continuity, and vertical arrangement of the architecture and urban design of early Stuart London was sufficient to suggest an architecturally lethal ‘stand replacing fire’.

Adding fuel to the Great Fire, highly volatile substances, including but not limited to gunpowder, were stored in both warehouses along the waterfront and in homes and business premises about the City. Whereupon combined with an array of anthropogenically-crafted cellulose-based items, such as papers, pamphlets, books and textiles, of which the flatness and surface area to volume ratio made them readily aerodynamic upon ignition [the pine needles of this urbanland fire], the means of propagation were copious: flaming seeds [fire spotting], described by Pepys as ‘firedrops’, were flung far and wide, their motion propelled by both the fire’s own internal forces, and those of the atmosphere. Indicative of the Great Fire’s intensity, therein capacity to choreograph its course of combustion is the fact that though the winds were blowing eastwards, the spatiotemporal dimensions of the fire’s footprint evidence a differential between the eastwards and westwards spread rate of approx. 3:1, the ratio thereof particularly notable given that the terrain was relatively flat and homogenous, therein winds, fuel-type and structure were the primary factors driving the fire fronts forward. While we have not an audio recording, we have Pepys words, which tell us that the Great Fire’s soundtrack was every bit an ominous as that of its wildland counterpart.

Bringing perspective to the scale of the Great Fire, such was the fuel quantity and fuel-state, in the form of the densely packed tinder-dry biomass buildings, and the accelerants distributed thereabouts, as leaves no doubt that its intensity and spread rate would be a match for the most intense wildland fires referenced in this thesis. No wonder they that witnessed the event were “distracted by the vastness of it” (The London Gazette, 1666), for none were the ‘late-successional stage’ architectural ‘species’ of early Stuart London as were endowed with the properties of Endurers, Evaders, or Resisters, as discussed in 4.2.6, ‘Systema Naturæ per ignem regnis’.

350 years to the day after the Great Fire, its wildland equivalent started in Eagle Creek, Oregon, which though not as well-known as its urban antecedent would nonetheless gain notoriety in consequence of an image that went viral [Fig. 45] (Pullen 2017; Criss, 2017). Its alleged causation anthropogenic (Brettman, 2017b), data including ocular accounts, and the fire’s Soil Burn Severity map (BAER, 2017), evidence the fire to have been a high intensity variant of the mixed fire regime. While, burning through 48,500 – 48,759 acres (Ibidem; National Forest Foundation, 2017) the Eagle Creek fire covered a footprint of just over one hundred times the size of the Great Fire, there are similarities between the two.

Whereas, the Thames limited the southwards spread of the Great Fire, the Columbia river limited the northwards spread of the Eagle Creek fire. Standing since Roman times, London Wall prevented the northwards spread of the Great Fire. Likewise, topographic features guided the Eagle Creek’s fire trajectory, as can been seen in the Soil Burn Severity map and satellite maps [Fig. 46], which clearly indicates that the fire’s intensity was coupled to the terrain’s gradient: convection [rising hot air and gases] accelerated the rate of combustion as the fire spread up mountain slopes, the process thereof possibly accelerated by ridge lift, wherein wind is deflected upwards whereupon hitting a ridge or cliff, and in the instance of a fire, taking Pepys’ ‘firedrops’ with it. In contrast, conduction [heat transferred through direct contact] increased the fire’s rate of spread down mountain slopes, as true to Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, burning branches and other debris descended from on high, propagating numerous spot fires in the process. Thus, upon looking to the Soil Burn Severity map we see the highest elevation slopes and ridges around the site marked ‘Dublin Lake’ overlap with the highest burn severity, as marked in red, the latter representative of the fact that “nearly all pre-fire ground cover [was] consumed’, soil structure rendered “less stable or destroyed”, and bare soils made “susceptible to erosion” (BAER, 2017) [Fig. 47].

Meteorologically, eastward winds aren’t the only correlation between the Great Fire and its wildland counterpart, evidence for which resides in the pages of Portland’s oldest daily newspaper, The Oregonian, of which a headline published on September 1st 2017 read “August is hottest on record at PDX; more on the way for Labor Day” (http://www.oregonlive.com, 2017). However, the extreme heat of summer 2017 built on a trend, as suggested in another headline, “2015 was Oregon’s warmest year on record, data shows” (http://www.oregonlive.com, 2016), which in turn syncs with the findings of several studies of the spatiotemporal dynamics of wildfires in the western U.S., as succinctly summed up in the statement that a “sharp increase in the number of fires” has been observed, with the hypothesised causations combinatory: a mix of climatological [Fig. 48] and anthropogenic (Barros et al, 2017). When the Great Fire struck, Londoners had just experienced an “extremely cold” winter, which was “accompanied with a continued frost ‘till spring” (Rush, 1809), and “reputedly the coldest day ever in England” (Fauvell and Simpson, n.d). Correspondingly, Oregonians experienced an exceptionally cold winter ahead of the Eagle Creek fire (Brettman, 2017a; Erdman, 2017). Thus, climatologically, while differentiated, the conditions as constitute the underlying foundations as facilitated the Great Fire mirror those of the Eagle Creek fire. Anthropogenically, in both instances, human-action increased the probability of a high-intensity stand replacing fire.

“the quercus urbana, which grows more upright, and being clean and lighter is fittest for timber.” Evelyn, 2007b.

Contrary to the conclusions of some, such as James Howel who stated there not any place “better armed against the fury of fire” (Howel, 1657, p. 398), in the years preceding 1666, such was the density and general disarray of London’s urban biomass schemata as to make another major fire inevitable. Indeed, so unimpressed was Evelyn with the city’s urban planning and the fire risk indigenous thereto as to state “if there be a resemblance of Hell upon Earth, it is in this” (Evelyn, 1659 online). Two years prior to the Great Fire, transdisciplinary researcher and practitioner, Evelyn had published seminal silvology tome ‘Sylva: A Discourse on Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty’s Dominions’, which testament to his being the 17th century’s foremost expert in forestry makes evident the depth of his understanding of the material properties of wood, and the risks inherent therein: where Howel saw buildings, Evelyn saw biomass, it being fuel. However, it took not copious study of forests and timber harvested therefrom to recognise London’s fire risk, thus, the era’s answer to futurists, they being prophets, had likewise warned of such an event. For example, in 1659 one Daniel Baker had penned, “a consuming fire shall be kindled” (Weiss, 2012, p.61), and in 1660 a Quaker by the name of Humphrey Smith had spoken of a vision in which, “all the tall buildings”, and “lofty things therein” would burn in a fire that “searched out all the hidden places, and burned most of the street places” (Ibidem). Three and half centuries later, multiple studies evidence that factors including mismanagement of wildlands, politically not scientifically orientated policies and regulations, and anthropogenic ignition sources have increased the probability of wildland fires in both Oregon and the wider western U.S. region.

In the perspectives of Pepys, Wren, Hooke, and Evelyn we see the pragmatism of modern-day scientists: minds that correlate causes with effects. However, ahead of their time, the lens through which they viewed the Great Fire, and indeed all the natural events as unfolded in their midst, was not that through which the wider populous peered. Folklore, superstition, and religion underpinned much popular opinion. But, as discussed in the Literature Review, wrong would it be to assume that in myth, legend, and storytelling there reside not some truths, wherein the communication methodology may be different, but, fundamentally, the intent [dissemination of information and ideas] is the same. Plunder the earliest written records of human thought, as scribed in ancient Mesopotamia and Sumer, and one finds air and air currents ascribed sacred status in the form of the deities Enlil and his consort Ninlil. Walk South West to pharaonic Egypt and one finds two similar characters in Amun and Shu. Whereas, the Greeks and Romans had a veritable Parthenon of wind gods, the Anemoi, which led by Aeolus were associated with an array of attributes, many of which were positive, but for they of Eurus, the god of the East and Southeast wind. But, not merely in stone and papyrus papers are accounts of the unpropitious nature of Eastward winds present. In the pages of the most published book in print reads, “Seven ears, withered, thin, and blighted by the East wind, sprouted after them” (Genesis, 41: 23, Bible.com), the words thereof echoing insights from the dawn of the agricultural revolution, it being the foundation stone upon which civilisation and cities were built.

While Stuart Londoners worshipped not wind gods, meteorology was nonetheless imbued in their lores, beliefs, and proverbs. Nigh two hundred years before the founding of the Met Office, mariners and the wider citizenry of the merchant city of London relied not on science, but on indigenous knowledge shared through the medium of rhyme for their weather forecasts. Linguistically, “St. Swithun’s day if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain, St. Swithun’s say if thou be fair, For forty days ‘twill rain nae mare”, speaks to a date of origin sufficiently old as to suggest Pepys and his peers would have known the phrase. Might they too have known, “When the wind is in the East, ‘tis neither good for man nor beast” (Speake, 2015, p.348), or a rhyme as conveys a like-for-like message? Similarly, in an age ahead of formalised Public Health and Safety announcements as relate to weather conditions, “Beware of oak, it draws the stroke, Avoid an ash, it courts the flash,” (Gooley, 2014, p.151) evidences there a multiplicity of means of communicating environmental information, which, in this instance is correct, for the English oak [Quercus robur], and the Ash [Fraxinus excelsior] do indeed attract lightening (DeRosa, 1983).

