Extract

Mankind is a captive participant in the fascination with the definitive dialogue about “evolution,” technology adoption, and our individual and collective human experiences, which appear to be tentative and negotiated “minute by minute”. Cities reflect this changing momentary condition, and therefore resist and defy static definition. Increasingly, architects are called upon to create rapidly evolving “stage sets” to augment the accelerated unfolding human drama that encompasses us all. Thus far, the evolution of the built environment has not been a “perfect science”. In fact, as we repeatedly see carefully conceived master plans generate what looks like marginally controlled incipient urban chaos, we come full circle to question the principles of “unified predictive scientific models of the universe” – and why we would even try to invent such things. The city appears to be the manifestation of an elusive consensus, combined with the tentative practical containment of billions of individualized struggles. This paradox is currently being illustrated, analyzed and discussed, in the context of building design and construction projects that display some of the qualities of this apparent dilemma. Increasingly influenced by the adoption of technology – with all of the culture change that brings with it – the conception and delivery of the built environment continues to be a stage for the exploration and testing of broader ideas about present and future human existence.

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