Technology, Humans and Art that is Urbanity

19 April

Separating technology from cities or life as we know it is purely impossible. The discussion in this week's class put all the planning idea/observations bubbling around in my head into the simplest form. Technology and humans. Planning methods don’t have to be high-tech and innovative to serve their purpose, even though it seems high-tech solutions are the only way of the future. I remember studying natural resource management in undergrad and discussing carbon footprints. One can calculate the carbon footprint of an item such as a car over its lifespan but what is often left out is how much energy it takes to produce the car. This includes the energy used to produce the materials that go into the manufacturing of a car, the human energy assembling it, the energy used to run the factory the car is assembled in, etc, etc. Buildings are often designed with their lifespan energy needs in mind, but rarely consider the energy cost of the materials that comprise the building.

A classmate showed me photos of these massive cylinders in Singapore that catch rain water and are vertical gardens, they also light up at night! They sustain their own little garden in themselves – theoretically. But how much energy went into building these? What is the maintenance cycle on these? They’re constantly dependent on technology, and they are technology in themselves… It’s one of those philosophical questions that run your ideas around in circles until you’d rather not think about than get to the bottom of it! Haha.

Super Trees in Singapore's Botanical Gardens

Image retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/08/world/asia/singapore-supertrees-gardens-bay