From Christchurch Cathedral to desform 2012... towards An Evolutionary Architecture

At a critical time when the NZ government is trying to stimulate technological innovation not only in science, but in many other sectors including the construction industry, intriguingly this week combines a curious juxtaposition between the continuing debate on the future of Christchurch and its Cathedral on one hand, while on the other the desform conference takes place in Wellington... exploring digital interactive/movable technologies and typologies in architecture. Listening to Kathryn Ryan's talk with Philip Beesley raised a series of issues that could certainly become part of a broader discussion around how Christchurch could be rebuilt. Here is the link -
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2515962/feature-guest-philip-beesley

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9712678.stm

Many of these issues informed click-raft from the beginning, and many of these thoughts and experiments were informed early on by my ongoing conversations and collaborations with John Frazer, and more recently in collaboration with Jaap Dankert. It will be interesting over the coming period to see how many of these dimensions we can realise and further develop in habitable structures. In particular to make buildings more responsive and interactive with their environments, but also to provide the mechanisms where by they can learn, and thus adapt or tune to changing environmental conditions, in the sense that a sailing boat is tuned, and perhaps in future, in the deeper sense that a tree does, opening a path towards 'An Evolutionary Architecture'. 

Is this not the very moment to catalyse these potentials and to invest in exploring and developing these new capabilities and skillsets to engage in the massive challenges for Christchurch and other cities around the globe who have to address these challenges? 

... let alone the huge potentials for a new way of building in general. More deeply, is this not also a way forward towards a more sensitive and ecological engagement with our fragile planet ?  

One that makes both economic and ecological sense.

http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications/ea/intro.html

refer also to recent lectures by John Frazer http://vimeo.com/channels/310576