2050 SUSTAINABLE MELBOURNE
In the year 2050, the world has taken sustainable architecture and construction into an advanced level. Melbourne continues to thrive as the most livable city by joining other highly-developed cities in the world to pioneer on a new technology that will ensure the most sustainable lifestyle in order to save the lives of both humans and Earth.
BY HSIN YEH
The city of Melbourne has increased density by more than 20 times of that in 2010 as people are relocated from the surrounding suburbs to the central city by the government’s policy to revitalise natural landscape. People from the same suburb are often relocated in the same tower, which is named after the suburb’s name. After the migration of population to the city, the empty lands of the suburbs are studied and processed with the aim to revitalise the lands to their natural state.
Meanwhile, life in the city of Melbourne is currently the most sustainable, clean, and efficient in the world, thanks to the technology of Eco-archi machines. An Eco-archi machine is an automatic machine that controls the design, operation, and adaption of architecture. In 2050, the term ‘architect’ is not relevant anymore as ‘architecture designers’ only design the aesthetics and space of the architecture, while the construction, services, and building regulations are all calculated by the Eco-archi machines to ensure buildings are completely sustainable. The inventors of the technology of Eco-archi were inspired by the Metabolist movement launched in 1960, which premised on designing adaptable and replaceable architecture to “encourage active metabolic development”1 in society in order to “accommodate the growth and regeneration of the modern city.”2 The Eco-archi machines may be considered as a Neo-metabolist design, which adopts the Metabolists’ concepts of the adaptable system and aims to achieve the unfulfilled visions of a city that is able to grow and regenerate itself. This vision of a regenerating city ties closely with the inventors’ goal to create a system that will manage the construction and adaptation of infrastructure for the more efficient use of materials, space, and energy, so the city’s infrastructure allows a sustainable, adaptable, and energy efficient lifestyle.
1. Kiyonori Kikutake et al., Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism (Tokyo: Bijutsu shupansha, 1960), 3. 2. Zhong-Jie Lin, “Nakagin Capsule Tower: Revisiting the Future of the Recent Past,” Journal of Architectural Education, (2011): 16.
Fig.1 High-rise, mixed-use towers in the city, by Hsin Yeh.
The Eco-archi machines are designed to have the necessary level of artificial intelligence to monitor the design of architectural proposals. Eco-archi machines construct a building by reading the script of the architectural design, which is written by the architecture designers. After the design alteration and approval, buildings are then constructed in factories. Once finished, they are transported to the tower they belong to and stacked one on top of the other as building blocks. In order to allow structures to be adapted and replaced, the overall sizes and joint details of all building blocks follow a specific set of standards. The Eco-archi machines also deconstruct the building-blocks by taking apart the materials as undamaged as possible in order to for them to be reused. These abilities of the Eco-archi machines are made possible by writing the design and structure of buildings into scripts, which are read by the machines to monitor, construct, and deconstruct architecture. This technology ensures high-rise towers to hold as many building blocks as possible with optimised building dimensions, and to be used for a longer period as the transient, individual building blocks are replaced and updated through time.
The Eco-archi machines build structure inside frames of 3000 mm (w) x 3000 mm (l) x 3000 mm (h).
Fig.2 Eco-archi machine is connected to a mechanical arm to construct a building, by Hsin Yeh.
In a city that is basically a realisation of the sustainability dream for the human dilemma between urban development and preservation of nature, the opinions on the Eco-archi technology still vary among the inhabitants of the city. Several interviews conducted by the city planning department provide insights into the benefits and issues the inhabitants are facing in the sustainable Melbourne. Questions: Did you grow up in the suburbs or the high-rise towers? What is your opinion about the building blocks and towers constructed by the Eco-archi technology?
Sarah, female, 40 years old, stay-at-home mom: I am quite enjoying living in the towers, but sometimes, I miss the open space of the suburbs. I grew up in the Eastern suburbs, and when I was in my teenage years, they started to relocate people from the suburbs into the central city. I was excited about moving to the high-rise tower obviously because I knew it is going to be a new house with the latest technology. All the built-in appliances, like cooktop, fridge, washing machine, air conditioner, and lighting control panels, are supplied and certified to be highly energy efficient, so our cost of living actually reduced because we weren’t using as much electricity and gas, and also, we were living in a slightly smaller house. The government calls the new building blocks houses, but really, they are more like spacious apartments, ranging from one to three levels, depending on the size of the family.
