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OVERVIEW
_________The Canadian singer Grimes’s fifth album is titled “Miss Anthropocene”. This is a play on several themes including: femininity, misanthrope, and the Anthropocene. In this album, Grimes addresses current man-made issues such as climate change, as well as hinting towards the underlying violence of human nature in her lyrics. Though Grimes’s music holds some ambiguity, she makes it clear that she believes the world to be headed for a sort of climate triggered dystopia. In addition, Grimes infused her music with technological symbols and references to the advancement of AI. In her eyes, humankind will eventually bow to technology and as she says in her lyrics, “Pledge allegiance to the world’s most powerful computer” (We Appreciate Power). Grimes’s vision of the future happens to be shared by many notable philosophers and architects of the day, such as Etienne Turpin and the architects of JOA. These forward thinkers agree that humans have invariably altered the world, must work together to bandage it, and will turn to advanced technology to do so. Architecture will factor heavily into the bandaging of the world. This future architecture will be unrecognizable to the people of 2020, giving the architecture the sense of misanthropy.
SPECULATIVE DESIGN
_________The three main themes of the new architectural movements for the Anthropocene are environmental, technological, and proactive/timely design. The push for environmental design is not a completely novel idea as there are existing programs such as LEED and WELL in the architecture community. However, there is space for it to be less commonplace in theory, but more commonplace in practice. This kind of practice will be necessary in the coming post-Anthropocene and is well documented as to why in JOA’s project The Post Anthropocene. In this project, several predictions are made that will be catastrophic to cities in the future. Science infers that global warming will drastically raise water levels, smog will need to be systematically eliminated, and city congestion will reach an inadequate level. JOA’s project works to create speculative design solutions for these problems that lie in the near future if action does not ensue. They designed arks that are meant to be dotted around New York city that are self sufficient so people will never have to be exposed to the outside. They also designed smog free towers for Beijing, and new modes of transportation for the overly crowded Amsterdam. Though their designs are conceptual, they represent the new wave of environmental architecture that is to come – survival solutions that shield humans from the unclean environment they created.
_________The JOA project also represents the movement in architecture driven by methods of technology. For example, they created concepts for a factory that has a built-in capability to tell if an object is recyclable or not, as well as a geothermal powered data center. Both these examples show that in the future architecture will be more geared to function as an independent machine, rather than a building that houses machines. This kind of architecture is closely related to our Fall 2020 semester project. The highly mechanical and high-tech characteristics of cyberpunk will infiltrate future architecture, and buildings will be based around certain technological achievements such as the hyperloop.
__________The less obvious design movement that is set to begin post Anthropocene is one of cognitive timeliness. This movement is explained by Ann – Sofi Ronnskog in Matters of Observation. Ann speaks of an architecture that does not include architects as an afterthought. She claims that oftentimes, architects are brought in after certain requirements are set. Ann and her colleagues believe the Anthropocene will push architects into further seeing architecture as an “object”, or a “relation between space and polity” (Palmesino). In other words, Ann speaks of architects structuring their own territories and agendas before even having the opportunity to design. This independent feature of architecture will likely emerge in the future as the reasons for construction of new structures becomes more dire. When cities are stricken with environmental complications, architects must use their foresight to design while already understanding the situations around them. This is, in essence, being timely and proactive.
DESIGN ISSUES
__________Some of the issues that occur when designing for the Anthropocene occur due to the supremacy humans currently hold over nature. In Etienne Turpin’s lecture on Redesigning the Anthropocene, he lays claim that current-day society is riddled with “toxic masculinity and nationalist chauvinism”. What these societal characteristics have led to is the corrupted image of nature society now holds. The way that people have acted and designed towards nature previously is often a façade of good intention. To emphasize this idea, Etienne points towards the intentional inaccuracies of nature that natural history museums flaunt in their habitat designs, as well as the prevalence of poaching, illegal land clearing, and harm caused by logging companies. What all these practices point to is the inane sense of superiority homo sapiens feel over nature. The nature that we are striving for post Anthropocene is not necessarily one with more trees, flowers, and birds, but rather one that replaces the belief that humans reign solely over all earthly creatures and the halting of other negative man-made influences. This becomes an issue in design as humans must look past their deep-rooted societal beliefs to work with nature. This is especially important in the environmental design needed for the future. Architects face the challenge of needing to understand territories of land riddled with waste, flood, or smog, while maintaining efficiency, proper materials, and a symbiosis with the surrounding nature.
CYBER+NATURE
_________A main characteristic of cyberpunk is its featuring of high technology and scientific achievements. It is fair to call the hyperloop one of the most recent high-tech scientific achievements. Projects such as the Devloop hyperloop test track prove to the world that cyberpunk has begun to infiltrate the Anthropocene. The implications this may have on humankind is their continual engrossment in all things tech related (think iPhones and video games), as well as a lessening of needs to leave homes and use current modes of transportation (think COVID working from home, and hyperloops replacing cars). These implications are surprising friendly towards the climate, ecosystem, and resources. The hyperloop specifically is a cleaner, safer, faster alternative to all other modes of transportation. If hyperloops become a main form of transportation, Hyperloop One Rep Marcia Christoff says there is potential to reduce fossil fuel emission from flying by 58%. In addition, the goal at Virgin Hyperloop One is to have the hyperloop run only on renewable energy. The people working on hyperloop are in tune with the Anthropocene and realize if the hyperloop is not sustainable, it will never take off. Due to this, minimizing the footprint, choosing correct materials, and attention given to noise were amongst the environmental factors given priority consideration. The hyperloop is an excellent step to revamping the Anthropocene and what it stands for. It is proof that technology and nature can stand together.