Reverting to the late 20th and early 21st Century: the measures by which the propitiousness of wind direction is measured may be different, but the conclusions drawn therefrom are one in the same with respect to the implications to human settlements. Look to the pages of the June 8th 2017 issue of Emergency Management and one reads Tim Dawdy, division chief with Clark County Fire & Rescue advising, “When we have periods of east wind I want our citizens to go out and check out burn piles and make sure those burn piles don’t come back to life” (Matarrese, 2017, online). Turn one’s attention instead to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Proposed Land Resource Management at Siskiyou National Forest and one finds “East Wind Periods” associated with “catastrophic or stand replacement wildfires” (McCormick, 1987, p.III-70). However, winds as align to the course as was traced by the mythological ‘Eurus’ are not alone in their affiliation with wildfires. Peruse satellite imagery of two of California’s largest chaparral wildfires on record, the Cedar Fire [Fig. 49] and the Thomas Fire [Fig. 50], and one sees streams of smoke drifting on the katabatic [109] Santa Ana winds, their direction headed from land to sea, East to West, their origin the air masses that rise above the continental interior of the western U.S (Berkowitz and Steckelberg, 2017; Fovell, 2002). In reference to the latter, the December 7th 2017 edition of the Los Angeles Times ran the headline “Wind is the culprit in 2017’s horrific wildfire season” (Boxall, 2017, online). Bringing phenomenological perspective thereto, Tim Ortiz, captain at the Bakersfield Fire Department said of the fire to which the headline relates, “like nothing I’ve ever been involved with before... winds enough to almost push you over” (Tso, 2017). Vice versa, regional and national news agencies acknowledged that, as was the case with the Great Fire, for all the human interventions, it was a change in the weather that tamed the Thomas Fire’s ferocious flames (Reuters, 2017; Buzzfeed, 2018), which in the period December 4th 2017 to January 12th 2018 burned through 281,893 acres [the largest acreage in the state’s modern history] and 1,063 structures (CALFIRE, 2018), and, at a provisional estimate, $2.5billion (Artemis, 2018). By comparison, the Great Fire, it being the event, which, in 1681 led Nicholas Barbon to launch the first fire insurance scheme, cost an estimated £10million (Museum of London, 2018), which, if adjusted for inflation equates to approximately £37billion today (Association of British Insurers, 2016).

However, though both the Great Fire and the Thomas Fire burnt through colossal sums of public and private finance, human causalities were surprisingly low. In the latter instance one fire fighter and one civilian lost their lives (Gabbert, 2018). Whereas, in the former, while it’s commonly cited that but a handful were consumed by the fire, others consider it more likely than several thousand lives were lost (Eveleth, 2014). Bringing context thereto, though none have yet modelled the metrics of the Great Fire [i.e. simulated the event using software as could generate an approximation thereof], whereupon eye-witness accounts are converged with data as is known of the atmospheric conditions, biomass quantity and state, and the fire’s footprint, it is reasonable to assume that, as in the instance of the Grenfell Tower fire (Cheng, 2017), such temperatures were reached [upwards of 870°C] as would have cremated the bodies of those who befell to the flames. Regardless of whether several or several thousand lives were lost to the Great Fire, given it ignited at 10pm (London Fire Bridge, 2017) and spread rapidly through a densely populated area in which 80,000 people were resident, one might argue that even the greater of the fatality figures is relatively low.

One might reasonably attribute the low fatality rates of both the Great Fire and the Thomas Fire [Fig. 51] to human agency, which in the latter instance comprised a fire crew numbering over 8,500 persons (Etehad and Brittny, 2017). The spatiotemporal distances that divide the Great Fire, Eagle Creek fire, and Thomas Fire may be great, but at the level of biochemistry, and in turn, of the Earth systems intertwined therewith, urban or wildland, many are the commonalities between the three.

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].

5.1.3 Entering the Eye of a Thomian Urban Storm: Systems and the City

“What passes for fundamental concepts in ecology is as mist before the fury of the storm – in this case, a full, nonlinear storm”. Schaffer, 1991.

Reyner Banham spoke to an architectural dichotomy in which the city of conservation, “the structural solution”, resided in polarity to the city of combustion, “the power-operated solution”: one either built with wood, or one burnt it (Banham, 1984, p.19). He recognised that “pre-technological” peoples build not “substantial structures”, instead inhabiting “a space whose external boundaries are vague, adjustable according to functional need, and rarely regular” (Ibidem, p. 20). However, while the dichotomous construct applies to the architectures of societies that source their building materials locally, [i.e. South-East Asian vernacular architectures aligned to Proto-Austronesian traditions] it applies not to the City of London, which instead constitutes a splicing of conservation and combustion, and in both instances, the materials as underpin the action thereof are sourced from afar. We might think of the city as the candle in the analogy as follows:

“whereas individually the flame is an open system as energy and the candle a closed system, together they constitute something else, multiple and ambiguous, where the candle can appear as the energy reserve of the flame system.” Morin, 1977.

Metaphorically, Morin’s flame to candle construct sees the city’s materiality reduced to its lowest common denominator, to energy, or more specifically to metabolic exchanges and their spatiotemporal dimensions: the city as an open thermodynamic system. As observed by Luis Fernandez-Galiano, “wood is potentially as much a construction material as a combustible substance”, the relationship between the one and the other commutable and interchangeable (Fernandez-Galiano, 2000, p. 17), as evidenced in the Great Fire. In contrast, while mineral-based architectures preserve some of the energy as was required for their creation [i.e. in the mining, transport, and processing of their materiality] they nonetheless require yet further energy consumption [i.e. heating and lightening], for, as discussed by Stephen Cairns and Jane Jacobs, they enter states of “decay, obsolescence, disaster, ruin, and demolition” in the absence thereof (Cairns and Jacobs, 2014, p.232).

While Fernandez-Galiano interrogated not the theoretical nor practical challenge of accommodating for fire as spreads within and across the materiality of a building or a city, he nonetheless re-opened a dialogue which, in the aftermath of Banham’s passing in the late 1980s, had been all but abandoned. Bringing context thereto, while many have been the discussions of ‘design for deconstruction’, the context of the discussions has shifted over time.

Citing the systems thinking pioneer Sir Geoffrey Vickers VC, “There are many situations in which to be systematically late, is to be systematically wrong”, Cedric Price discussed the virtues of adding “doubt, delight, and change as design criteria”, the italics added by this author by means of emphasising that Cedrician Thinking, as one might dub it, embraced not rejected the “unexpected” (Price, 1996, p27). A man whose mind delved the depths of innumerable disciplines, Price perceived of architecture beyond the “soul-destroying static fixes” as persist in populating the paradigm to which most late 20th and early 21st century architects subscribe (Cairns and Jacobs, 2014, p. 41). Acknowledging architecture to be “slow” whereupon the “time-factor” is accommodated for (Ibidem), Price advocated for ‘anticipatory design’, that resides not in a world of assumptions and of acquisition, but of “mobility, flexibility, adaption”, “planned obsolescence” and “letting go of the architectural artefact” (Ibidem). Therein, “we”, the Global North, and increasingly Global South, may be “living in a material world” (Brown and Rans, 1984), but, as Price acknowledged, we do so not indefinitely, for the parameters of the systems upon which our world is built revolve not around such aspirations. But, for all the systemic literacy as expressed in Price’s many, often times collaborative, theoretical works, such scope of understanding is often absent from the design for deconstruction constructs created in the aftermath thereof, this being a matter as was partly addressed by Cairns and Jacobs in the closing chapter of their “memento mori for architecture” (2014, p. 232). Whereas Cedrician Thinking evolved in an arena of expertise which, be it through explorations theoretical and/or practical, had developed an appreciation of the tension between chaos and order, and for the creative potentialities therein, a sizeable swathe of that which has followed speaks to the banality of bullet points born of the misplaced belief that complexity can be, and should be, controlled. Citing yet further pertinent observations on the part of Cairns and Jacobs, valiant though their intentions, such are the vagaries of Braungart and McDonough’s cradle-to-cradle paradigm that while intended to accommodate for complexities of “cosmological” proportions (Ibidem, p. 228) it provides not clarity with regard to the technicalities thereof, thus leaving it wide-open to interpretation. Casting their appropriately critical eyes to the design for deconstruction proposition of Schmidt-Bleek, Cairns and Jacobs acknowledge that, like that of Braungart and McDonough, while speaking to the ecological, its parameters are predominantly set within the confines of the anthropogenic: the commodification of the natural world. Within and of these paradigms ecological processes are reduced to acts of procurement: planetary systems, so say, beholden to human wants and needs, and at the mercy of management practices, including but not limited to, “accounting” (Ibidem, p. 229).

Recalibrating the lens through which systems are viewed from that of Braungart and McDonough, and Schmidt-Bleek, to that of Price and his collaborative peers, disorder resumes its relevance, such that ecologies are understood in states of emergence not equilibrium, dynamism not stasis (sensu Postrel, 1998): buildings not ‘dying’, but evolving, their systemic parameters adjusting as socio-ecological shifts occur, therein travelling the space-time continuum ad infinitum. Add the element of fire and, to cite Morin, “[René] Thomian catastrophe takes place in society, in which the disintegration of old forms and the gestation of new forms constitutes one and the same banged up, antagonistic, and uncertain process” (Morin, 1977, p.89).

Thinking not at the scale of the City, but of the planet, and to how it may be possible to reconcile the growing gap between construction material supply and demand, and to do so within the boundaries (Rockstrom et al, 2009) as might enable “harmony” between anthropogenic, ecological, and other Earth systems (Brundtland, 1987, online), the imperative to explore new architectural and urban design paradigmatic possibilities becomes starkly evident.

