A couple of early comments when speaking to people about my proposal to create architecture that coexists with environment was that I was taking a very utopian approach. I thought about this term utopian and found the meaning of the word to be defined as meaning "modeled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect". Now I can appreciate how utopianism might be seen as impractically idealistic but on the other hand, if our goals are set high and we fall short we have still achieved something worthwhile. But if we set our goals low, what happens when we fall short of them?
In my research I have, by chance, come across a fantastic book by Rudolf Moos & Robert Brownstein, Environment and Utopia: A Synthesis. I knew this book was going to be an influential read as it had me hooked by the first page. In one sitting I read the entire first section of the book. The following are extracts from this book that have either direct or abstract relevance to my project.
"Despair can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, a perspective which ensures the absence of that preparation and planning which might yet yield significant improvement in the human condition. Whatever the future holds, it must arise out of the material and social dynamics of the present."
"The future results from an interaction of human creative impulse with material and social reality - circumstances not of our own choosing. Mankind's attempts to design its future must be based on an understanding and appreciation of this interaction."
"We have lost the ability to see any further than the end of our collective nose."
"...ecological studies have emphasised the relationship between man and the ecosystem in which he lives...
...at the root of these analyses is the recognition that ecosystems exist in balance."
"every organism [is] in a constant process of adjustment to an environment external of itself. The life of an organism, in other words, is inescapably bound up with the conditions of the environment which comprise not only its topography, climate drainage, etc. but other organisms and their activities as well."
"...ecosystems are homeostatic. If one part of the system behaves so as to upset the system's balance, other parts will respond so as to restore equilibrium."1
"And the processes of homeostasis may be catastrophic, at least from the human point of view."
"In the logic of ecology, the creature that makes its habitat unlivable destroys itself."
I suppose this book brought up two key trains of thought;
1. Is it really that difficult to consider ourselves as an integral part of a broader ecosystem in which rather dominating the environment as we currently do, we could potentially work in harmony with it - in a state of homeostasis, and,
2. Given that this book was written in 1977 its uncanny how similar trains of thought and human concerns toward the environment remain unchanged today, which re-enforces my attitude that humans are extremely short sighted with consideration primarily to just the here and now. This attitude can be somewhat explained by Moos & Brownstein as;
"the environment presents a challenge to which man must respond. If the challenge is too weak (i.e. the environment is too easy), human potential will remain unfulfilled. If the challenge is excessive, human attempts to cope with it will result in failure and decline. When the challenge is optimal, human beings will be stimulated to new creative heights. It is the stimulus of the battle that allows people to prove their potential."
1. This excerpt is in keeping with the advice given to me by Daniel Falster, PhD student at Macquarie University, "Any widespread alterations to a species environment will induce an evolutionary response. It is important to remember that evolution is neither good nor bad, it just happens."
