Every individual in the field of design or the ones who are aspiring to explore their creative skills grow a spine of curiosity of possibilities and analysing probabilities of the present times of Architecture, sometimes based on the past hierarchy of building essence and sometimes looking forward to what Architecture has to serve the world. The wave of passionate designers and architects, a variety of tech innovations, its cultural and economic strategies have reached more heights than all these factors ever did in the last decade.
And when we talk about massive growth and shuffle, who can forget the side-effects that Covid-19 has brought with it, affecting every field, since 2020? There’s a major juggle between prevalent situations, discontinuity and uncertainty of practical services and simultaneously working on the solutions that have to be figured out to sustain and evolve in new pandemic times.
We are approaching the years of indefinite globalization and consumerism matching all the data of increasing population and insufficient resources on the rise. The need for sustainable living is rising to find a balance in ways of healthy living, utilising conscious amounts of resources, managing heavy budgets, saving on time and negative impacts of dominant materials and efficiently managing labour. It’s the cooperative effect of social, economic, political and many such factors that influence the styles and languages of architecture. Now, let’s look at probable scenarios at a gap of 5 years and look at the outcome of how relevant design and architecture will be.
In the next 5 years, with the help of cumulative awareness in architecture and willingness to change the way we design, many transformations might take place and we might collectively have an ecological sense that would develop on many levels of construction and building. Fortunately, climate change and the impacts of disruptive progress in design is already introduced to us on a major scale.
We are already in the process of inculcating environmental solutions in design and thinking sensitively towards the co-existence of every aspect. Only when we process all the hands-on data on a personal front and think of better options of living to move forward towards a nourishing life.
A Decade less or A Decade more? | Architecture Era
When a decade completes, there would be a cluster of methods, be it software modelling or advanced building materials that will help us manifest our construction needs of the present time more effectively but in support of the universally sustaining atmosphere.
Ideologies and concepts that will be more ecologically sound and run in harmony with natural elements will be the upcoming trends.
Naturally, like in every research or analysis of the new, there are baseless assumptions, there are theories that fall apart and as a part of the process, some experiments of design and architecture will not go as expected. These ideas are not impossible to prove but they require much more time to set things right. Balancing our needs with what nature offers is probably the most intelligent way to proceed in a future where humanity can still have a major contribution to how things are.
Let’s just consider for a while that people will build their homes on Mars, but the problems of design arrangements, maintaining user activities, the feasibility of heritage or imbalance of agencies and research might not wash off in a day. We are then facing an idea that’s vague and translucent, which completely ignores the issues on hand and portrays an untouchable situation that seems more likely to be fiction. As far as our present position, this tech will mostly be absent in the near real-world future as the earth is still our home and we are still finding ways to coexist with nature.
20 years went by and we finally will find a perfect combination where we are more efficient as species where habituating in a natural environment won’t result in any disadvantages or side effects, even in the smallest of sets. With a better understanding of spatial needs of space, better-tested materials, more holistic building techniques and overall, a profound human intervention will help us sustain better considering the natural context and resources. Design philosophies will have evolved in new directions, as the repercussions of the present day of not considering natural elements the way they should, would already have been faced by the entire race.
Regional geographies might have changed, the climatic preferences and altitudes of matter will have shifted, parallel to the part of evolution where good architecture depends upon all these factors. Just as the building responds to the context, every element of built strata experiences a deeper connection with the users and activities that might be ever-changing, just like shades and seasons of nature, practical and beneficial.
Thus, there is a great possibility that approximately 86% of the population will be in a direction of natural habituation where all visual perceptions and orientations will be more mature, nature-centric and more welcoming than the discrepancies of design functions that we face now.
‘Evergreen’ Architecture?
30 years from now would be too far to guess, as all possibilities in design would depend upon the criteria we change now and today. This matter can either represent the probabilities of hope or a process of destruction. Looking on the brighter side, in 3 decades, approximately 95% of humanity would be accustomed to the basic idea of building with nature and not against it.
Innovations that sustain, concepts that inspire and functionality of spaces would have an entirely new face where architecture isn’t limited to just human habitations but will also be responding to all creatures and ultimately be an actual part of the impactful and important surrounding. With all pros and cons, the design will evolve in a manner as inspirational as it’s supposed to be with a chance of ageless sustenance and co-existence.