5.1.4 Back to the Forest: Biomass Buildings are Reborn

“The forest, with its exotic forces, is “outside” the inhabited precincts of consciousness, as village, city, household or castle. But the boundaries are often depicted as tenuous; many tales begin with the protagonist living “at the edges of a forest,” just as, inevitably, the worlds of typical and archetypal impinge upon each other”. Ronnberg and Martin, 2010.

As discussed in the literature review, interest in both systems thinking and bio- inspired design of multiple genres has been steadily growing within and across the built environment sector this past several years. However, material science aside, fire is conspicuous by its absence from discussions and debates of architecture and urban design of which the creation has been attributed to ‘biological’ and/or ‘ecological’ observations. Bringing context thereto, upon typing “bio-inspired buildings” into Google the search engine generated approx. 20 pages of URLs on said subject (January, 2018). However, whereupon the word “fire” was added to the search phrase, while 6 pages of URLs were generated, biomimetic fire-resistant materials aside, none was the content as discussed fire in a ‘bio’ variant [111] built environment context. Indeed, beyond the field of fire ecology, and especially outside of the territories in which wildland fire is indigenous, awareness of the co-evolution of fire, flora, and fauna remains low, which is all the more surprising given that, as any as have a keen interest in gardening will generally be aware, wood ash is highly beneficial to the health of many common garden plants (Royal Horticultural Society, 2017), the matter thereof communicated in numerous gardening books, journals, and other media, and witnessed whereupon, as autumn arrives, gardeners build bonfires by means of both clearing dead vegetation and recycling the nutrients therefrom. Yet more surprising still is it that within the ‘bio’ creative community awareness of the symbiosis of biota and fire remains low, for one of the seminal works that discussed the potential of ‘The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World’ (Kelly, 1994) briefly discussed the role of fire in making a biome variant “work” (Ibidem, pp. 57 – 62), the context being an examination of the role of complexity in the functioning of ecological systems, and the lens the career of “the godfather of ecology”, Aldo Leopold (Ibidem, p.58). Through trial and error, Leopold had rediscovered “a wary animal, once ubiquitous on the tall grass prairies, that roamed widely and interacted with every plant, insect and bird”: The animal was fire, and its role, Leopold concluded, is “vital” (Ibidem, p.59).

A yet broader sweep of said subject matter revealed misinformation being communicated in respect of the properties of biological building materials. For example, on December 18th 2017 The Building Centre published an article of which the title reads, “Sustainable, fireproof, & insulting: how seaweed is a valuable construction material” (Building Centre, 2017, online). Seaweed, it states, is “fireproof” due to its “tightly packed cellular makeup”. The article was illustrated with photographs of “The Modern Seaweed House”, which, wooden framed, and entirely clad in panels of dried seaweed piled some few inches high, resides in the midst of a conifer forest, of which specimens stand just a few feet away. While the article takes not the trouble to illuminate its readers as to the species of seaweed as was used in the prototype, the photograph suggests it to be a variant of Chlorophyta (green seaweed). Though the chemical composition of Chlorophyta varies from one species to another (Misurcova, 2011), and the genera as a whole are able to fix inorganics in marine and freshwater environments, thus their mineral content is relatively high, as photosynthesizing components of carbon metabolism at the planetary-scale, we can be assured that whatsoever the species he used in the ‘modern house’, like the oaks, elms, sweet chestnuts, and hornbeams from which Medieval London was built (University of the West of England, 2008), it is carbon-based. However, it takes not an interrogation of the molecular structure of seaweed to establish that it burns, as becomes evident whereupon one uses a variant thereof in a stir-fry. Therein, transdisciplinary methodologies seemingly absent from both the design studio in which the above referenced concept was created, and from the editorial management of the “News and Knowledge” section of the website of a leading British built environment institution, it appears that, be it at the scale of a house in a forest in some unspecified location, or that of a city, such as London, the possibility of another Thomian catastrophe of the combustible kind is requiring of urgent attention. More specifically, building materials need be understood not at the scale of a lab experiment in which a finite number of factors can be controlled, but at the scale of the environment.

Bringing the above matter into sharp relief, Sumitomo Forestry Co proposes to mark its 350th anniversary with the construction of ‘W350’: a 350m high wooden skyscraper (Hunt, 2018), the height thereof more than double that of the highest fire- fighting aerial platform currently in operation [Bronto Skylift’s model F363HLA] of which the maximum extension is 112m (Bronto Skylift, 2018). Nonetheless, not once does the press release (Sumitomo Forestry Co, 2018) as was despatched by said company by means of announcing its proposal make any reference to the risk of fire, let alone explain how firefighters would overcome the aerial platform height issue whereupon attempting to save lives in the event of a fire. But, fire’s absence from the press release is all the more surprising given that in a section titled “Cascade utilization of timber” the authors state that “Waste wood is used as fuel for biomass power generation, and the heat generated during combustion can be used to dry timber” (Ibidem, p.3). Not Schrödinger's cat, but his tower block: materials of which the owners acknowledge the combustibility in the context of a power plant, but not in the urban environment.

Reverting to the Grenfell Tower fire of June 2017, the absence of aerial platforms that could reach the highest stories hindered the London Fire Brigade in their efforts to tackle the blaze (Grant, 2017). If built, and at a cost of £4.02 billion, the 70-story W350 tower will, according to Sumitomo Forestry Co, “transform the city [Tokyo] into a forest” (Hunt, 2018, online), which is “kind to humans” (Ravenscroft, 2018). Slated for completion by 2041, 90% of its materiality is timber, including its interior structure, which spans 455,000sq/m. However, imagine not that W350 is comprised only of dead wood, for its exterior will “facilitate the spread of greenery from the ground to the top floors” (Hunt, 2018, online). Under the title “Changing towns to forests”, the press release states, “These structures are like a forest, a habitat for living things”. Though authored by a forestry company, and mentioning forests not once, not twice, but several times over, the press release of which the tone is more rhetorical than factual, speaks not to science, but to urban myth, the apparent causation the belief that a forest amounts to no more than a collection of trees, which as discussed later, is arguably a falsehood that largely serves not biodiversity, but commercial aspirations. Indeed, ecologically speaking, the W350 project suggests, loosely, there to be only one possible virtue, that being its proposed use of wood from Japanese cedar [Cryptomeria japonica] and cypress [Chamaecyparis obtusa] plantation forests, which planted in the aftermath of WWII, and covering 10.4 million ha, are monocultures that support limited biodiversity (Bird, 2017). But, sadly even in this regard, the project is lacking, for the press release states that “It is crucial to use these trees and replant them after harvesting to encourage sustainability of forests” (Sumitomo Forestry Co, 2018, p.3). Therein, the press release suggests that the forestry company seeks to perpetuate a problem rather than solve it. Furthermore, while more generally burning of biomass is “one of the worst things we can do if our goal is clean air and a liveable climate” (Stashwick, 2017), in one of the foremost seismically active nations in the world, bioenergy has been posited a safer means of energy production than nuclear (Sasaki, Toshiaki, and Putz, 2011). Therein, regardless of the level of risk to life and to property as may be inherent in the W350 proposal, it may well be that high-density urban housing of the ilk of tower blocks is not the most environmentally advantageous use of Japan’s coniferous plantation timber.

W350 is but the tip of a veritable towering inferno of possible future urban catastrophes, which, unfortunately, no matter the advent of several recent tragedies appears to be more prevalent in the minds of some movie makers than a significant contingent of the built environment press and media. For example, upon reporting that the city of Veldhoven, Netherlands plans to build the ‘Dutch Mountains’, which “once completed, will be the largest wooden building in the world” (Jewell, 2018, online), InHabitat.com’s contributor not so much as mentions the word ‘fire’, let alone interrogates the matter of how the mountainous quantity of wood will perform in the presence thereof. Likewise, when Wallpaper reported that “The future of architecture lies in engineered wood”, fire was, again, conspicuous by its absence (Dowdy, 2018).

“The Pearl is the tallest, most advanced building in the world. You’ve built a vertical city. But, you’ve brought with it every single safety and security challenge that I could think of. Not only have you brought them all indoors, but you’ve trapped them 244 floors in the air. No one really knows what things would happen if things go wrong. But, I’m just a glorified security guard, so what the hell do I know anyway”, Dwayne Johnson as the character of ‘Will Ford’, Skyscraper, Universal Pictures, 2018.

In the same month that Universal Pictures released the trailer for Skyscraper, The Economist shared a short film via its social media channels, which titled ‘Wooden skyscrapers could be the future for cities’ attempts to quantify the potential thereof. The tone is set by the opening statement, it being a regurgitation of the often cited “expectation” [on the part of a UN report of which the investigative parameters extended not to the possible impact of such scenarios as widespread anti-biotic resistance, including but not limited to extensively drug resistant strains of diseases including tuberculosis, typhoid, influenza, and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA, amongst others] that by 2050 the global population will reach nearly 10 billion (United Nations, 2015). Moving from one assumption to another, the film narrator’s states that of the sum thereof, two-thirds will live in cities, this being a speculation that though, again, commonly cited has been critiqued [112] in amongst other places an on-air discussion between LSE’s fellow of Human Geography Dr. Alice Evans, Oxfam’s public sector advisor Erinch Sahan, and myself (Urban Living is On the Rise, 2014). However, these are but drops in the stasis ocean when compared to the denial of the disorder as could unfold at the convergence of cities, climate change, and its secondary consequences.

