2
Apr
2010
Simple English
I’m going to start a new ‘idea auditing’ process for my thoughts. English Wikipedia has a parallel site in a language called Simple English. In the explanation page the quote is “The language is simple, but the ideas don’t have to be“.
The articles are written using a somewhat restricted word list, and it should force me to think clearly about what I really mean.
I’ve found that when I explain something in simple terms, I generally gain a better understanding of it, which allows me to put the richness back in with the complete range of expression offered by unrestricted use of English.
Anyone else up for joining in?
1
Apr
2010
iProcrastinate
I procrastinate a lot, but these days I feel that enforced procrastination is getting in the way of my creative faffing (I might write more about what I mean by that soon)
Have a read of the article that goes with this cartoon.
25
Oct
2009
Status anxiety
For the last couple of years I’ve been becoming increasingly interested in what the future is going to be like, and the methods employed to predict its nature.
Up until now it has been a fascinating sideline to my everyday activities of teaching and trying to solve design problems with computational tools.
Although teaching is generally thought of as being in the academic realm, it is really quite a practical job. One is engaged in the transference of knowledge and skills, which by the very nature of the introductory level of the course are a long way from the cutting edge of one’s work. Whilst the process of teaching is academically fascinating (and I hope to do some work centred around teaching and learning once this project is over) and the activity of teaching and seeing the teaching have a positive effect is immensely rewarding, it isn’t in the realm that currently consumes my time and passion.
I have been gaining an escalating level of baseline nervousness over the last few months as this project builds momentum and it has been feeding off itself. This came to a head yesterday during a conversation with Angela about what to do at Christmas, and I realised that I’d rather work than talk about plans, and although I liked the abstract idea of something fun far off in the future, its planning was completely uninteresting – perhaps even offensive – to me.
Angela diagnosed me as having status anxiety, and it dawned on me that this was probably a very accurate description of my malaise. In my day to day life I get to be modestly important. I have risen from the person who about this time of year in 2005 nearly wet his pants in excitement at being accepted to go to Smart Geometry, to being a 2009 tutor. In that realm people (at least show a pretence) take what I say seriously. But now I am being exposed to new ideas, whole new fields of ideas, rich histories of debate which I know nothing about. I am, once again, the 11 year old going off to big school for the first time.
I read a very brief excerpt of Jeremy Till’s new book ‘Architecture depends, in which he takes the piss out of the Vitruvian mantra of ‘commodity, firmness and delight’ as our philosophical cornerstone. I would imagine that profession of balloon modelling has a more insightful core phrase, and it made me wonder what it is that I, given my education, can actually offer to the rest of the research community. Surely it doesn’t boil down to the ability to draw relatively pretty pictures?
21
Oct
2009
taking a crack at a policy
This photo has been popping up all over the internet today. It has galvanised me into writing down an idea that I’ve been kicking about for a few weeks. I’ll try and be as structured as I can and rant as little as possible.
Starting with a pair of premises that I believe to be factual.
- Global fish stocks are severely depleated. I don’t know much about Pacific stocks, but I’d imagine that there is a similar situation to the Atlantic stocks.
- There are floating islands of plastic in the ocean gyres.
some that are slightly more open to debate, but I still consider to be facts.
- There is likely to be a collapse of the fishing industry if fish stocks reach a terminal point in their populations.
- They are also extremely heavily subsidised, up to 50% of the industries income is from subsidies.
- Fish and other marine animals, particularly filter feeders, are being found with significant ammounts of plastic inside them.
- Plastic in oceans degrades to smaller pieces of plastic as the polymer chains unwind from each other, but very rarely to monomers, or anything that can be digested.
So what can be done about this? Obviously, the simplest answer to the problem of the pastic is to stop putting it into the sea, but this is a global problem, and most of the plastic is not deliberatly put there.
Also we need to stop the part of fishing that involves taking fish out of the water and put some effort into trying to rebuild fish stocks. Probably somethign like 10 or 20 years of not fishing.
"Oh no!" I hear the cries from the fishing industry in disgust and terror for their livelyhoods. "You’ll bancrupt us, and even if you just pay us to stay at home* we’ll loose our craft – the next generation will become 7-11 staff". (*probably not that much more expensive than paying them to go and fish as the current subsidies do.)
My suggestion is that we should redirect the activities of the currently unprofitable fishing industry into fishing for plastic. The deep sea trawlers have the technology and infrastructure to go for long term trips to collect plastic waste. The low hanging fruit in this situation is the large pieces, i.e. plastic bags, detergent bottles, etc. so that’d be a good start. The onboard processing capacity could be put to use in catagorising the plastics, but also once the easy catch of large plastic is taken, the factory ships can set to work on filtering out the much smaller particles of plastic that are in suspention. This would maintain the fleet, and the fleet’s skills. The plastic that was landed could either be recycled or burnt to produce energy.
This would provide a rest for the fish, and also improve their habitat, so that when the stocks have sufficiently recovered, the polymer:meat ratio iside fish is a bit closer to what we’d hope it’d be.
I’ll probably revisit this as I get a bit better at scenario planning and future thinking. weigh in in the comments if you have anything at all to say, and if you are watching in black and white on facebook, go here to watch in green and white.
13
Oct
2009
The future is important – I’m going to live there soon.
Most people will have realised that I don’t tend to do things the normal way. This extends to education too – I’ve taken 4 years off in the midst of a 5 year course (and 2 more before it even started). See this old post.
This year I’m back at school to do the last year before I become a ‘real person’ and start paying council tax etc. Oxford Brookes has a terrific system where they’ve figured out that you are probably about sick of design studios by the end of your 4th year, and are ripe for a bit of – shh don’t say it too loudly – learning.
This is my draft proposal for what I’m going to do. It is a bit woolly, as it covers up that I really don’t actually know what it is that I am going to do, and it is only barely related to architecture.
The 21st century is hailed by many as a ‘make or break’ time for humanity, the tipping point between a technological utopia and a crushing blow to our species’ capacity to flourish. While every effort must be made to steer a path towards a bright future, contingencies for both extremes, as well as the vast, but discontinuous, range of circumstances and possibilities between must be considered.
Only in a very perverse utopia, or particularly devastating catastrophe, does architecture cease to be pertinent (the importance of architects is less certain!).The risk of global catastrophe, ranging from super volcanoes and runaway global warming to doomsday machines or bio-terrorism, is non trivial. The contingencies in place to contain or manage these events may (if successful) affect societies as much or more than the event itself. Conversely the potential for technology to enhance our lives beyond recognition is considerable. Indeed, it has already been realised. Genetic modification, cognitive enhancement and life extension are just a few of the possibilities.
With these great threats and opportunities come ethical questions about how, and whether, to manage the risks that the implementation of these opportunities (or whether to implement them at all!). While forecasting has its perils, as recent events in the financial sector have shown, it is foolhardy not to prepare to manage the outcomes of potential cataclysms. The continually diverging tree of all possible events makes the odds of a particular event, even in the relatively near future, vanishingly small. We need better tools. I intend learn how to develop a better understanding of the future, and the methods that can be used to improve predictions. Architecture is one of our most persistent projections into the future, there ought to be some consideration of what that future is going be like.
If getting past the next 90 years is really as fraught as is claimed (disasters, divergent societies, etc.) then we have a lot of work to do to get there, but it would make me feel better if I had a bit of an idea of what we’ll find when we do.
If you have any thoughts on things I ought to be looking at then let me know.