by them. This is also consistent with technological singularity,
the assumption that the invention of artificial super
intelligence (ASI) will trigger runaway technological growth,
resulting in human civilization ultimately becoming obsolete.
On a more positive note, human intelligence (and wisdom)
will co-evolve with ASIs, turning designers into deities of all
things physical and immaterial in the built environment.
What is it that human beings bring to these activities
that machines would find harder to replicate? Doubt and
a good quarrel.
Stephen Barrett is an architect and partner at
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
BJARKE INGELS
Design & BiomimicryBI You’ve pioneered biomimicry and 3D-printing
for the last decade(s). Given my interest is the built
environment, I’d love to hear your best predictions
on how both fields may begin to find everyday
applications in the construction of our buildings, roads,
infrastructure and cities over the next decades?NEO We will see large-scale printers built as mobile
platforms. Our Digital Construction Platform technology,
recently obtained by Nasa, is an automated construction
system capable of customised on-site architectural
construction using real-time environmental data.
Technologies like this one will enable designers to inform
concrete density, for example, based on the integration of
seismic load maps and weather patterns on the fly. These
‘labs-on-a-bot’ will also be self-sufficient, with photovoltaic
charging and the ability to source local materials.
We will return to new forms of vernacular architecture,
updated through digital tools. The practice of urban
design will incorporate fields such as space-borne photography,
microbiology and intelligent surveillance; as well as real
time high-resolution data associated with urban scale for
material sourcing and planning. As automation increases,
construction bots will become more robust and more
intelligent, able to apply AIs on the ground. Construction
will be more like playing Pokémon.
Bjarke Ingels is an architect and founder of Bjarke Ingels Group
J MEEJIN YOON
Design & MatterMY When you formed your research group eight
years ago, you titled it ‘Mediated Matter’ as an
umbrella for your speculative research on nature-
inspired design and design-inspired nature. Now the
speculative aspect of the work has intersected with
large strides in synthetic biology and designing
with DNA. How do you think this will impact the design
of the built environment in the next decade?NEO On the architectural and smaller scales, mass
production will fully transition into mass customisation;
assembly lines will fuse with growth and traditional
construction with digital fabrication. Top-down form
generation (additively manufactured / 3D-printed) combined
with bottom-up growth of biological systems (biologically
synthesised / bio-augmented) will open previously impossible
opportunities: photosynthetic building façades that convert
carbon into biofuel; wearable micro-biomes that nourish
our skin through selective filtration; and 3D-printed matter
that repairs damaged tissue. Over time we will see the rise
of technologies that focus on the integration of functions
rather than discrete utility-driven applications. Consider,
for example, a solar harnessing glass printed façade that
can act both as structure and as environmental skin. With
almost 450 billion square feet of windows installed per
annum (2015), imagine the implications these technologies
would have on urban scale energy budgets...J Meejin Yoon is an architect, co-founder of Höweler + Yoon
Architecture and head of the Department of Architecture at MIT’s
School of Architecture and Planning. In January 2019 she will
take on a new role as dean of the College of Architecture, Art and
Planning at Cornell UniversityTHOMAS HEATHERWICK
Design & The CityTH As someone who loves your work but primarily
creates large-scale projects, I wondered whether you
had any interest in making some of your ideas become
more permanent, public, and city-scale. What’s your
thinking on this and how might you make it happen?NEO One’s Brobdingnag is another’s Lilliput, and vice
versa, dear Thomas! After almost a decade of developing
enabling technologies for design and architectural
construction we are finally prepared to leverage scale andNeri Oxman