Fluidity

Will architecture evolve or devolve in this hyper-consumerist climate? This country’s experiment in growth has escalated beyond the spectrum of what is acceptable on nature’s terms. The degradation of the biosphere and ethno-sphere is clearly reflected in the actions of industrialized nations. The speed combined with the damaging effects of over-consumption is forcing us to adapt and invent new ways of survival. Will technology continue to scoop us from the brink of catastrophe?

Architecture finds itself in a desperate position where its effects encompass various aspects of our lives, yet remains a slow evolving process, unable to appropriate the dynamics of economics and society. Change in our landscape is accelerating. Wal-Marts have been known to open new stores in close proximity to an existing store, only to demolish the old store. Building, demolishing, and rebuilding have been accepted as the solution, eliminating the possibility for fluid design. Fluid design would be more economical, allowing for constant change with less effort.

This accelerated culture requires rapid architecture, leading and creating new ways of living, rather than always re-acting the processes already in place. New modes of architecture require new thinking in the way architecture is built.

Architecture needs fluidity. The formal typologies, program, and fabrication processes must all react in the ways the situation demands. The architectural procedure of concept to fabrication is not able to keep up with the pace of commerce, hence the ‘un-designed’ giant warehouse retail outlets. For accelerated customization to work, the fabrication industry must rid itself of outdated modes of production. The technologies of new fabrication methods allowing new structural morphologies are available; it is matter of overcoming the barriers of old the industrialist thinking. The assembly line era is over.