Infrastructure and the Future
Concluding Remarks In this wrap-up discussion, moderated by Tim Love, all of the conference panelists return to the conversation, giving general comments and critical reflections on the overall scope of the conference as well as specific points of discussion. George Thrush Terms that end up having very different meanings for future cities are “biomimetics” on the one hand and “biomorphism” on the other hand. Some of the earlier questions in today’s discussion might have been an attempt to tease that out. For example, we’ve seen some very interesting building proposals for dense sites here in the Boston area that are trying to deal with both terms. They’re systems for dealing with rainwater management and things like that, but then there’s a separate question, which has more to do with public relations and image, and maybe a vision of the city. Must they approximate a vision of the bottom panel as green? Tim Love Charles made the same point, which is that architects have been trafficking in ecological models for expressive and symbolic reasons. Let’s say you’re talking about the patterns and flocks of birds being co-opted into parametric modeling as kind of a formal strategy, versus strategies that look at conformative aspects of nature. Charles Waldheim There are others that can respond to this so I’ll be quite brief. We’re talking about two things here that are both operational. One is architectural culture being formed by models from nature, by biomimiry (we’re all reading D’Arcy Thompson but for different reasons). By definition architects mistake form for content all the time. What does it mean to have an architect looking at this ecological model and misunderstanding it as a formal proposition? I think that’s what architects do. It’s a part of what the production of culture means. It relates in a way to the idea of the waste flow treatment plant that has a park as a green bill to make it palatable. They both operate in culture today and they’re not unrelated entirely.
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