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Scaffolding City; Architectural Utopia of the Future Past

Scaffolding City; Architectural Utopia of the Future Past

By Edward Dodington

Our current model of architecture is too slow. It is too slow to respond to global ecological and economic crisis alike. We need a faster system. One that can quickly adapt, bend, strategically buckle, and rebuild. Imagine a new city based on these principles; a city open to local ecology, flexibly planned, easily maintained and self-perpetuating. This is a city looking toward future models of synthetic anthropological and zoological urbanism and is yet rooted in the history of human development. It is strangely familiar. This is Scaffolding city -- an architectural utopia of the future past.
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The Need for Speed Our current model of architecture is too slow. It is too slow to respond to global ecological and economic crisis alike. We need a faster system. One that can quickly adapt, bend, strategically buckle, and rebuild. The trend has been moving in the direction of increasing speed -- it just needs to get faster.

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Redundancy The new ethos is for designers to embrace change and flexibility -- unknowns will remain unknown and new unknowns will be discovered. To design for eventual and partial failure is more realistic than an “impervious” or materially efficient design.

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Network the System The development plan of the city will rely not on a strict plan but on access and proximity to resources, local economic conditions and ecology. This will be a dynamic system of planning, free to move from location to location.

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Open to Economy Incentivize use. Keep material costs low and the system will generate innovative uses and techniques. People will re-interpret materials, re-invent uses and develop secondary and tertiary economies surrounding the transfer and transformation of materials.

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Democratize the Construction Process and lower the level of specialized construction knowledge. Each citizen can become a contractor, and thereby become an active member of a growing system.

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Open to Ecology The new architectural city will be easily accessible and amenable to other animals for civic habitation. Its openness will take advantage of ecological assets, getting stronger as it is incorporated into a living thicket of trees or gathering thicker as populations of birds and animals make it their homes.

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BRACKET [goes soft]

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