Having acknowledged that wood acts “as kindling”, and has destroyed “large swathes of some of the world’s great cities”, thereon spoken to some of the environmental virtues of wood, the film cuts to Dr. Michael Ramage of University of Cambridge’s School of Architecture, giving a précis of the properties of Cross-laminated Timber [CLT], that being the technical term for panels comprised perpendicular layers of timber, which have been bound by glue by means of overcoming the anisotropic [113] properties of wood. Dr. Ramage then appears with a small block of CLT and a propane blowtorch, thereon applies the latter to the former, stating that “charred wood is a tree’s natural protection”, because is it “insulating”. As discussed earlier, manifold are the ways by which biota, trees included, protect themselves and/or their offspring from fire, however, biologically speaking, ‘charring’ is not one of them. Indeed, to present a block of timber that stripped of its bark and is thus reduced to that which, prior to felling, would have been a tree’s living [internal] tissues is akin to positing that a human’s internal organs constitute their ‘protection’ against environmental threats. While Dr. Ramage names not the tree species from which the CLT has been sourced, we might reasonably assume it to be a hardwood species, since its context within and of the film is that of providing structural support at the scale of a tower block. Therein, one finds the root of his phraseology. While the cellular, thereon molecular structure of the tissues of broad-leaved hardwood species varies from one to another, thus, likewise, the heat energy as might be generated from the burning thereof, all species emit sufficient quantities as to suggest that, whereupon a fire broke out in a tower made of CLT the sum would be combustible, but for one caveat: while charring has not capacity, per say, to ‘protect’ a tree, whereupon a tree’s diameter is sufficiently large the process can indeed ‘insulate’ its trunk’s interior from fire, therein retaining its structural integrity. Hence, charring has a role in fire protection at the building scale, but that role is specific. Thus, the problem with The Economist film is not so much one of science, as editing, for it fails to acknowledge, let alone interrogate the wider fire risks presented by wooden tower blocks [Fig. 53].

As witnessed by they in their millions that watched the Grenfell Tower fire unfold, fire in the urban environment is considerably less predictable than fire in a laboratory, or, as above, in a linear experiment involving one material, in this instance CLT, and one source of ignition [the blow torch]. Bringing context thereto, starting with the fuel state: a rudimentary lesson in camp-fire building is that green-wood is many times harder to ignite than dried [seasoned] wood. Hence, they building fires primarily seek dead wood for tinder and kindling. Technically, as discussed earlier, this is explained by the fact that, when the moisture of extinction exceeds a certain level, fire extent will be zero. In the instance of dead wood, the ideal fuel state for a fire is when the internal moisture levels are approx. 20% or lower (Michigan State University, 2014). While the “heat capacity of wood that contains water is greater than that of dry wood”, (Glass and Zelinka, 2010, p.4-12), hygroscopic [water absorbent], wood, whether dead or alive, “takes on moisture from the surrounding environment”, (Ibidem, p. 4-1), the amount shifting with relative humidity, air temperature, and current, this being evident whereupon one observes, for example, the state of wooden fences over time [i.e. hydroscopic processes evidenced by warping and consequent degradation of paint and other coatings]. Relating to the W350 tower, whereupon built, its fuel state, that being “seasoned”, would likewise be variable, and the predominant underlying influencers thereof beyond its creators’ control [i.e. environmental, such as weather, and human error and accident, such as water and gas leaks]. Whether built of Japanese cedar or cypress, given that both species are used for the purpose of biomass energy production we can assume that their capacity for combustion, as measured in BTU [British thermal unit] is ample to sustain a fire.

However, it takes not the perusal of a BTU chart to establish this matter, for reverting to lessons in campfire building, a Scouts’ guide states that cedar is “full of snap and crackle. It gives little flame, but much heat”, continuing in a rhyme much reminiscent of those of the 17th century (Scouts, 2017, online):

“These hardwoods burn well and slowly,

Ash, beech, hawthorn, oak, and holly.

Softwoods flare up quick and fine,

Birch, fir, hazel, larch, and pine.

Elm and willow you’ll regret,

Chestnut green and sycamore wet.”

Reverting attention from a tower block proposed for Tokyo to the neck of the territorial woods in which the Great Fire broke out, après CLT meets blow torch ‘experiment’, The Economist’s film proceeds to discuss various wooden tower blocks that are presently on the design table at London architectural practice Waugh Thistleton. By means of gaining a sense of the combustibility thereof, whereupon, as was Medieval London, these towers were built of hardwood, per 39 cubic meters, the heat equivalent would be approx. 20 million BTUs, which equates to that of “145 gallons of #2 fuel oil [heating fuel], or 215 gallons of liquid petroleum gas” [University of Michigan, 2014]. No scout badge in campfire building is required to recognise the scale of the risks to hand whereupon, as suggested by the architectural illustrations, the buildings, in nigh totality, are built of wood. Evidence that some laypersons can grasp such risks can be found in the comments sections below The Economist’s film, of which one response simply reads “fireproof wood” with ‘crying with laughter’ emoji.

5.1.5 Accidental Acts of Alchemy: Architectural Accelerant Assemblies

“embers falling from the fire lit a stack of fire wood”. Allaby, 2003.

Back to the CLT sample being blow-torched by Dr. Ramage, and to his statement that “charred wood is a tree’s natural protection”, and to the triangulation of a case study past with case studies present and possible future. As discussed earlier, during the Great Fire, gunpowder that was stored in properties across London acted as accelerants. The fire potion, [huoyao] as its Taoist creators called it, is comprised of three powders; sulphur, pyrolyzed cellulose [charcoal], and potassium nitrate. A low explosive, it is so classified because of the speed at which it deflagrates [burns]. While we can but speculate upon how oriental alchemists first discovered gunpowder, accident cannot be ruled out, for all three of its constituents are common in many urban and rural environments both ancient and current. Potassium nitrate is found in bat and sea bird guano [excrement], of which the name stems from its long-standing use as a fertilizer. One of the most abundant elements on Earth, sulphur is the contemporary term for that which was called ‘brimstone’ in the Bible. Like potassium, sulphur is fundamental to life, found in several forms, and frequently used in fertilizer, as well as in insecticides and fungicides. Furthermore, whether naturally [i.e. wildland fires] or anthropogenically [i.e. coal plants], burning of fossil fuels produces sulfur dioxide [SO2] of which particulates build-up on exterior surfaces over time (Purdom, 1971; Robinson and Robbins, 1970), the signs thereof abundant whereupon one examines the patination on historic buildings in urban areas. As discussed by Fernandez-Galiano (2000), omnipresent during the pre-industrial age, open flame was outsourced from the city to the power plant, from whence it has been barely seen nor heard since. Therein, charcoal, and charring more generally, have become increasing scarce in the urban environments of the Global North: Hestia’s architectural hearth reduced to seasonal usage in barbeques and decorative candles.

Whereupon wooden tower blocks begin to populate cities, and, perhaps by necessity, their structural members are charred, the act thereof would re-introduce a long-absent material, and do so in a context in which potassium and sulphur may be present. For example, bats roost not merely belfries, but essentially any dry, lofty, interior space as can provide of shelter. Hence, in addition to humans, a tower block’s ‘tenants’ may well include, amongst other species, Horseshoe bats [Rhinolophidae]. Thinking to the inhabitation potentialities of the exterior space, no matter any absence of ecological integrity within and of the concept, any attempt at creating an ‘urban [vertical] forest’ may well prove appealing to the more adaptable of urban-dwelling bird species, such as the Herring gull [Larus argentatus] and the Common wood pigeon [Columba palumbus]. Therein, though the probability that an accidental act of architectural alchemy will produce a chemical cocktail of 75% potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur (Compound Interest, 2014), i.e. that which, in the presence of a spark would produce the exothermic reaction 10KNO3 + 3S + 8C → 2K2CO3 +3K2SO4 + 6CO2 + 5N2 (an explosion) may be low, it is, nonetheless, not beyond the realms of probability that volatile material assemblages will result from combinations of anthropogenic and environmental actions over time.

The memory of another accidental alchemical act [Grenfell Tower fire] evidences the urgent imperative to bring greater depth of understanding, and scope of professional enquiry to the development of novel material architectural assemblages. Whichever way you slice it, dice it, pimp it up, or splice it, wood is wood. Charring may well insulate the interior of timber structural members, but charcoal burns readily, and, as evidenced by its BTU of 26, upon doing so, releases high levels of heat. Therein, fire safety testing of building materials ought to fully reflect the complexity of the environmental setting in which the materials, and combinations thereof, may become present, and in the process accommodate for the possibility of human neglect, accident, or error. Looking to the materials horizon, an innovation that while not developed with fire-safety in mind, hints at the possibility thereof, is currently in development at the University of Maryland. “Densified” to 20% of its former thickness through the application of chemicals and mechanical pressure which, “squashes it into a dense layer of well-aligned cellulose nanofibres held together with hydrogen bonds”, wood, so the researchers claim, can be strengthen to 10x that of its pre-treatment state. (Stoye, 2018, online). Dubbed “bullet-proof”, and “strong as steel”, yet “six to seven times lighter” in theory, this development, could revolutionize construction, and not least given that the material’s density suggests its combustibility would be low. However, as pointed out by its creators, the matter of whether the material will gain market momentum will “depend on the economics of it” (Ibidem).

