Plastic FuturesShe LooksFuture_City_Prototyp

Martin Heide

Elective Pamphlets

Plasticity and Autotrophic Life Society.A group of emergentists working with potential.

In an increasingly biotechnological era, what might life become?

Are we developing new *understandings* in response to the question ‘What is Life?’ Or are we actually changing what constitutes life itself?

Are we, in fact, redesigning life?

Is the practice of design itself evolving in related terms?

Is design a key activity in guiding us into the future?

Or, is design redundant as we shift the gears from more mechanistic paradigms into what is called ‘emergence’, as the basis for evolutionary unfolding?

If we assume that this gear shift is simply an evolution of design, rather than its demise, what role might aesthetics play in our evolutionary unfolding?

How is this linked to ethics, and our ability to participate in the best possible futures?

The main aim of this group is to discuss these questions, but also to develop and refine these questions (and new ones) about the relationships between life, architecture, design, ethics and aesthetics in what promises to be an increasingly biotechnological future.

Our goal is to use this to make a documentary in which these questions play a role. In other words, this group is an important part of a design process.

Pipa.Rownindeed

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Members of PALSPlasticity and Autotrophic Life Society.

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She Looks preseenting Future-City-Reseach at Biennale 2049...

......”Had a great time at the Biennale. It was very enjoyable to present the developement of our research on Future_City_Prototype and to exchange ideas for further develope-ments. I am still amazed how many people know about our project and would like to join us”.....

She Looks

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Interview with She at the Biennale 2049

She, you are an architect and scientist, how do you experience the work you are doing for PALS and for Future_City_Prototyp? Is your role more as an architect or a scientist? Is it even possible to distinguish those two anymore?

Well indeed my work as an architect has changed a lot. In the beginning of my architectural career we used to do competitions about planning buildings for very specific uses. Museums, Residential, Shopping, maybe the last two seemed to grow together already, especially Rem Koolhaas tried to push it that way.

Mostly the expected longev-ity of buildings was between 10 and 50 years. Some of the buildings I did in Eu-rope, I am quoting the client now, were meant “to stay forever”…

Our approach today seems slightly different. First of all we suggest thinking about architecture in terms of systems rather than objects. Second a healthy system is not defined by the stability of use, rather it is defined by the stability of constant change. If we look at the behaviour of common build-ing materials like bricks and concrete the ability to respond to adaption, change in density or volume is nearly impossible. Damages and disfunctions often led to complete destruction or re-moval. Today we transform material from one substance to another. The feedback of developing conditions has become far more accurate that way.The way we look at Archi-tecture now resembles how we conceive autotrophic organisms.

In that sense the border between architecture and science has become even more blurred. Not long ago science and design were excluding each other, sci-entific presentations had to be without design elements in order to be considered ‘serious’, and design that included science was con-sidered as ‘dangerous’. That has changed because science has stepped out of its limited field of analyzing and ex-plaining how the parts come

logically together. Science has reached a point where it can put them together. Architecture as a tectonic discipline has always been about “the composition of parts”,(G.Semper). Even-though architecture em-ployed science for its static and physical needs the abil-ity to actually use science to create architecture that becomes a living organism has been a revolution.

And still all these possibili-ties have been around us a long time before. Autotro-phic life has been occurring for billions of years (Throm-bolites), the only difference we have today is that we are able to understand and make use of it.

Can you explain to us a little bit more what autotro-phic life is about?

Autorophic life is a self-sustaining or self-nourishing organism. An autotroph is an organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple inorganic mol-ecules using energy from light (by photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reac-tions.

Autotrophs are fundamen-tal to the food chains of all ecosystems. They take energy from the environ-ment in the form of sunlight

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or inorganic chemicals and use it to create energy-rich molecules such as carbohy-drates. This mechanism is called primary production. Other organisms, called heterotrophs(humans, ani-mals), take in autotrophs as food to carry out functions necessary for their life.

Let me come back to Future_City_Prototyp. It has experienced a huge acceptance. What is your current involvement and how big are you expecting it to grow?

My work contains the coordination of growth in Future_City, including the management of the water nutrition as well as the life of the Thrombolites which are the indicators of health in our city.Depending on our own abil-ity to produce nutrition we expect to inhabit 5-7 million people in 2100.

How would you call your-self if I asked your profes-sion?

Well, maybe a ProBioMed-TopophericistHaha, got it.

