27 AugustReinier de Graaf at Beyond Entropy 
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By OMA © All rights reserved
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Given that we often criticize the meager and token efforts of
fern-covered walls or 'greenwashed' products which often surface at
biennales, admittedly we found it a bit strange to come to Venice
and talk about sustainability. We wanted, however, to use the
opportunity to suggest that architects could play a larger role in
addressing the urgency of the issue. |
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Addressing sustainability on a world scale does find roots in
architectural discourse: in the 1960s Buckminster Fuller published
'Operating Manual to Spaceship Earth', in which he describes the
planet as a spaceship with a finite amount of resources which, once
exhausted, cannot be replenished. Unfortunately, if we do not
find a way to stop polluting, perhaps Fuller's apocalyptic
prediction will come true. It's time for a big idea… The Roadmap 2050 project which was published earlier this year is our initial attempt at such an idea. We hope that through our vision of the project, its principles of interdependence, and the challenge it poses to nation states with previously competitive motives to work together toward a common goal, design can offer a solution which political leaders have not yet been able to grasp. In this context, we wonder whether a design for a global, sustainable energy infrastructure could, in the end, redefine the way the world works… |