9.5 Particulars of a Pan-Perspective

“...curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking” Flexner, 1939.

Though principally concerned with the potentialities for the wildland urban interface’s future, as suggested by the etymology of the Pan ‘archic’ Codex, the paradigm this thesis posits has built on philosophical constructs so ancient as for their point of origin to be lost in some distant time [2.6 – 2.7; 4.3.1 – 4.3.5]. Within the primary case study region, since their arrival in the Palaeolithic, Native American peoples have been living in symbiosis with fire [6.1.2]. Theirs’ a culture of ‘working with, not against nature’, like they of other First Nations and indigenous peoples more generally [2.4], have a long-tried and long-tested architectural vernacular [6.1.2] comprised many material, informational, and structural constructs that have re- emerged within both relatively recent [i.e. mid 1900 onwards] and contemporaneous experimental architecture [2.1.3; 5.1.3; 5.1.9; 5.1.10; 6.4.6]. Several constructs therein align to they of Panarchistic architecture including:

• The synchronisation of architectural renewal processes with the frequencies of historical fire regimes, wherein the passing of wildfire catalyses reconstruction.

• Architectures built of local renewable materials which upon fire-damage or incineration pose no threat to the local and regional environment.

• Design thinking and practice developed in understanding of wildfire regimes and ecologies and the systemic relation of peoples and their artefacts thereto.

• Use of architectural ‘codes’ conceived in reverence of the natural world and its workings, and of intent to protect the integrity thereof [6.1.2]

• Adhering to an architectural paradigm as constitutes the antithesis of the Western WUI paradigm, and in particular its prioritisation of human above non-human factors [6.1.3].

Thus, philosophically and anthropologically, Panarchistic architecture proses of a departure from the aspirations of material-permanency of the Western WUI present [2.10; 2.12; 6.1.3; 6.1.4; 6.1.5; 6.1.6; 6.2.1; 6.1.9.2; 6.2.2; 6.2.3] and a return to the material-temporality of the pre-colonial Native American past [6.1.9.3]. However, the arrow of time forever moving forward, the proposal augments the precepts of the archaic architectural vernacular with leading-edge material, information, and structural systems which both integrate local and global capabilities via technologies including, but not limited to satellite, aerial, and terrestrial sensing, actuating, analysis, and storage systems, ICT ware more generally, together with smart materials, and all such biotechnological, biomimetic, and otherwise bio-inspired innovations as may enable the proposition to migrate from paper to reality. Therein, the paradigm proposes yet a further reconciliation, wherein archaic and contemporaneous architectural and urban approaches are deconstructed and both conceptually and technically reconfigured in ways that extend the potential inherent in both. The idea thereof builds on an existing emergent, but notable trend which, whether enacted consciously or otherwise, involves present-day WUI architects and planners drawing on strategies as were used in early Asian vernacular architectures, of which the underlying logic is that of limiting fire-spread within buildings and assemblages thereof through passive interventions, such as roof topologies that prevent against burning ember and debris settlement [6.1.6; 6.1.7].

Within the Native American worldview, fire and the elements more generally, together with all else as populates the natural world, are perceived to be an integrated holistic system of which humanity is but a part [2.7]. Developed not in isolation, but one of many intimately-connected, and in some instances still living legacies which, it is posited, extend deep into our collective past [2.6; 2.7; 4.3.1; 4.3.2], this view is aligned with that of Panarchistic architecture, which rejects the notion that the world and its workings can be understood as a mere kit of disciplinary parts. On the contrary, wildfire, and its geologically-speaking recent cousin, industrial fire, shaped the world as we know it: in its absence not merely our species, but innumerable terrestrial plant and animal species would be absent from the evolutionary Tree of Life [4.1 – 4.6]. Both these and other systemic constructs are elegantly expressed in mythologies of both Native Americans and other extant indigenous peoples [2.7], and ancient peoples as populated both Indo-European and other civilisations far and wide [2.6; 2.8. 2.14; 4.3.2; 6.1.2; 6.4.3]. Bruno Latour has advocated the potentialities of integrating anthropology and other humanities fields into transdisciplinary scientific enquiries (2004) [6.1.2]. Bowman et al evidenced the virtues thereof, having proved there to be ecological truth in an aboriginal myth of a plant’s origin (2015) [2.6]. Having followed methodology suit by applying the lens of fire ecology to the origin of fire myth, this thesis posits there to be universal origins thereof, and those origins born, in the first instance, of ‘observation’ [2.6; 2.7]. Thus, sensu Terence Turner, this work ascribes not to Levis-Strauss’ notions of indigenous and ancient peoples as ‘savage’ [2.7; 2.14; 6.4.3], but vice versa. The relevance thereof lies in the matter that Panarchistic architecture speaks to the potential for a Pynian pyric transition as would realign human thought and action with the element of our origin, and in the process take architecture and urban planning back to their pyric roots [2.8], wherein wildfire and its ecological and other workings are considered at the stage of conception, as opposed to constituting a design-afterthought or mere technicality. Today, as historically, humanity and its various peoples build what they ‘think’, and what they ‘think’ remains not in a state of philosophical stasis. The statement thereof is written, literally in stone, amongst many other still emerging mediums [2.9 – 2.12], they being mediums which change both materially and informatically over time and space and for not one, but several inter-connected reasons.

