garethace

I for one, welcome a broadening of the focus of discussion at the planning forum. So just to celebrate this change of emphasis, I would like to point some folks to a useful looking book on the shelves at the present. It is called, ‘The Inconvient Truth’, by Al Gore.

Like the saying that goes, a picture tells a thousand words, the pictures in Al Gore’s book try to describe a very large story indeed – that of global warming. I just mention the book, not so much for Archiseek posters at all – because I know you guys can source whatever images you may need quite easily. But perhaps for other folks who aren’t as web enabled, for a reasonable price of 20 euro, the Al Gore book packs a great deal between the covers. Commentaries are kept very minimal too, and the font and layout is attractive and easy on the eye. The book really looks at the bigger picture I think, of what cars and mobility on today’s scale is doing to polar regions and glaciers, in places most of us will never even set foot, or even hear of.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

P.S. I warn you though people, ‘The Inconvenient Truth’, is an apt title to this book. After leafing through it for a few minutes myself, I was very deeply shocked by the pictures I saw. It sort of removes that comfortable distance, we all feel, between the environment we live and drive cars in, and the environments far away, that we are affecting.

I think, with all of this noise currently about the Irish roll-out of a broadband communications infra-structure, it has deflected discussion away from more important issues. It is not just about the roll out of the infrastructure per se, but also about the laws, statutory bodies and regulations which surround it. It might be instructive to know, that countries like South Korea have a high adoption of broadband because of very loose regulation concerning what can be transmitted over the wire, or through the airwaves. In other words, certain nations are acquiring TV, radio, news and everything through a computer and broadband connection.

In the 1995 book, ’Being Digital’, Nicholas Negroponte of MIT media labs points out, that the US, law doesn’t even permit the dual ownership of a TV/radio broadcasting station and a newspaper. These are issues that Ireland has grappled with too, in the newspaper print industry. Monopolies being created, deciding what is, or is not broadcast. We are moving from an atom-based, to a bit-based culture, and there are issues we will encounter. Issues which will be crucial in future projects like Digital Hub or whatever else the future holds.

Take the weather as an example. Instead of broadcasting the weatherman and his proverbial maps and charts, thinking of sending a computer model of the weather. These bits arrive in your computer-TV and then you, at the receiving end, implicitly or explicitly use local computing intelligence to transform them into a voice report, a printed map, or an animated cartoon with your favourite Disney character. The smart TV set will do this in whatever way you want, maybe even depending on your disposition and mood at the moment. In this example, the broadcaster does not even know what the bits will turn into: video, audio, or print. You decide that. The bits leave the station as bits to be used and transformed in a variety of different ways, personalised by a variety of different computer programs, and archived or not as you see fit.

That scenario truly is one of bit casting and data casting and beyond the kind of regulatory control we have today, which assumes the transmitter knows that a signal is TV, radio, or data.

Some background knowledge about HDTV and FCC will be needed to understand the following, but I will just include it for completion sake.

Many readers may have assumed that my mention of Bit Police was synonymous with content censorship. Not so. The consumer will censor by telling the receiver what bits to select. The Bit Police, out of habit, will want to control the medium itself, which really makes no sense at all. The problem, strictly political, is that the proposed HDTV allocation looks like a handout. While the FCC had no intention of creating a windfall, special interest groups will raise hell because the bandwidth rich are getting bandwidth richer.

The following short paragraph I think, relates particularly well to the new Irish upcoming multi-media and digital industries.

Should it really be unlawful to own a newspaper bit and a television bit in the same place? What if the newspaper bit is an elaboration on the TV bit in a complex, personalised multimedia information systems. The consumer stands to benefit from having the bits commingle and the reporting be at various levels of depth and display quality. If current cross-ownership policies remain in existence, isn’t the American citizen being deprived of the richest possible information environment? We are shortchanging ourselves grotesquely if we forbid certain bits to commingle with others.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

This project by Pheripherique Architects in France exemplifies for me, the sometimes aggressive urban intervention one has to make, in order to re-interpret an urban space. I don’t know, maybe a Star bucks for the summertime, on squeeshy pink styrofoam furniture – you never know. Beat the dead atmosphere of Cows Lane etc, etc, any day, if one could find a suitable location. But lets face it, there are tonnes of spaces in this city and others crying out for some kind of deliberate use, even if only temporary.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

What will life be like when our growing economy overshoots its carrying capacity, degrades its resource base, and collapses?