But, as with all architectural projects, post-build occupancy, and not only on the part of non-human inhabitants [i.e. bats], is only a part of the material picture, as highlighted by the following statistic: in 2005, “London Fire Brigade were experiencing around 30 fires a year” in a particular area, but a decade later, the figure had increased ten-fold, of which causation was attributed to “poor connections” within electrical consumer units, and their “being made of plastic, which is fuel to the fire” (Ford, 2017, online). While policy changes can go some way to ensuring citizen safety, even in the event that an issue such as that referenced above is formally addressed, disorder, whether unintended and otherwise, may undermine even the best laid fire-safety plans. When a fire breaks out, be it in wooden tower block or otherwise, its behaviour is significantly impacted by the assemblage of substances within and of the building structure, the sum of which is born of innumerable decisions by innumerable persons.

5.1.6 The Topography of Towering Infernos: Lessons from the Wildland

“Under a sky stained by an immense pall of black smoke, like a curtain drawn over the concluding act of the city, the long plumes rose high into the air, drifting away like the fragments of an enormous collapsing message.” J. G. Ballard, 1965.

In the instance of some material assemblages, the topography of tower blocks could accentuate fire-spread through pre-heating resulting from radiative, convective, and conductive processes [Fig 54], the causation thereof the sheer verticality of the structure, of which a wildland proxy would be a cliff face. Furthermore, the topography of a tower block may accelerate the internal forces of a fire [i.e. its capacity to generate fire weather], as oxygen is not merely drawn down from the atmosphere above, but across a large surface area, the caveat thereto being that the fire’s behaviour would only be accelerated in the presence of an abundant fire-ready fuel source, such as seasoned timber, petro-chemical based insultation materials, or tinder-dry foliage.

Bringing context thereto, as discussed in ‘Atoms of Fire’, it takes an estimated 200 cubic feet of air per one pound of fuel to facilitate combustion. Thus, taking the Grenfell Tower fire as an example, whereupon one reviews the footage thereof, it is evident on sight that, upon taking hold, the fire spread across the building exterior with the speed of a low-severity surface fire. Yet, such was the immensity of the fire- ready fuel as was available in, amongst other forms, the insulation material in the exterior cladding, as to sustain not a low-severity, but a high-severity fire, as is evidenced by both the flame length, colouration, and post-fire material state of both building and its contents. Hence, the fire as witnessed was, in effect, a hybrid of primarily anthropogenic causation, in so far as, within the wildland one finds not the juxtaposition of topography and materials as would facilitate a fire that burns so swiftly, and so intensely. Furthermore, unlike wildland fires, the Grenfell Tower fire and its contemporary urban kind manifest not any positives, but for the exposure of failures and inadequacies on the part of they as were endowed with the responsibility to prevent against such tragedy as witnessed, together with acts of kindness on the part of those with sympathy for all affected by the event.

Drawing on further insights from the study of the behaviours of low, mixed, and high severity wildland fires, that the topography of tower blocks accentuates the probability of both rising and falling embers is evident [i.e. the sum thereof will be greater than when fire breaks out in low-rise developments of similar materiality]. In the former instance, ‘firedrops’ are both carried on winds and propelled upwards by a fire’s internal forces [i.e. fire weather]. In the latter instance, gravity is the primary force in play, but again, the fire’s internal forces and wind may also facilitate fire spotting. The advent thereof tends have limited consequences in mineral-based material architectural settings. But, would likely manifest the inverse whereupon a fire broke out in an ‘urban forest’ of the vertical kind. One might speculate that, while the Great Fire’s rate of spread was rapid, it would have been faster still had the City of London been not low-rise, but high [timber] rise [Fig. 55].

5.1.7 Between a rock and a fiery place: Navigating an Urban Fire Storm

“Oh, a storm is threat’ning,
My very life today,
If I don’t get some shelter,
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away,” Jagger & Richards, 1969.

When fire breaks out within the mineral-based materiality of present-day London, as Wren, Hooke, and Evelyn anticipated, its spread is limited not merely by the application of water and/or other fire suppressing substances and actions, but by the relative absence of fuel [carbon-based materials]. But, change the materiality and, as in the wildland, one changes the urban fire regime. Consequently, the Great Fire and its several antecedents are indicative of the fire scenarios that may be anticipated within a future city that is built not of stone, cement, glass, and steel, but of biomass. For example, whereupon wooden tower blocks are built in abundance, we could expect to see the return of an urban fire season, the duration thereof coupled to the climate and more specifically to its meteorological manifestations. As discussed earlier, we need accommodate for not one, but a bandwidth of climatological scenarios. As relates to the city, should the direction of travel be towards a relatively arid future, therein similar such weather extremes as were witnessed in 17th Century London, we might anticipate that, as was the case three and a half centuries ago, fires would peak from spring through autumn. However, as in present-day California, whereupon periods absent of precipitation were extended, so too would be the urban fire season.

Adding yet further fuel to the fire, both recent real-world events, and theoretical and computer models speak to a future of chronic water shortages (Kummu et al, 2016), therein yet another correlation with the environmental circumstances that under- pinned the Great Fire. Given that regional per capita water consumption is higher today than in the 17th Century (Ibidem), and the population of London is more than hundred-fold that of 1666, even accommodating for our many times greater capacity to filtrate and, more broadly, to process water, we might reasonably expect that, whereupon London becomes subject to similar meteorological conditions as were manifest during the Little Ice Age, it is not beyond possibility that the city could nigh run dry. Recent analyses by Greater London Authority find “the city is pushing close to capacity and is likely to have supply problems by 2025 and “serious shortages” by 2040 (BBC News, 2018, online). Today, as in 1666, 80% of London’s mains water comes from rivers [Thames and Lea], and its annual precipitation is sizeably lower than cities including Paris and New York (Ibidem). Ironically, the phrase “it never rains, but pours” applies, for while water is scarcer in times of drought, demand increases proportionate to processes including perspiration, transpiration, and evaporation. Acknowledging the systemic nature of the problem, UNESCO’s latest Water Development Report calls for “Nature-based Solutions”, which recognise that water is not “an isolated element”, but “an integral part of a complex natural process” (UNESCO, 2018, p.1).

The medium to worst-case drought scenarios as could unfold remain hypothetical, thus we can but imagine how London would cope were the stones yet again ready to ‘burst into flames’. Bringing a global perspective to the issue, a recent study found “nearly all sub-national trajectories show an increasing trend in water scarcity” (Ibidem, online). Triangulating this trend with a possible migration to biomass-based urban materiality, be it in London, or elsewhere, whereupon water supplies were scant, fire suppression efforts would be greatly hindered. While fire suppressants are sometimes used to limit the spread of wildland fires, though their chemical constituents are not currently classified as harmful to humans and other mammals (Labat Environmental, 2013), some are irritants to skin and eyes, therein whereupon persons come into contact with these substances they need be removed through washing (Kalabokidis, 2000). Furthermore, chemicals used in fire retardants must not be consumed therein any vegetation contaminated therewith must be destroyed. Inhalation of the chemicals therein is to be avoided (Ibidem). More seriously still, a growing body of data suggests that fire retardants may have carcinogenic effects, the study thereof part of a wider interrogation to establish why U.S. firefighters have a higher rate of cancer-related mortality than the general populous (NIOSH, 2018). But, while the risks fire-retardants pose to members of the class Mammalia are yet to be fully quantified, recent studies make apparent the risks to aquatic life, this being a consequence of factors including the release of ammonia upon dissolving into waterways (Scauzillo, 2016; Hogue, 2011).

However, the risk posed by fire-retardants extends beyond the advent of a fire outbreak, for flame retardants as were once commonly used to prevent against fire in the home and the wider urban environment have been found to have sufficiently adverse health impacts as to necessitate their removal (Maron, 2013; Gross, 2013; Grossman, 2011; Gromicko, n.d.).

Whether in the wildland or in the urban past, we find clues as to how various emergent elements may combine to create a new urban fire regime. For example, whereupon, be it in consequence of demand outstripping supply of certain mineral- based materials, and/or attempts to reduce carbon emissions, and/or architectural researcher and practitioner interest in the creative potentialities of a biomaterialities, or otherwise, humanity migrates away from stone, cement, steel, and glass and towards wood and other carbon-based materials, abundant would be the potential fuel-source for a fire. While the state thereof would be seasonably variable, if, as myriad models suggest, the climatic outlook is one of extremes, we might reasonably assume that from spring to autumn the fuel state would be tinder-dry, with the timing thereof coinciding with periods of water scarcity. Thus, two of the three sides of an emerging urban fire triangle in place [oxygen and fuel], one might speculate as to the spatiotemporal distribution of the third. Might history repeat itself? The flash fiction as follows this section explores that possibility.

As discussed earlier, prior to the arrival of the genus Homo, the primary ignition source of fires was lightening. However, since the ‘theft of fire’ humans have been igniting landscapes with the aid of an ever-increasing arsenal of incendiaries. But, in anthropogenic climate change, our species may have inadvertently extended the impacts of our promethean acquisition, for so long as average global temperatures increase, models suggest that so too will electrical storms, therein the Lightning Activity Level. A study by University of California, Berkley estimates the sum thereof will increase 12 ± 5% for every 1°C of warming in the U.S., which can be applied as a proxy for levels as may be anticipated in London and other cities in the Global North (Romps et al, 2014). The thermal conductivity of wood “increases as density, moisture content, temperature, or extractive content of the wood increases”, with further influencing factors including grain angle and quantity of water-soluble salts, the orders of magnitude variable by ten (Glass and Zelinka, 2010, p.4-11). Of the above, that wood’s conductivity is coupled to temperature is particularly pertinent, and a marked distinction from metals, of which the conductivity rises not with temperature.