Looking to the inaugural urban revolution, shifts in the environment, and more specifically the climatological, meteorological, and hydrological regimes therein, in concert with breakthroughs in communications technology, catalysed radical new thinking in architecture, and most notably a transition from architectures of nomadism to they of settlement, therein from material temporality to relative permanency [2.9; 2.10]. The ramifications of that shift still reverberate today, and no less so than where wild and urban lands meet, for these are places where the differences in the workings of the one with they of the other are most acute [5.1.4; 6.1.3; 6.2.1 – 6.2.3]. For the purposes of practicality and of meeting academic guidelines, this thesis is presented in writing, and writing of the Western kind, wherein its contents read from left to right and top to bottom. But, it acknowledges that there are limitations to this mode of communication, which, by comparison to its indigenous, Eastern, and Bronze Age counterparts lacks temporal sophistication, in that the mode operates in just two, not three, let alone four dimensions. As the built environment community both within and beyond the WUI seeks to work in ways socio-ecologically systemic, and to learn from the peoples for whom such holism is inherent, it needs consider, sensu de Landa, how communication frames the way we think about the world about us and our interventions therewith [2.4], and no less so than when integrating our communications modus with non-human systems. When so manifold are the ways in which information communications technologies, both electronic and biological, are evolving, as to be beyond the scope of this thesis to contend with the scale and extent of the possible future impacts thereof. However, that these developments will have profound impacts on society and its constructions is a given if the lessons of history ring true [2.10; 2.11].

The contributions of this thesis may be modest, but have been designed to highlight why built environment researchers and practitioners need consider not merely what they make, but how they perceive of what they make, and how they communicate what they make. Given, ultimately, for all their many pages [2.10], the WUI building codes of present protect not against worst-case wildfire scenarios [6.2.1 – 6.2.3; 6.1.9.1], might we develop new ways of codifying codes? Might these ways extend beyond two dimensions, and into four, and not merely that, but become living systems which respond, in real-time to socio-ecological changes? This thesis suggests ‘yes’, because technically, as illustrated above, we are already migrating to technologies as enable this approach, and conceptually the potentialities are evidenced by the lasting integrity in the face of ecological change of indigenous architectural approaches [6.1.2; 6.2.2].

Four-Dimensional Transdisciplinarity

The Panarchistic paradigm proposing architectures of which the material systems are synchronous to they of wildlands, thus temporal, in the absence of contemporaneous urban equivalents as could evidence how wildfire may spread through the schema thereof, this thesis presents an interrogation of The Great Fire of London through the lens of fire ecology, and of fire and ecology science more generally [5.1.1; 5.1.4; 5.1.5; 5.1.7; 5.1.10]. The undertaking thereof revealed that, like wildlands of the western United States, Stuart London, and before it, Medieval London, experienced the urban equivalent of a fire regime, wherein fire’s occurrence [fire season], was linked to climate, weather, fuel state, composition, and density, and topography [5.1.1], and upon its ignition its spread, intensity, and behaviour mirrored that of a mixed-to-high severity fire regime, such as that of the site of the Eagle Creek Fire of 2017. Likewise, then, as now, though fledging scientific fields, including dendrology, were catalysing a revolution in how scientists perceived of the world and its workings, fire policy and building codes lagged due to issues including, but not limited to political conflicts which derailed efforts to address known fire risks. Hence, when the firestorm came it came not unexpected to John Evelyn and his fire ecology and science literate kind [Ibid]. Though Stuart Londoners had limited means by which to address the threat of fire, as in indigenous communities, their lores, beliefs, and proverbs, together with a rudimentary understanding of the threat fire posed to their person and properties provided of some means of mitigation thereof, as evidenced by the fact that when the Great Fire came, London’s timber structures had been tinder- dry and ready to burn for not weeks, but many months [5.1.1]. Upon its advent, the fire catalysed several notable built environment innovations, which both technical and administrative, had impact locally, nationally, and ultimately globally, as towns and cities tended move away from biomass to mineral building materials [5.1.2], and fire, thereon all classes of insurance evolved [6.1.9.1].

However, the insights gained from the triangulation of fire data from events both urban and wild, and historic and contemporaneous have applications beyond Panarchistic architecture, and for not one, but several reasons, including demand now outstripping supply of mineral-based building materials [5.1.2; 5.1.3; 5.1.4], the need to mitigate CO2 emissions [5.1.4; 5.1.5], and to prevent against biodiversity loss [5.1.4], which collectively are catalysing discussion and experimentation in the use of both living and dead timber and other biomass materials at scale within cities and other built environments. The findings of this thesis suggest there an urgent need to bring greater transdisciplinarity to the research and thinking practice therein, as includes bringing experts in wildfire science, and the Earth sciences more generally, to the urban design table [5.1.6; 5.1.7; 5.1.8; 5.1.10; 5.1.12] such that worst-case urban future fire scenarios for London and elsewhere remain works of foresight, not fact [5.1.7], and present-day scenarios are better understood [5.1.4; 5.1.6; 6.3.6].

>Continue to Chapter 9.6 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.