URBAN CONTEXT+HYPERLOOP
GLOBAL
__________The hyperloop has the potential to affect the world’s culture and economy. When considering the impact the hyperloop will have, it is important to reflect on the modes of transportation that are already in use present day. The hyperloop and the airplane, in terms of speed, are quite similar. Airplanes have the capacity to travel just as fast as the hyperloop is projected to go. This is assuming the hyperloop ever reaches its projected speed, as the first successful hyperloop test run with human passengers was run at only 100 mph this past month. The hyperloop will have somewhat of the same effect as the plane did on the culture of the world. Many people current day use the airplane to hop from city to city and country to country. People can experience multiple cultures in a short amount of time and carry parts of the cultures with them. Consider foreign exchange students who call a foreign country home in a matter of weeks. There has been a blending of cultures to the point where many cultures are understood and experienced by a multitude of people, however the cultures across the world remain distinct and with varied subcultures. In the near future, the hyperloop has huge strides to make before it connects major cities in each country. In the distant future, the cultures of the world will not become more isolated and, at least globally, may not even become more similar if we are looking at planes as a reference point.
CITY
___________City culture has much more room to be altered by the hyperloop than global culture. Cities have long been hotspots for careers and entertainment, causing them to grow in population. COVID-19 has currently put cities on a standstill, shutting down all entertainment and halting city life. Even so, in the future, people will continue to flock to cities even if COVID has lingering effects. This is because cities will always remain the center of commerce and technology development. Hyperloops, for example, will primarily travel from large city to large city. This type of travel further eliminates the need for a car, drawing people to cities. It also makes cities larger ports for trade of goods, drawing people to cities. Comparing it the hyperloop to the subway, the hyperloop will make cities more accessible, and practical, places to live in. The city culture will change in the sense that they will continue to become more crowded and built-up. The “city culture” will become the dominant culture and drive the suburbs and rural living in to desolate locations. In this way, the subcultures of countries will dwindle, until all that is left is the high-speed life of the city.
ECONOMY
__________The economy has the most to gain from a large-scale spread of hyperloops. The cofounder of Hyperloop One Shervin Pishevar claims that the hyperloop would create jobs, save money in transporting goods, and unlock ports around the world. The hyperloop would have specific pods dedicated for moving cargo, making cargo transportation seamless and intelligent. Consider how Amazon packages are now being delivered by drones and with Amazon Premium, one- or two-day shipping is now expected. Hyperloop would only serve to make these kinds of quick transactions between consumer and supplier more possible. The hyperloop would change the economy for not only cargo transportation, but also human transportation. The one great advantage the hyperloop has over the airplane is that its travel is not affected by the weather. Airplane travelers are often stranded in airports longer than expected due to weather delays. Hyperloop would alleviate this problem as well as push airplane companies to increase the speed and reliability of their flights to keep up with the hyperloop. In addition, Hyperloop One has stated that they would never send pods that were not full, either with people or cargo. This kind of practical thinking implements the economy by eliminating unused space and profiting 100% from the spots available. This kind of thinking rarely occurs today with cars and trains as they rarely reach their full capacity of passengers before setting off.
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Work Cited:
Andrews, Eve. "‘Miss Anthropocene’: The Grimes Album Tailor-made for the Coronavirus Pandemic." Grist, 14 Apr. 2020, grist.org/climate/miss-anthropocene-the-grimes-album-tailor-made-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2020.
IZK. "Graz Architecture Lectures | Etienne Turpin | Re-designing the Anthropocene." Vimeo, vimeo.com/306818755. Accessed 8 Nov. 2020.
Jiayun, Xu. "JOA's 'post Anthropocene' Series Envisions Architecture for Future Societies." Designboom | Architecture & Design Magazine, 29 May 2020, www.designboom.com/architecture/joa-post-anthropocene-series-envisions-architectural-types-future-societies-05-13-2020/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2020.
Rutland Bauer, Meredith. "What Will Hyperloop Mean for Climate, Ecosystems and Resources? | Greenbiz." GreenBiz, 8 Jan. 2019, www.greenbiz.com/article/what-will-hyperloop-mean-climate-ecosystems-and-resources#:~:text=The%20biggest%20questions%20surrounding%20hyperloop%E2%80%99s%20environmental%20impact%20are,and%20tunnels%20at%20the%20end%20of%20their%20lifespan. Accessed 8 Nov. 2020.
Turpin, Etienne. Architecture in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Design, Deep Time, Science and Philosophy. Anexact, 2013.
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