NORMAN FOSTER and ELENA FOSTER
Design & The City of The FutureNF It is fifty years from now – you have arrived
at a city – it could be one that exists now or one
that has been created from scratch since now –
describe your arrival and as the expression goes
‘walk me through it’.NEO Biometric authentication provides access to the
city’s grid, with your accompanying android ‘urban buddy’
registered for cyborg rewards, and for monitoring by the
state. Nature has become nurtured: light- and air-controlled,
glasshouse-like skins protect indoor forests for future
generations. Powered by renewable energy, the city is a
self-contained ecosystem with all products able to dissociate
in water when desired. Photosynthetic transparent façades
wrap towers structured like trees with underground biofuel
production providing energy for inhabitants and drones.
Urban surfaces are embedded with photovoltaic tiles.
Indestructible, smart semiconductor devices in the form
of structural fibres morph their material and structural
properties on demand, and supercompute, providing free
and unlimited processing, storage, and communication
for all. Fibre-embedded structures omit light in darkness
and – combined with silk – provide an architectural-scale
immune system for the building and the city. Pedestrian
areas are woven into engineered indoor parks. Intelligent
infrastructure facilitates high-rise, high-density, mixed-use
urban living, limiting the number of buildings. Transport
is free, provided by self-driving, vehicle swarms. With
denser brains, human beings augment their physicality
with exoskeletal enhancements and edited genomes.
Norman Foster is an architect, founder and executive chairman
of Foster + Partners, and president of the Norman Foster
Foundation. Elena Foster is a publisher and curator, and founder
and CEO of Ivorypress
JOHN MAEDA
Design & Artificial Intelligence IJM Given that many of your works are algorithmically
generated, and that we now live in a world where AI
is gradually replacing algorithms, how do you expect
your work to change?NEO I expect its speed and formal expression to change,
less so its philosophy.Digital design has evolved over time: first we designed form
by the sketch; then we designed algorithms assisting in
the design of form (Computer-aided design); then we designed
algorithms that assists us in the generative design of form
(Computational design); then we designed AIs that design
algorithms that design form; next we will design AIs that
design AIs, and so on.But engineering a product and designing a user experience
are two very different things. While AI enables the former,
for the latter we engage subtlety and moral judgement.
It will take time for an AI to harvest stem cells from wisdom
teeth in order to grow intelligence; or for auto tuning to
reproduce an Aretha Franklin AI; or for design to endure
without designers. I am a romanticist, not a myopic fan,
when it comes to AI.John Maeda is a designer, technologist and the global head,
computational design and inclusion at AutomatticSTEPHEN BARRETT / RSHP
Design & Artificial Intelligence IIRSHP Do you think Artificial Intelligence could one
day entirely replace the need for human architects
and designers? If so – by when? If not, what is
it that human beings bring to these activities that
machines would find harder to replicate?NEO I see two possible scenarios: the doomed (à la Kubrick)
and the sanctified (à la Clarke). Fitting with the doomsday
scenario, human architects will become outmoded when
buildings will not only be designed by AIs but also inhabited »Neri Oxman lying down on Aguahoja’s
nested skins pre-constructionPhotography: Paula Aguilera and
Jonathan Williams. Courtesy of
Neri Oxman and The Mediated Matter
Group, MIT Media LabNeri Oxman