One last question: How is your relationship to your sister You Looked? She seems to have a differ-ent temper than you. Are you still in contact with her?

(Smiles) This question had to come but I’ll give you a hint. Right I would say she has probably the opposite character than me. And no I haven’t seen her for decades Would you like to interview her?…Haha

Haha…Thank You She for the interview

About Me

I am a 47 year old BioMed Architect and member of the PALS (Plasticity and Autotrophic Life Society). At the moment we are developing the Future City Prototype, which is evolv-ing close to Mandurah in Western Australia. Similar to Thrombolite organisms which live near our site, our city is dependent on water nutrition. The growth or the waning of the City represents a symbiotic relationship shared with the Thrombolites. Being responsible for the health of a system makes me realize how important it is to work together with other people. A movement like PALS provides the structure to progress on various levels of soci-ety and to ensure longevity for our environment.

She’s sister You Looked being charming

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Future_City_Prototyp

Future City_Prototyp

Future City Prototype, has its center of grwoth in the former area next to Lake Cliftion-close to Mandurah in Western Australia. Similar to Thrombolite organisms which live near the site, the city is dependent on water nutrition. The growth or the waning of the City represents a symbiotic relationship shared with the Thrombolites. The city takes nutrition from the water but produces also its own nutrion including the food for the inhabitants. Besides autotrophic abilties of the citystructure itself, agriculture will be based on aero-ponic and hydroponic systems to ensure the wealthfare of the city. The expected popula-tion growth fom 2040 to 2100 will be between 5-7 million people.

2040

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Generating City Thoughts What if the future city em-ploys these possibilities? What if the future city be-comes bridge-like? Rather than being the center of an aggregated population of excluded and included, the City-Bridge could function not only as connector,

passageway or transfer zone, it would be inhabited space, like a Ponte Vecchio with different climate zones. A bridge without its banks, a bridge which doesn’t con-nect or separate destinations. A bridge as a bridge not for what it does but what it is. A City-Bridge, not a city’s bridge…

ThrombolitesStromatolites and Thrombo-lites are created by algae and represent the earliest record of life on earth.Thrombolites are formed when the micro-organisms photosynthesise. During this processs they are able to pre-cipitate calcium carbon

ate from the waters of the lime-enriched lake to form the rock-like structures. Thrombolites and stromato-lites were the only known form of life on Earth some 350 to 650 million years ago. They grow at an average of 1mm a year. The Thrombo-lite structures reach heights of up to 1.3m.

Mangrove Trees Mangroves are halophytic (salt loving) trees, shrubs and other plants growing in brackish to saline tidal wa-ters.Nutrients uptakeProp root systems allow mangroves to take up gases directly from the atmo-sphere, and various other nutrients, like iron, from the

inhospitable soil. Gases are quite often stored directly inside the roots and pro-cessed even when the roots are submerged during high tide. In harsh environment, mangroves have evolved a mechanism to help their offspring survive.The seeds can produce its own food via photosynthesis.

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Future City provides an adaptable struc-ture for evolving uses. De-pending on the need of the citizens, each single part has to adjust, grow, decrease and transform whenever change is necessary. No area in the city will be dedicated to a specific use.

DiagramThe colours in the diagrams explain the overlapping of uses/ functions. The space we inhabit won’t be designed by someone else anymore, we are able to program our own interfaces. People will have the capability to script their daily needs.

2100

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SocialVitamin-D Indicator

On the way to work and back home the Hat gets recharged. In the office it works as a lamp. If the worker doesn,t stay in his sun program the boss has to tell him off. That works both ways, the worker stays happy and well and the boss stays still the boss, thats why bosses have always bigger heads...

Social Vitamin-D Indicator

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Nano_Autochanging_Room

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Touch Me e Touch

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in 2040

Future Concerns....How does the outsource of knowledge in external data basis e.g. Wikipedia or other internet platforms influence our way of thinking? Is the dependence on one side, freedom on the other side?

Communication and Entertainment seem to have a significant role in the coming decades. “Streaming” will provide nearly every information we are looking for. Given our visually, auditivley saturated world, how important will our sense of touch become. What are the possibilities of touch?

In times where God became a “[…] procreative virus” (G.Lynn) religion seems to split the countries. While the number of people who call themselves religious, is continuously decreasing in western society, except America, religion seems to be able to play an important role in Islamic cultures.Is the growing network of internet based communities going to change or even going to substitute the necessity of religious traditions ?