Is New Necessary?

 

As technology relatively makes the entire world more exposed and accessible, the global economy has been increasingly driven to iconic, grandiose and extravagant architecture. Over recent decades, an architectural reaction of austerity has provided a foil to such extravagance, whether driven by aesthetic sensibilities of minimalism or projected morality of resourcefulness. However, architecture can go a step further than mere representative austerity. In an increasingly climate change and resource-sensitive world, the notion of scarcity can actually drive design to ingenious solutions. Based on current population and stewardship trends, the future generations will by necessity learn to use less for more than today’s model of technology. Our socio-economic “machine” of usage and trash, production and landfills is not a repeatable cycle in the way that cultures have taken cues from natural cycles of millennia. Rather, it is a linear process that, for the most part, doesn’t feed back into itself. In a world so focused on “new”, architectural approaches of “less is more”, “leftovers can be reused” and especially “is new necessary?” are truly radical. Lacation & Vassal, 2012architecture and Rural Studio are a few of the leaders in this movement that seeks to hold fast against the tide of extravagant newness in a more tangible and socioeconomically significant way than mere aesthetic austerity. I’m excited to see the next few generations of this movement. I hope it’s just begun.