Manmade Modular Megastructures (Architectural Design) - Softcover

Ian Abley ; Jonathan Schwinge

9780470016237: Manmade Modular Megastructures (Architectural Design)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 047001623X ISBN 13: 9780470016237

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2006

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There will be 8.3 billion human beings on Earth by 2030, and the more the better. We have the opportunity to create a world of expansive megacities - including one around old London. Doing so will advance the art, science and processes of manufacturing. But to deploy those abilities we must shrug off the dogma of sustainability that insists only small can be beautiful.

Humanity has come a long way since the first modular mega-structure was built at Ur, on land that is now Iraq. There, four millennia ago, and by hand, the Sumerians built a mud-brick ziggurat to their Gods. Today, the green deities of Nature we have invented for ourselves are worshipped with humility. Eco-zealots argue against the mechanised megaforming of landscape and the modularised production of megastructures.

The guest editors, Jonathan Schwinge and Ian Abley of the London based research organisation audacity, call for development on a bold scale. They argue that by rapidly super-sizing the built environment society is not made vulnerable to natural or man-made hazards, and that design innovation surpasses bio-mimicry. Designers can learn from materials scientists working at the smallest of scales, and from systems manufacturers with ambitions at the largest. This issue calls for creative thinking about typologies and topologies, and considers what that also means for Africa, China, and Russia. Megacities everywhere demand integration of global systems of transport, utilities and IT in gigantic structures, constantly upgraded, scraping both the sky and the ground, outward into the sea.

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About the Author

Ian Abley, RIBA, is a practicing architect and founder of Audacity. Audacity is a campaigning company that advocates developing the man-made environment, using manufacturing on the grandest of architectural scales. It organizes authoritative international research, large conferences, and a provocative website - www.audacity.org Abley is also co-author with James Woudhuysen of Why is construction so backward?.

Jonathan Schwinge was a scholarship student at the Architectural Association. His fourth-year diploma project ‘Airlander’ was exhibited at Imagination’s Ford Journey Zone in the Greenwich Millennium Dome. His final-year project ‘Lost-Exchange’ won the Grand Prize and Category Prize for the Bentley Systems Student Design Competition, USA 2000. Jonathan currently works at Allies and Morrison architects. Jonathan is working with Ian to turn www.audacity.org into a commercial website – a portal for architectural ideas.

From the Back Cover

There will be 8.3 billion human being on Earth by 2030. For the guest-editors of this issue of D Jonathan Schwinge and Ian Abley, the more the better. They controversially suggest that humanity might create a world of expensive megacities - including one around old London. Doing so will advance the art, science and processes of manufacturing. But to deploy those abilities, they say, society must reject the dogma of sustainability that insists only small can be beautiful.

Schwinge and Abley call for development on a bold scale. They argue that by rapidly super-sizing the built environment society is not made vulnerable to natural or man-made hazards, and that design innovation surpasses bio-mimicry. Designers can learn from materials scientists working at the smallest of scales, and from systems manufacturers with ambitions at the largest. This issue calls for creative thinking about typologies and topologies, and considers what that also means for Africa, China, and Russia. Megacities everywhere demand integration of global systems of transport, utilities and IT in gigantic structures, constantly upgraded, scrapping both the sky and the ground, outward into the sea.

From the Inside Flap

By 2030, there will be 8.3 billion people on Earth. This presents a unique challenge in terms of provision. Such a massive, largely urban, population will only able to be accommodated in expansive megacities. Such a development, needs to be supported by advances in the art, science and processes of manufacturing. Deploying those abilities will also require us to shrug off the dogma of sustainability that insists only small can be beautiful.

Humanity has come a long way since the first modular megastructure was built at Ur, in what is now Iraq. There, four millennia ago, and by hand, the Sumerians built a mud-brick ziggurat to their Gods. Today the green deities of Nature, which we have invented for ourselves, are worshipped with humility. Eco-zealots argue against the mechanised megaforming of landscape and the modularised production of megastructures. Is this very caution and sense of tact, however, in danger of us denying a portion of the world's population much needed housing?

The guest-editors, Ian Abley and Jonathan Schwinge of the London-based research organisation audacity, call for development on a bold scale. They argue that by rapidly super-sizing the built environment society is not made vulnerable to natural or manmade hazards, and that design innovation surpasses bio-mimicry. Designers can learn from materials scientists working at the smallest of scales, and from systems manufacturers with ambitions at the largest. This issue calls for creative thinking about typologies and topologies, and considers what that might mean for Africa, China, India, Russia and South America. Megacities everywhere demand integration of global systems of transport and IT in gigantic or spreading structures, constantly upgraded, scraping both the sky and the ground, outwards and into the sea.

It is time that man made modular megastructures with some self-confidence.

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