Further possible ignition sources are numerous, with examples including accident, such as when, in 1929, a fire broke out at the Empire State Building in consequence of a miscalculation on the part of a recently qualified pilot that took a biplane for a joyride (Tauranac, 1995), and terrorism, such as occurred at The Twin Towers on September 11th 2001. Indeed, the flammability of wood may attract higher than average acts of criminality towards skyscrapers built thereof. Bringing perspective thereto, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, such is the extent of the perceived risk of arson and terrorism to tower blocks which, encased in cladding that has failed combustibility tests are yet to be refurbished with safer alternatives, that public officials have taken measures to help prevent against such attacks. Given that a “council-owned block in Slough, Berkshire, with combustible insulation has already been attacked by arsonists several times”, wise are they as pre-empt such actions (Booth, 2016, online).

While in temperate climatic times the matter may be all too easy to forget, whether in the wildland, at the interface therewith, or in the heart of a city, fire sits at the apex of several Earth systems. Therein, when the climate changes fire is an elemental canary in an urban ‘coalmine’: the difference between the molecular structure of wood and coal relatively incremental.

City of London, September 2nd 2066: a flash fiction

Trees turned into torches, as embers cast adrift by an East wind ignited the tinder-dry urban forest with the ferocity of the fire of four-hundred years earlier. The city’s fire hydrants fallen victim to the several-year long drought, citizens fled frantically by whatsoever means were at their disposal.

5.1.8 Urban Forest Mosaics: Rossi, Rowe, Koetter et al meet Fire Ecology

“Walk under the canopy, and you’ll see a similar mosaic. In one spot, the ground is covered in charcoal limbs and carbonized fern fronds. Ten yards away, saplings, shrubs and ferns soak up the sun”. Eldridge, Soll, and Weil, 2018.

If, ‘noble’ or not, H.sapiens are to return to ‘the trees’, the biochemical composition thereof suggests it prudent to heed the lessons of the past, therein avoid “sanitized” visions of “utopia” (Rossi, 1984, p.3) and over-confidence in humanity’s capacity to control its surroundings. Architects, planners, and the built environment community more generally need understand the complexities of the “locus solus” (Ibidem, p.7): the uniqueness of a site socially and environmentally, and informatically and materially. In contrast, as discussed above, while many are those who are exploring concepts they describe as in some way, shape, or form to be ‘biologically’ and/or ‘ecologically’ useful and/or relevant, upon closer interrogation one finds many such ideas to be the architectural equivalent of swinging, all metaphorical corset, crinoline, and bonnet in a Fragonardian [114] garden, in that they speak only to idyllic notions of nature largely, if not wholly devoid of recognition of that which may undermine their fundamental premise and the proclamations built thereupon. In the words of Rossi’s contemporaries Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, “some concept of nature will always be invented - discovered is the operative word – in order to appease the pangs of conscience” (Rowe and Koetter, 1984, p.8). Those that aspire to tackling that which is born of complex challenges might do well to not merely ‘look’ before they leap, but look in the places that are presently over-looked.

As Aldo Rossi said, “with time, the city grows upon itself” (Rossi, 1984, p. 21), its ‘fabbrica’ [buildings] subject to “dynamic processes” that tend “more to evolution than preservation” (Ibidem, p.60), thus “the form of the city is always the form of a particular time of the city; but there are many times in the formation of the city” (Ibidem, p.61). Rossi’s research, led him to advocate “a truly scientific direction for architecture” (Ibidem, p. 176), but as did Rowe and Koetter, he recognised that science is not so much an architectural North Star as one of a constellation of stars that shape the city over time. Prescient words as relate thereto concluded the introduction to Rowe and Koetter’s theoretical treatise, “if this central creed of Futurism – let us celebrate force majeure – is unacceptable to the moral consciousness, then we are obliged to think again”, their antidote being “A proposal for constructive dis-illusion” which is both “an appeal for order and disorder, for the simple and the complex, for the joint existence of permanent reference and random happening” (Rowe and Koetter, 1984, p.8). Thus, while wildfire at the wildland urban interface was absent from their studies, the words of Rossi, Rowe, and Koetter resonate with the findings of the research programme upon which this thesis rests.

Although those who were seminal in futurism’s emergence, such as H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Alvin Toffler, were well-versed in wide-ranging scientific, arts, and humanities fields, thus able to view events through a variety of disciplinary lenses, as reflected in works as diverse as The War of Worlds (H. G. Wells, 1898), Future Shock (Toffler, 1970), and The Songs of Distant Earth (1986), such depth of insight and of imagination is largely absent from the resumes of many contemporary futurists, and in turn future-orientated organisations. However, those who trip beyond the ‘future fantastic’ to explore the urban tensions of possible near and far times produce works that speak to an appreciation of the methodologies that were advocated by the above, of which one example is the audio-visual performance ‘Hello City’ (Young, 2017), which, accompanied by an Orson Welles-esque narrative, wrestles with the possible implications of ubiquitously embedding technology into facets of urban life.

Philosophically, whereupon we follow in the multiplicitous [115] footsteps of the Husserl, Bergson, Deleuze, and Guattari, we partially offset our knowledge limitations and paradigmatic propensities, while simultaneously expanding our design brief, therein our creative scope and such potentialities as may emerge therefrom. Consequently, today as in decades past, not in the various outpourings of those with vested commercial interests do we find the most interesting interrogations of possible socio-ecological futures, urban and otherwise, but in fiction, of which a stand-out example is Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, it being a work in which symbolism and surrealism effectively communicate the crux of the ethical dilemma embedded in such fields as genetic engineering and biodesign more broadly (VanderMeer, 2017). His works, like those of Wells, Orwell, Huxley and their influential early 20th Century co., thinly veil the developments of today, in an imaginary world of tomorrow, as are akin to modern-day fables of which the authors, having deciphered fiction from ‘fact’, and speculation from ‘data’, show greater depth of understanding of futures possible than some of whom it is the occupation to advise thereupon, and no less so than in the domain of the built environment.

Rossi, Rowe, and Koetter likewise recognised that the city of the future is entangled with that of the present and of the past: a triangulation of time and of the beliefs, values, and behaviours that transcend it. The antithesis of a tabula rasa, the trio spoke to urban mosaics that make manifest physically the metaphysical diversity of a metropolis. Theirs is not an “unadulterated natural setting” (Rowe and Koetter, 1984, p. 51) which “insisted on absolute detachment, symbolic and physical, from any aspects of existing context which has been, typically, envisaged as a contaminant” (Ibidem). Whereupon we apply their epistemological lens to future city visions as present nature devoid of its inherent properties, be it the combustibility of carbon- based materiality absent from wooden tower block proposals, or the labelling of species that are shape-shifting their territorial range by means of navigating climatic and other environmental changes as ‘invasive’, such concepts appear as distorted as the biological mutations of VanderMeer’s imagination [116].

Dualities, dichotomies, boundaries and binary oppositions are foremost themes of science fiction, mythology, and religion. Since, at the latest, the advent of writing, authors have questioned whether the relationship between order and disorder is ditheistic [rivalry and opposition] or bitheistic [harmonious]. The proto-religions of Mesopotamia and the Near-East, and Eastern religions, including Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, integrate both ditheistic and bitheistic constructs, such for example as the concept of creative destruction in which order and disorder work in symbiosis. In contrast, the religions of the West, and the largely secular society as spans the Global North align to a ditheistic interpretation. As discussed earlier the matter thereof is fundamental to societal interpretations of natural phenomena, and no less so than fire. In reality as in myth, humanity has, since time immemorial concerned itself with the question “What shall we do so as to prevent the future from not coming about?” (Rowe and Koetter, 1984, p. 99). As explored in the narratives of numerous science fiction novels and films, whereupon efforts to control an environment exceed a certain level and/or are built on false premise, they invariably fail.

In Rossi, Rowe and Koetter’s urban mosaics we find a parallel with the wildland, in that systemic resilience lies in diversity. In cities, as in forests, heterogeneity helps prevent against system-wide failures, creating the architectural and urban design equivalent of valves that halt the spread of threats. In the case of fire, just as some floral species are more flammable than others, so too are some architectural materialities and topographies. Likewise, in cities, as in forests, whereupon system agents, which in the case of the former are buildings and other structures, in the latter floral and faunal species, become over-reliant on a particular resource, the system becomes vulnerable to collapse, thus aligning to the principles of Holling’s Adaptive Renewal Cycle.

Reverting to one of Rossi’s points of reference, to Camillo Sitte, this thesis proposes three major “methods of city planning” (Rossi, 1984, p.35). However, whereas Sitte’s conclusion related only to the spatial distribution of a city’s material assets [adherence to a gridiron, radial, or triangular system], dealing not merely in space, but in time, methods need accommodate for the environmental processes with which the assets need coexist overtime, the foci here being fire. Put succinctly, a city as ascribes to one of three urban fire archetypes. Thus, the over-arching epistemological lens being the Adaptive Renewal Cycle, and its wider philosophical framework of Panarchy, this thesis proposes that in cities, which like London are comprised of architectural material and topographical mosaics, planning and policies accommodate for an urban equivalent of the mixed fire regime.

Therein, a secondary philosophical construct, Multiplicity, expanded to the built environment, such that multiple trajectories, each aligned to a fire regime of relative, but not absolute predictability, are embedded into architectural and urban design briefs. Cities of which the ‘fabbrica’ aligns to other material and topographical variants might adopt one of the tri-part wildland urban interface fire regimes and building codes as proposed in the Panarchic Codex, as detailed ahead.

