The Future Of Tomorrow
Question 1 , What is the future of architecture in an age where everything is in the palm of your hands? Will architecture still be relevant, if yes, how? And would it need to be evolved? If yes, how? Show examples of current ideas.
The future of architecture may go in many ways and directions than we predict but somethings can be foreseen. Many things could happen such as the humans in Wall-E or the opposite like Insurgent or even Star Trek. All these movies depict and opens up our imagine to what the future of this world might be.
With today’s advancements in science and technology, we have begun to integrate it into architecture. A few decades back, buildings and spaces were designed without using so much technology due to its cost and lack of research done, but moving to this age, many new technologies have been incorporated into current buildings. For example, The Social Complex in Alcabideche, Portugal where the roofs of the housing units also have other functions. In the event of an emergency, users can activate an alarm that alerts the control station located in the central building and the box-shaped roof’s light changes from white to red.
Architecture will be even more relevant in the future as we humans will always keep on building. All this creation would need to be carefully thought out as our planet is running out of space and also resources. Sooner or later, building supplies would be scarce and new building methods would be discovered. We too have already used up the most productive land, dammed the most energetically profitable rivers and tapped into the easiest-to-reach groundwater. In response to this, I think that the future of architecture must evolve with time as the needs of humans will change. Maybe buildings will be equipped with its own water filtration system, organic produce, solar panels, exercise machines and entertainment. Who knows, maybe we wouldn’t even have to leave the house anymore in the future though I hope that doesn’t happen. As much as the population will increase, I think that it will level out or begin to slow down once the Earth cannot sustain such demands.
Besides that, the world seems to revolve around our smartphones. According to The Statistics Portal, the number of smartphone users is forecast to grow from 1.5 billion in 2014 to around 2.5 billion in 2019. These users of smartphones are indeed creating a space on their social media. They too on the other hand need a space to stay and at the same time a space or place to go to be it in the virtual world or the physical world. (human moving around in architecture) People like doing things fast, getting things fast and everything fast. Shopping can be done online, taxis can be booked online, and businesses can be done online. Basically anything can be done online through our smartphones. This is the new age we are in where most services in some advanced buildings will be controlled through our smartphones or similar mobile devices. I feel that this could be the direction we are heading to in the near future. Maybe in the future we would all be lying in bed, connected to a dripper to feed us enough nutrients but our consciousness will be living in a virtual reality world where everything and anything is possible. Then hopefully this would stop destroying our environment as we need minimal space just to keep the body alive. Then us architects will be designing buildings in the virtual world but the earth will be just a simple place to store our bodies. Something similar to what Avatar does except it’s not in the real world.
Social Complex in Alcabideche, Portugal