2.13 Spatiotemporally Adaptive Architectures

“There was a time when the world of knowledge and the world of dreams were not separated: when the artist and the scientist, for all practical purposes, saw the “outside world” through the same kind of spectacles” Mumford, 1922.

In an era of which the predominant architectural form that becomes built has become all but stripped of symbolism, be that symbolism sacred or otherwise, the remnants of architecture’s ancient pyrotechnical past now largely reside in museums, publications, and artworks, with an all too rare exception thereto Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Blazing Wing, which poignantly expressed architecture as “alchemical transmutation” (Spiller, 2006, p.141). As will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5, Reyner Banham perceived of architecture as either combusting carbon-based material [wood] or conserving it [i.e. Hearth or Home] (1984). However, though speaking to ‘tribal’ communities, strictly speaking, his words, like they of Levis-Strauss in The Raw and The Cooked, conveyed an inherently Western perspective, for indigenous architectures, such as they of Native Americans, converge combustion and construction to create architectures aligned to the seasonality and stochasticity of their surroundings.

But, that while speaking of an inherently ephemeral phenomenon – fire - Banham nonetheless acknowledged not the potentialities of the architectural equivalent of a ‘Unity of Opposites’ is unsurprisingly, given that most late 19th and early 20th century Western architecture schools revolved around notions of permanency. Indeed, so very ingrained was the idea that structures should be built to indefinitely-last that even those that looked to the ‘natural world’ for inspiration designed buildings and cities which come spring, summer, autumn or winter, or any natural hazard event, were intended to stand in states of architectural stasis. The statement thereof is expressed in the works of, amongst others, Ebenezer Howard (2010), Le Corbusier (1987), Frank Lloyd Wright (1958), and Buckminster Fuller (2013), though the latter did recognise the dynamism within Earth systems and the imperative to align architectures thereto.

As the 20th century advanced, both within many Western architectural and planning studios, and society more generally, understanding of the workings of non-human systems grew. Thus, one by one, functional traits inspired by they of flora, fauna, and/or assemblages thereof, such as connectivity (Otto, 2010), networked intelligence (Pask, 1969; Negroponte, 1970, 1975), migration (Archigram, 1999; Small, 1977, 2013), seasonality (Sorkin, 1998), cyclicality (Price 1996; Woods, 2001, 2004), and evolution (Frazer, 1995) propagated across experimental practices. As one century passed and another arrived, a new generation of architectural and planning researchers and practitioners took the systemic baton forward, and in the process expanded both understanding and applications in architectural complexity, be it modelled on ecological and/or environmental elements, and/or integrating facets thereof, be those facets living or non-living (Hensel et al, 2004, 2010; Shane, 2005; Reiser and Umemoto, 2006; Cruz, and Pike, 2008; Gissen, 2010; Sheil, 2012; Hensel, 2013; Weinstock, 2013; Cairns and Jacobs, 2014; Brownell and Swackhamer, 2015).

The above-cited works, together with those discussed in following chapters, have been foundational in establishing the potentialities for the development of the Panarchistic architectural paradigm. For example, helping to inform how structures and the infrastructure systems to which they are connected may embed the biochemistries and behaviours as are found in ecological and other non-human systems. Collectively, these and other developments evidence that not merely in science fiction films – in the likes of Avatar – could human and non-human systems integrate seamlessly, but within the near built environment future.

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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.