5.1.9 Hot Stuff: Credrician Thinking in the 21st Century

“We have simply shifted our point of view and are contemplating a new entity, so that we now, quite properly, regard the totality of actions as the activity of a higher unit.” Tansley, 1935.

Whereupon the various conceptually, spatially, and temporally distributed parts as detailed above are considered in toto, evident is the need for Evelynian meets Cedrician Thinking as both comprehends of the complexity of the challenge to hand, and meets it with transdisciplinary approaches that bring the full spectrum of scientific and creative expertise and skills to bare, and in the process thereof applies, as advocated by theorist John Holland, lateral thinking that acknowledges the need for knowledge transfer from one domain unto another, and the challenges inherent therein. Put another way, “Progressive co-adaption of tags [in this instance language and concepts] causes continual change in tag-based interactions [transdisciplinary research and development] in signal/boundary systems [scientific and creative fields]” (Holland, 2014a, p.289).

Qualitatively, Cedrician architectural philosophical precepts largely correlate with the theoretical and applied architectural and urban design concepts that this study’s findings suggest may have capacity to coexist with an urban fire regime. Sweeping aside the “low ebb” of architectural visions (Spiller, 2003, p.49) which, like W350, evidence such absence of research as to think it possible that “the odd organisational tweak of a strategy or system” (Ibidem) [i.e. replacing materiality but not schema] constitutes ‘a solution’, this thesis may be construed as a continuum of the effort to evolve an anti-reductionist architectural and urban design system imbued with intent to address critical environmental and social problems of the now, near and far future: acknowledging architecture as not merely a matter of materiality, but as the pyxis into which the value systems by which we live are poured.

Seeking not simply to extrapolate functional elements of the natural world as befit linear objectives [i.e. reduce carbon emissions in the absence of consideration of the planetary carbon-cycle], and instead accommodate for “an ecology always rearticulating itself” (Ibidem), citing further from Cedric Price Opera (2003), ways in which Cedrician Thinking is complementary to the integration of architecture and urban design with an urban fire regime include:

• Rejection of artificial boundaries beyond their limitations.

• Urban ‘Unplanning’ for “multiple future configurations” (Ward, p.30)

• Designing not in three, but four dimensions, therein processes not objects.

• Relinquishing control of design outcomes unto external forces.

• Creating ‘menus’ of architectural and urban possibilities (Frazer, p. 47).

• Embedding “intelligence and learning from experience” (Ibidem).

• Architecture and urban design defined beyond aesthetics.

• Biotic concepts integrated into abiotic materialities.

• Designing “non-precious structures” (Rattenbury, p. 72).

• Foreseeing “The Natural Death of the City” (Price, p. 119).

• Architecture and urban design as “nature preserve” (Briginshaw, p. 74)

• Recognition of “the annual cycle of climate” (Price, p.69).

• Integrating ‘lungs’ into architectural and urban schemata.

• Architecture and urban design fit for more [species] than humans [117].

• “Hugely catholic scope” of considerations (Rattenbury, p.73).

• Avoidance of “shy decisions and choices” (Briginshaw, p. 74).

• Thinking not to individual, but collective outcomes.

• Architecture as “an evolutionary” act (Frazer, p. 48).

• Creating “plantings” that that ‘grow and decay’ (Spiller, p.49).

Price understood the illusion of architectural permanence. He conceived of concepts as spanned not a moment in time, but many, and are thus relevant to not one, but several generations. Therein his thought processes were, in and of themselves, evolutionary.

Upon standing atop The Monument and visually surveying present-day London, one might be forgiven for thinking the many mineral structures that span the cityscape will be there indefinitely, for the buildings and other infrastructure appear robust. But looks can be deceptive. Geologically, London is built on sedimentary rock: an assemblage of ancient layers of Silurian and Devonian mud and sand stone, clays that formed from the Cretaceous onwards, and several further interim layers, topped by terraces of flint, quartz, and quartzite sand and gravel, and centuries of detritus from human habitation (Royse et al, 2012). Structurally, the above constitutes a configuration with “natural heterogeneity” of the geological systems of which influencers include “faulting of geotechnical properties” (Ibidem, p.45), and shifts in the hydrological dynamics of the territory, not least because London resides in a basin, and is thus vulnerable to soil liquefaction [118]. While the city has experienced not an earthquake of note in centuries, Medieval texts evidence London no stranger to seismic activity. For example, on April 6th 1580 an earthquake of which the epicentre was in the Dover Straits struck with an estimated magnitude of 5.5 - 6.9Mw (Roger et al, 2011; Jha, 2010) its effects “felt strongly”, with structural damage caused across the East coast of the United Kingdom, France, and the Low Countries (Musson, 2015).

While, in theory, UK building codes would prevent against the structural failure of all as adheres thereto, we only need look to the Global South to find evidence of how and why cement and steel structures tend fail in the aftermath of major geological and/or meteorological events. For example, geological failures such as subsidence can cause cracks in cement structures, which in turn can enable precipitation to permeate the materiality thereof, thus corroding the steel re-enforcements upon which structural integrity rests. The elasticity of the Earth’s mantle renders there not any doubt that, even if incrementally, whereupon sea levels rise as ice sheets melt, shifts will occur in the level of pressure exerted upon geological faults. Put succinctly, “like the tides” (Mitrovica, 2015, online), Earth’s mantle and all as rests upon it resides not in a state of stasis, but of perpetual – though sometimes slow – movement. We can but hypothesise as to how a cocktail of sedimentary rock, mineral-based architectures, and seasonal, or otherwise, precipitation may isostatically [119] shake, rattle, and roll. But, bringing a sense of scale thereto, whereupon a 6.9Mw earthquake hit London today, if referencing the Moment magnitude scale, the energy released thereby would be nearly 1000x that of any in living memory. Might a migration to non-mineral architectural and urban materialities be coming sooner than later?

Architecture and urban design practices that take not a leaf from Price’s philosophical ‘book’, and instead assume the ground upon which we stand is both theoretically and physically ‘solid’ evidence not appreciation for the risks presented by scientific ‘knowns’ let alone ‘unknowns’ [120]. As did Price, the profession needs ask “when will ‘what goes up’ come down, and how?” and recognise that, in some instances, building is not the most appropriate answer to a question. Not so much a case of thinking ‘out of the box’ as ‘beyond walls’, and in more than the architectural sense. While not generally acknowledged as a ‘futurist’ per se, Price was an adept future thinker, of which evidence resides in the fact that, like many of the conceptions of his contemporary Arthur C. Clarke, so very advanced were his ideas as for not years, but decades to pass before they came ‘of their time’. Revealing the depth of thought as underpinned such “plantings” (Spiller, 2003, p.49), Price anticipated many of the challenges that would be presented to the architectural and other professions that, in time, would pursue such polymathical proclivities as did he. Thus, while nurturing his projects with insights born of both his own research endeavours and those of the assorted members of the “Hot Stuff Club”, he developed plans for architectural education programmes as could produce graduates fit for an ‘unplanned’ future.

Given that, “fire is a physical process.... a chemical reaction, not an object” (Pyne, 1997, p.9), of which the occurrence in wildlands and urban approximates thereto is cyclic, resides at the apex of Earth Systems, is the most spatiotemporally dynamic of the elements, and presents one of the foremost complex urban challenges of the coming century, one might posit that the exploration of its relationship with architecture, and the built environment more generally, is a perfect fit for Price’s menu of architectural possibilities.

5.1.10 An Architecture for all Ages: Evolution meets Cyclic Theories

“Fire x climate change x landcover change can flip the Earth system into something very difficult for us to adapt to: fire accelerates changes via non- linearities and feedbacks creating chaotic conditions that we can’t track” Bowman, 2018, personal communication.

Upon triangulating past, present, and possible future cases studies, the systemic nature of not merely cities, but of the wider socio-ecological circumstances in which they reside becomes evident. When we compare and contrast events which, be it spatially, temporally, and/or disciplinary, are commonly perceived as ‘separate’, we find, as above, that, at the level of the Earth Sciences, be it in regard of their biochemistry and/or behaviour, many bare similarities. Thus, when thinking to ‘the future’ we need also think to the past, and to the patterns and the cycles as may be inherent therein.

On the surface, floral and faunal evolution may appear to involve the exponential expansion of physiological and behavioural traits: a one-way evolutionary street. However, as discussed earlier, as the life sciences have themselves ‘evolved’, the number of system agents under examination have expanded: one became two, two became three, and so on. Whereas once organisms were studied in isolation, thereon in symbiotic pairs, today they are studied as [eco]systems, Within the ecological sciences the cyclic nature of change is broadly, though not universally acknowledged, be that in regard of local disturbance (Wright and Heinselman, 1973; Holling, 1973), or planetary-scale regime shifts. Migrating the relevance thereof to the events under interrogation, starting with the Great Fire, the city-scale conflagration impacted not solely on London’s Hominin residents. A clue to the plague’s causation resides in its seasonality: outbreaks peaked in autumn (Cummins et al, 2016). However, the pandemic’s cyclicality extended beyond the annual. While the popular media tends focus on the Black Death [1348] and the Great Plague [1665 – 1666], in the interim period pandemic engulfed London on no less than forty occasions, and with a frequency of approx. every 20-30 years (Museum of London, 2017). During the latter period, plague recurring intermittently from 1560 to 1665, mortality elevated to between 5-6x its usual rate, the exception thereto in the more affluent parishes, where infection declined over time (Cummins et al, 2016). However, the passing of the Great Fire coincides with the apparent purging of the plague. But, the debate remains open as to whether the causation can be attributed to the fire, and if so, exclusively or in concert with other factors. Manifold data suggests there a need to unravel the interplay between the abiotic and biotic agents as were to hand.

