Time is continuously changing, evolving, and transforming; there is no denying the fact. Like every other field, Architecture is experiencing changes every day at an alarming pace. With new technological advances, a growing population, depleting climate and nature, cultural shifts, and the recent pandemic, the need for change is here. More advanced construction techniques are being practiced with more sustainable materials while designing spaces to meet the client’s needs. While remaining iconic and memorable, architecture needs to be relevant to the time and society. Even though we can not necessarily know where time will lead architecture as a field, we can predict and imagine what can happen according to the already ongoing trends and changes.
Walking Towards a Greener Future
Sustainability and the awareness of its importance are already here. Architects and other professionals are working towards achieving a greener future. The world has recognized the need for renewable energy, alternative transportation solutions, and a greener built environment. In the future architecture can be merging the buildings with nature, taking the masses back to nature, from where everything started. The term “Smart City” refers to a kind of urban development that is environmentally friendly and sustainable. In these Smart cities, along with nature, the needs of the public and institutions will be met with efficient use of resources and lower energy consumption.
More technological advancements and big data will aid architects and experts in better understanding the user’s lives, including how they travel about cities, how they consume energy, and how they interact with the built environment, among other things.
Treasures of Technology | Journey of Architecture
Technology is truly a wonder, with so much potential yet to be explored. It can help architecture, right from the designing process to the construction on site. Immersive technology, Virtual Reality, BIM, Artificial Intelligence are just a few technological advancements to name that are developing in the recent few years in the field of architecture. Architects and designers can already experience their design even before it is built on-site with the help of virtual reality. A more realistic virtual reality can help architects understand how their design will affect the user’s mind and emotions. How a user would feel in the building is an essential aspect of its design. In the future, maybe virtual reality can be a part of the design itself, adding an extra dimension to space.
BIM software and parametric architecture are already making their way to mainstream architecture. BIM makes working on a 3D model easier throughout the project’s life and its construction. With a multi-client database and distinct classifications for all construction details, it makes the documentation, designing, interfacing, and management of the design easier for the architects. On the other hand, Parametric architecture is opening doors to designs that once might have been impossible for humans to compute by themselves. It is a generative design system using parameters to compute and generate different outputs to create forms and structures. With coding or software like Rhino and Grasshopper, which are currently available.
Other technological advancements can lead to artificial intelligence being added to the homes and institutions to help the users or even architecture robots helping the architects in construction or designing. In terms of technology and its influence on architecture, it is only safe to say that the sky is the limit.
Bringing Nature to the Cities
Designing green buildings with lower energy consumption makes the city more sustainable; however, the future might amaze us with micro-climates for each building or complex. Rapid urbanization in modern times has brought humans far away from nature. The green architecture of recent times can be viewed as an attempt to bring nature back to humans in a sense; but what if the architects become successful in creating distinct micro-climates and ecosystems for every city or even building. Technology and design might make it possible.
A growing population is another factor that has and will influence architecture. With the increased population growth, the needs are increasing as well, but the land remains limited. One solution to accommodate more people in a smaller piece of land is to go vertically up in the sky or down in the ground, a common practice in recent times. Skyscrapers are no longer an unbelievable object of the future but our reality of the present. However, moving vertically up or down is not the only option; floating cities on water or even in the air may be the way of the future. Designers are already working towards it and who is to say if it might be the reality for us one day.
The path towards the future might be full of experiments as well, some helping to create something unimaginable to our current selves while some may help us learn a few precious lessons. Architecture is a field that will have to evolve with time and people; how it will be evolving and what will be the future, might be some unanswerable questions. Architects are the essential and undeniable part of the change who need to identify and make the change a reality.
Citation –
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- Philip Kennicott (2020), Designing to Survive. [online]. Available athttps://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/07/13/pandemic-has-shown-us-what-future-architecture-could-be/ [Accessed 04 June 2021].
- TMD Studio (2017), Emerging Trends That Will Shape the Future of Architecture. [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/studiotmd/emerging-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-architecture-356ba3e7f910 [Accessed 04 June 2021].
- Russell A. Davidson (2016), Architecture’s Future. [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/studiotmd/emerging-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-architecture-356ba3e7f910 [Accessed 04 June 2021].
- BSBG Group (2021), New Technology in architecture. [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/studiotmd/emerging-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-architecture-356ba3e7f910 [Accessed 04 June 2021].
- Walsh, N, and Lesmes, L, Hellberg, F. (2020). Space Popular: “Virtual space does not replace the physical, it adds a new layer on top”.
Images –
- Brozhinsky, V. Abstract Futuristic Smart City. [online]. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/abstract-futuristic-smart-city-internet-things-1182958963
- Lynch, G. Paris as Green and Sustainable Future. [online]. Available at: https://gizmodo.com/paris-as-a-green-and-sustainable-future-city-is-even-mo-1680372218
- Lynch, G. Paris as Green and Sustainable Future. [online]. Available at: https://gizmodo.com/paris-as-a-green-and-sustainable-future-city-is-even-mo-1680372218