I was living in a two-level house block, and then I moved out to a one level house when I got married to my husband. We are still living in the same house with our teenage son. It is quite convenient to live in the high-rise tower because, in addition to residential houses, there are also supermarkets, shops, and restaurants in the tower. Living in a mixed-use tower really saves me time and transportation cost to run errands in daily routine because I can just get everything done by walking and taking the elevators. My son’s school is also close to our house, in the school zone with all the towers with schools, sports centres, and educational facilities. He takes the tram for 10 minutes to school every day, so I don’t have to drive him to school like my parents did when I was in school. Dinner is also easier in the central city because I can either get some grocery from the supermarket quickly and prepare dinner or just eat out at the local restaurants in our tower. We sometimes go to other towers to eat if we feel like something new. The only thing that I am not used to is not having a garden. The accessible open space is located in the tower as well, but there is only one in every few levels and the green space are all shared, so we don’t really have a private backyard. I’m not sure how I really feel about this though because I am not that passionate about gardening, but I guess a private backyard has always been there in my childhood, and I just want the same for my son as well.
Supermarket
Playground
Shop
Restaurant Rotti
Fig.3 Closer view at the facade of the mixed-use tower, by Hsin Yeh.
Adam, male, 20 years old, graphic design student: I grew up in the high-rise tower, and I often wonder what it is like to live in a suburban house when my parents and grandparents are reminiscing the past. I can imagine the atmosphere of the suburban life in films and stories about the 2010s period, and a fascinating thing about that period is the architectural design. I am studying graphic design in university, and I feel like there is still a lot of creative freedom for the graphic design industry, but it seems like architecture designers have more freedom back then with their creativity. Even just for more artistic people like myself, we are free to be creative in our outfit or decoration for the house, but we, like everyone else, just accept the idea of the architecture being the standardised blocks, with only different material finishes and colours to be distinguished from each other. There is a trend for cafes, restaurants, and shops to hire graphic designers to design their logos and branding strongly and creatively because there is not much flexibility for unique store designs, and they need the graphic designs to stand out from other business. This is good for my future career, but it will be nice if there is a middle ground for architectural design and sustainability to coexist, so I can design signage for different kinds of store design.
Lily, female, 30 years old, architecture designer: I grew up in a house block in the Boronia tower, in which most of the elder residences were relocated from the original suburb of Boronia, 32 km east of the Melbourne central city. My parents were both architects in the 2000s to the 2010s, and their projects were very interesting during that period, before the relocation and the Eco-archi technology. I think I grew up being interested in architecture design because I was always surrounded by my parents’ past project folios, photographs, and architectural books. However, when I chose architecture design as my bachelor degree, my parents actually had a serious talk with me about how the architecture course nowadays is different from what I’ve been hearing about from their past projects. I understood that as an architecture designer, instead of an architect, the creative freedom is vastly different with the Eco-archi machines manipulating the design proposals to suit sustainability performance and structural adaptability. The only way to get an approval on a project is to send the design script to one of the local Eco-archi machines and adjust the design according to the Eco-archi machine’s suggestions. Basically, there is a module of 3000 x 3000 mm in floor area and 3000 mm in height, and every project is based on this cube of volume. Essentially, every block in every tower looks very similar and the only obvious difference is the material and interior space. The debate around the conflict between the Ecoarchi machine’s sustainable design and the humans’ individual creativity and desire for space-making gradually gets more attention as people realise the more advanced the Eco-archi technology is, the more homogeneous the towers in the city become. I wonder how we as architecture designers can change the city’s infrastructure when the system of adaptable Eco-archi architecture is so matured and penetrated into citizens’ everyday life.
Restaurant Rotti
Fig.4 Individual residential and commercial blocks in one tower, by Hsin Yeh.
The dilemma of human society in the 2000s was the balance between society’s economic development and ecosystem’s sustainability. In 2050, the solution to that dilemma is solved with the Neo-Metabolist Ecoarchi technology that allows the economic growth of city while ensuring the urban infrastructure can be regenerated and updated through recycled and reused resources, and at the same time, condense the urban population to reduce environmental footprint and increase energy efficiency with vertical and condensed buildings. Yet another conflict emerged in the sustainable city of Melbourne - the strictly monitored architectural construction leads to the debate about the balance between sustainable architecture and the creative freedom of space-making. It seems like when humans have finally rescued the natural environment, they are oppressed by their own solution and, again, struggle to find a balance between humans and nature.
Bibliography: • Kikutake, Kiyonori et al. Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism. Tokyo: Bijutsu shupansha, 1960. • Lin, Zhong-Jie. “Nakagin Capsule Tower: Revisiting the Future of the Recent Past,” Journal of Architectural Education (2011): 13-32.