Plague outbreaks, and those of pandemics more generally, couple with local and/or global environmental shifts. For example, land-use change has been identified as “a driver of emerging infectious disease... most frequently where natural landscapes have been removed or replaced with agriculture, plantations, livestock or urban development” (McFarlane et al, 2013, p.2699), variants thereof including vector- borne and zoonotic, amongst others. In the case of zoonoses [121] [i.e. plague] shifts in the density and/or populous of host species, vectors and pathogens play a significant role. In and of itself, both within and beyond the case study regions, this coupling is significant both with respect to the scale and the type of land-use change. In changing the materiality of the built environment, and the relationship therewith of floral and faunal species and assemblages thereof, humanity will shift disease vectors, such as the proximity of disease carrying species.

However, regardless of whatsoever actions architects, planners, and other built environment professionals may take, the historical record speaks to there being pandemic drivers as are far beyond human control. In the instance of the bubonic plague, we find references as allude thereto in ancient texts of which the origin is hypothesized as dating to pre-history. The most well-known example is found in Exodus, “Egyptians and even their animals developed painful boils all over their bodies” (British Library, 2017, online), the latter a symptom of infection by the Yersinia pestis, which is a bacterium indigenous to the rodent populations of Africa and Asia. Hypothesised to have impacted on Hominin species from H. erectus onwards (Karlen, 1995), the first human host may have been an early hunter that consumed infected prey. The first recorded outbreak [Justinian Plague, 542-750AD] has been posited a consequence of the following chain of environmental events: The anomalous weather event of 535-536AD, which bore the signature of a volcanic winter, resulted in a drought, which in turn led to a reduction in the size of the predator populous, of which the consequence was an increase in their fast-breeding prey species, including African gerbils, thus their displacement from wildland to port cities in search of food, therein contact with urban rodent species, as lack resilience to Yersinia pestis, but to which the bacterium was transmitted through vector-borne infection [fleas], as in turn migrated the bacterium from the rodent to human populous (Bilich, 2007). Within this scenario the abating of the first pandemic is attributed to the arrival of the Medieval Warm Period [950-1250] during which the predator-prey balance resumed, to then falter upon the onset of the Little Ice Age, hence the advent of the second pandemic (Ibidem). The hypothesis that plague reservoirs are “sensitive to climate fluctuations” is supported by a subsequent study (Schmid et al, 2015) that examined how both upward and downward temperature shifts have capacity to propagate pandemic through displacement of species.

Not merely within Athenian myth, but across myriad ancient and living belief systems and their affiliated rituals and practices, fire and smoke are associated with purification and the “purging of evil and sickness” (Pyne, 1997, p.301). Indigenous land-management practices of the Americas, Africa, Eurasia, and Australasia, both within MTC climate regions and beyond, utilize fire to increase biodiversity while simultaneously reducing populations of disease transmitting species, vectors and pathogens. As in 17th Century London, indigenous insight is imparted through a combination of pedagogy, praxis, and spoken narrative within holistic transdisciplinary constructs (Jackson, 2010). Upon the advent of European colonisation, in consequence of vested political interests in combination with environmental determinism (McFarlane et al, 2013), cultures as aspire not to controlling, but to coexisting with the biological hand that feeds, were themselves all but purged from wildlands (Pyne, 1997). But, in “trying to control nature through fire suppression” humanity has created greater “unpredictability” (Kimmerer and Lake, 2001, p.39), and not merely is respect of wildfire. As in the Pleistocene, Yersinia pestis persists, as do innumerable other pathogens which, given the confluence of events as described above, will likely sooner not later, once again come in to contact with human populations, now, and before through trade routes, and given the reliance of the Global North on food imports from the Global South, quite possibly via transportation of that favoured foodstuff of rodents, grain. Speculation yes, impossible, no.

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.

5.1.12 Summary

“The new knowledge [scientific determinism] was robust in the built environment and its mechanical menagerie, but was dismally inadequate in field and forest” Pyne, 2012.

In triangulating both wild and urban ‘lands’ case studies spanning broad spatio- temporal scales, perspectives that stretch beyond human and into geological time are revealed, and with them patterns and cycles which, repeated time and again, need be accommodated in architectural and planning codes and policies. No matter the sum of ‘sanitized’ visions of ‘nature’ of which the ideological premise is that no longer are we, humanity, merely recipients of Promethean powers, but “gods now” (Brand, 2016, online), thus having opened Pandora’s Pyxis are able to reconfigure Earth systems in such fashion as befits our pleasing, as was not lost on Ridley Scott and his ‘Promethean’ peers [122] (Scott Free Productions, 2012), we have not “total mastery over our environment” and thus our “destiny” (Brand, Ibid). For example, we have not capacity to control continental drift, it being the process that shapes land masses, thus oceanic currents, they being the ultimate ‘curators’ of meteorological trajectories, or more specifically how the climate system distributes the energy contained therein: Put succinctly, where a storm strikes and why. We know not yet whether, whereupon faced with the scale and speed of environmental change as was faced by our Hominin forebears, if we, like early H.sapiens will survive, or instead go the way of the several closely related species that became extinct.

Upon abandoning anthropogenic delineations of space, the city becomes just another biome, that like its wildland counterpart aligns to ‘regimes’ of which the materiality and topography shifts in response to environmental change, be that the actions of biological organisms, such as humans, or abiotic events of the ilk of natural hazards. What we do know is that not one, but multiple factors suggest that land-use change will continue apace, and that both historical precedent and present-day studies evidence that a side-effect thereof will be the displacement of other life forms, some of which carry pathogens as are potentially fatal to humans. We know too that, whether at the scale of a hut (sensu Banham) or a city, whereupon the materiality of our shelters shifts from mineral to carbon-based, their level of flammability will change. Thus, imperative is the need to consider the risks as well as the opportunities within alternative architectural propositions. There is no paradigmatic panacea.

The city that arose from the ashes of the Great Fire is akin not to a forest, but a desert, in that parks and gardens aside, and more recently exterior insulation cladding, its interface with the atmosphere is largely devoid of carbon-based materials. However, be it in architectural and urban design practices of London, or any of the many cities that are rediscovering the structural potentialities of wood, and of biological materials more generally, researchers and practitioners need familiarise themselves with the new urban fire regimes as may become manifest within the near-future. Additionally, other age-old issues associated with timber need be considered, of which one example is woodboring beetles, they being a genus of which the behaviour within the built environment will mirror that of the wildland [i.e. be cyclical and affiliated with particular environmental conditions], therein need be accommodated for in maintenance schedules, and risk assessments as relate thereto in building policies, codes, and proposals. The citation below brings some perspective to the immensity of the work as yet to be undertaken in regard thereof:

“Code officials may be opening the lines of communication. In January 2016, the ICC board of directors voted to create a tall wood ad hoc committee, which will study tall timber construction and may develop code changes to be submitted for the 2021 International Building Code” (Avsec, 2017, online).

While theoretically and conceptually explored in the interim by Price and others, architectures of impermanence are one of several urban trends which, predominant in Medieval London, are now experiencing a resurgence, including a revival of ‘cottage industries’ [i.e. DIY, 3D home printing, customisation] and a reduction in the proximity of home and work spaces in general [i.e. efforts to enhance inner-city living]. Hence, the reversion to biomass materiality is just one of a suite of activities that evidence the cyclicality of human ideas, values, beliefs, and behaviours. We have been living in a ‘material world’, but for how much longer? In the chapters that follow this question will be explored in the foremost elementally stochastic of environment: the wildland urban interface.

>Continue to Chapter 6 here.

Footnotes

[109] Katabatic winds form when, under gravitational force, high-density air descends downwards.

[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.

[111] Search phrase variants included the use of the words amongst genres of biologically and ecologically inspired and/or informed design, together with the word ‘fire’.

[112] As pointed out by Dr. Alice Evans, Erinch Sahan, and myself, the assumption that 2/3 of the global populous will live in cities fails to accommodate for the vested political and commercial interests that have propagated the belief that migration from rural to urban areas will exponentially expand in the coming century [i.e. land clearance and grabs, real estate development, access to cheap/illegal labour], and for the countertrends as are underway, including the need for more, not less agricultural development, and technologies and other inventions and innovations [i.e. mobile banking] that make services traditionally affiliated with urban living accessible in remote areas.

[113] Anisotropic refers to material strength as is differentiated by the direction of the grain of the material, in this instance, wood.

[114] In reference to Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s painting The Swing.

[115] In reference to the philosophical concept of Multiplicity, which asserts there to be more than one geo-historical trajectory.

[116] A reference to the first novel in the Southern Reach Trilogy, Annihilation.

[117] In reference to the Price’s project Ducklands.

[118] Soil liquefaction is a process in which sediments behave not like a solid, but a liquid, therein amplifying the effects of geological activity.

[119] In reference to Isostatic Rebound [also known as Glacial or Crustal Rebound].

[120] In reference to Donald Rumsfeld Defense Department brief speech of February 2002.

[121] Zoonoses are infectious diseases that spread from animals to humans.

[122] In reference to the ‘2023 TED Talk’ delivered by the fictitious character ‘Peter Weyland’, which was released as an online viral to promote Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, in which the former stated “We are the gods now”.

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.