7.3.2 Flash Fiction #2: Pyro-Endurers

The Hope Springs Fire, Los Coyotes Reservation, September 9th 2030

Like fireflies caught in tornados, embers swirled, some furiously, others seemingly frivolously as, carried by convection, they made their ignitable way upwards, then downwards, inundating an acutely arid landscape in an inferno as they fell. But, from under the cover of a pyrocumulus cloud of already colossal proportions, the roots of both ecological and architectural recovery were already taking hold. Protected by armour of the mineral-based alluvial kind, a synthetic mycorrhizal network that connected not trees, but buildings, was pulsating as, some several inches below the surface, it processed data on the damage done to properties and their various material and structural parts. Watching from upwind some distance away, Mai looked on. Archaeological finds at the San Dieguito Complex dating her peoples’ presence in the county to the early Holocene onwards, as were her ancestors before her, respectful, not fearful, of wildfire was she. Having slipped one hand into a jean pocket, she pulled out an acorn. As she rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, she reflected on how the smooth oval nut had seeded the thoughts of which the architectural fruits were now self-replicating across the reservation.

>Continue to chapter 7.3.3 here.

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

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

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