A gripping description of this more-likely-than-not outcome is included in a British government report about Intelligent Infrastructure Futures.

http://www.foresight.gov.uk/Intelligent%20Infrastructure%20Systems/Reports%20and%20Publications/Intelligent_Infrastructure_Futures/Index.html

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Bit of Stuff on digital planning,

http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/article1_VB.asp

Image from http://crowdit.worldofpolygons.com/Examples.html

BOH.

One of the things about the above pictures I think you will all notice, is it puts something very unambiguous in front of a table of experts, people maybe with different points of view, different specialisations. It basically gives them all something to aim the discussion at. I listened with great interest lately, when Thom Mayne, the Los Angeles Architect spoke here in Dublin. Here is some of my thoughts about Thom Mayne and his process of designing architecture in collaboration with his clients. Thom is a very avid user of high technology too, his sketches being reproduced into scale models via digital means overnight, so that Thom has a new model to work with almost everyday.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Karl Popper said our perceptual and mental capacities are restricted by evolution to a particular, limited understanding of the world around us. We are not gods. Popper was concerned with the limits of knowledge and the sorts of structures needed to promote the growth of knowledge despite those limits. Popper tried to show what sort of political structure would best allow for social improvement once we accept the limits of knowledge. Karl Popper suggested something called ‘an open society’. “I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.” Progress requires a critical structure within which competing theories can be tested. Only when a theory could be wrong is it impressive that it survives testing and criticism.

An open society has to be pluralistic and multicultural, in order to benefit from the maximum number of viewpoints possible to the given problems. Liberal democracies tend to be characterized by tolerance and pluralism; widely differing social and political views, even those viewed as extreme or fringe, are permitted to co-exist and compete for political power on a democratic basis. At the moment the widest of all speculations in physics is superstring theory. It conjectures that all basic particles are different vibrations of extremely tiny loops of great tensile strength. No superstring has yet been observed, but the theory has great explanatory power. What matters in rational debate, is that different positions are open to criticism, which becomes the engine of progress by removing from consideration false theories, leaving only the provisionally best theories behind. The “best” theories could still not be verified or justified, but since they had not been falsified either, they would be preferable to falsified theories. This ought to humble us and cause us to understand our limitations.

Architects too are hindered by limitations of knowledge. In the twentieth century, architects clung to modernism like it was the only solution. They assumed they had a certain knowledge in their hands, and they became arrogant. Theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers, by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Architects continued to defend modernism when it was found to be flawed. Nowadays, when Thom Mayne is commissioned to do a large public project, he describes the process as negotiation. The most important value being that of mutual respect and tolerance. So that different ideas can coexist and interact. Thom Mayne does not know what a supreme court building should be in 2006. He seems to know better, what a courthouse should not be.

As an architect Mayne is willing to engage in negotiation with his clients. In his design process, Thom Mayne embraces the plurality of different points of view. In the pluralistic framework, the common good is not given a priori. Instead, the scope and content of the common good can only be found out in and after the process of negotiation (a posteriori). Thom Mayne’s design process leads to a definition and subsequent realization of the common good that is best for all members of society. Thom Mayne talks about an ‘Autogenic’ architecture. Like a body that heals itself from within. You create collisions of different systems. You accept different rules and behaviours. You study junctions and cater for diversity.

Augmented Round Table for Architecture and Urban Planning.

http://www.fit.fraunhofer.de/projekte/arthur/index_en.xml?aspect=overview

The people in the photos below aren’t what you would call ‘at one’ with the technology yet. But what we are looking at is the beginning of something. The kiddies using entertainment appliances such as the playstation and xbox consoles today, will get very familiar with this world. The kiddies who are growing up with Java mobile phones and all kinds of gadgets. They will not see anything strange as members of the public in the future, playing a more augmented role in the design of our environment. To go into Wood Quay or other Planning desk, and jack themselves into the interactive model of a new development to understand how it will affect them and their lives. This will include projects as large as infrastructure like tunnels and bypasses.

Architectural education will be different, collaboration between disiplines will be different and processes of building and urban planning will not be like they are today,
with a few ‘big wigs’ hogging all of the limelight for major urban developments. My best suggestion of the ‘big whigs’ I guess, is enjoy it while it lasts.

Brian O’ Hanlon.