In a nutshell, Gaia Theory, discussed in the first text, is the premise that the earth is historically a self-healing system. But our emissions have reached a level that perhaps even Gaia cannot fix, and the rise in aerosol emissions has masked the damage to the point where we may even be in a worse position than we think. The second text discusses “hungry cities” and the modern lack of choice we have when buying our food. Our appetites are controlled by what Tesco and similar conglomerates want to give us, and a lot of that is the produce which will transport the easiest, last the longest and can be grown all year round. On top of this, half the food we then import could be grown in our own back yards anyway.
Continuing along the food theme, the third text talks about the cradle to cradle cycle which is seen in every walk of life except ours. The biosphere and the technosphere have been allowed to corrupt each other and without changing our habits and drastically improving our levels of recycling, upcycling and reusing, we will produce more and more waste that ends up in landfill and perpetuate our unsustainable consumption lifestyles. In terms of designing intelligently to keep these two spheres separate, the fourth text discusses the laws of creation by which we should abide and outlines some basic principles which encourages the biosphere influencing the technosphere.
Re_Map Texts
The iPhone City text states that we should be looking to move away from the mechanical and into the informational; the car is becoming more like a phone and we should embrace the melding of cybernetic and urban programs. The sixth text then takes us back a step and realises the need to not just decide what is and isn’t sustainable, but decide what exactly “sustainability” is. Many people, especially planners, band the word about without knowing what they mean by it, when in reality many definitions and issues come under the “sustainability” umbrella. The final text then proposes another solution by suggesting we look at extreme integration; that is, the combination of all the services and main elements of a building into a single, 3D environment.
Synergies and Issues
Synergies and Issues
Having studied these texts, we quickly noticed the numerous overlaps and synergies between them, both in the general and Re_Map specific ones. A number of questions and issues that were raised in one text would have a solution suggested in another, and the different authors often paraphrased each other and highlighted the same issues arising from different scenarios. It’s a common opinion that social equity is often sacrificed at the expense of the economy and to a lesser extent the environment; another regular concern was the overlap of biosphere and technosphere, and thus the need to keep them separate; and a third issue was the need for intelligent design to eliminate a range of problems discussed, such as the excessive waste cycle.
Simultaneously, we focussed on two main issues that we took from the readings. The first was what we saw as the need to move away from the car, something discussed in iPhone City. It has become less like a car and more like a phone because of the way the informational has superseded the mechanical. This then develops into our second argument, that we should aim to become far more self-sufficient. We are using up our finite resources at a greater speed than ever, and have to learn that this cannot and will not continue forever. Self sufficiency is essential in long term thinking, and this involves educating society to deal without the car, altering our food preferences so that we eat more fresh food that is local and in season, developing new, efficient methods to travel, eat and work, and looking as architects to new building typologies, new ideas and new levels of detail.
