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    21st Century Ideas: Subtractive Architecture

    A discussion forum for the superstruct of the same name

    Started by: Empiricus Raves:4

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    In which cases is the built environment improved by removing, rather than by adding, buildings, roads and neighborhoods? Some examples: removing excess concrete from yards, transforming parking lots to farms, making some roads into bike-only, removing the center of large buildings to create atriums or courtyards, removing backyard fences to create common neighborhood space, incorporating abandoned neighboring homes to create a secure, farmable compound with outbuildings, etc. Given likely reduced resources and population, subtractive architecture might become the dominant form of "building". This is a place where you can elaborate on these ideas, or propose your own.

    Removing parts of buildings or roads requires only labor, and it can free up resources that may be used for other purposes.

    Turning urban areas into car free zones will decrease pollution and the reliance on cars as well as create better urban environments.

    Rising fuel prices drive poeple from the use of their cars, meaning that many suburban garages act as nothing more than storage sheds. The re-imagining of these structures into primitive green houses should greatly increase the food growing capcity of a suburb, and no more initially than the sweat-equity to strip walls and the cost of see-through plastic. Any structure built to hold a traditional metal siding should easily support a such a change. That said, removal of roads is both INCREDIBLY laboru intensive, and unlikely to provide much immediate benefit. Particularly given the chance of damaging infrastructure laid beneath the roads, isn't it? As I understand it's not like we'll bring up topsoil that way. And Empiricus, when are you thinking this reduced population will come about? I mean, I'm all for long-range planning, but most countries aren't predicting a population drop any time soon, and I envisage people clinging to cities as long as they can eke out -any- form of living.

    Adding greenery is good in almost all urban environments; vegetation makes people into better humans - I have seen a study that shows reduced crime but I have mislaid the link. I think any instance where there is a badly designed, energy-inefficient old tower block it could be gainfully removed and replaced with something better designed.

    I very much like the "garage to greenhouse" idea. As for population decline, I am uncertain. "Subtractive architecture could apply to small towns in the central US for the last 30 years (I remember learning about small towns dying back in the 1990's). ReDS may now lead to severe depopulation in other areas. Also, good point about pulling up roads. Some might just be left to decay on their own.

    I like the idea of Subtractive Architecture. Does that mean we simply remove the works of man, or let nature reclaim it? And having considered that, we is our responsibility after that? There are a lot of Human Works that (at the very least in the near future) permanently scar the landscape. If you consider the number of reclamation projects on list by 2019 consider how many have simple failed, or lost under the burden of other projects.

    @xaosseed: Won't that be incredibly expensive in terms of both labour and tools? I'd think that from a resource consumption standpoint it'd be better to repurpose things or maybe even simply -move- than it would be to construct a new building on the place of a structurally sound one.

    @Empiricus: Good point, but I still think the number of empty houses is likely to be quite small, unless people have gone for mass deurbanization (Except, there's not that much good land for people to move onto if they're leaving the cities.). Of course, with the context of a bad illness that left many dead, the situation is different.

    @Ryan Forbes: Are you meaning things like large mining projects for the permanent scars? I think the idea is to make use of the changed landscape. If the use you're intending is to naturalize it, sure it'll return to nature. But I'd imagine that short-term the projects people would engage in aren't nature restoration, but thigns to improve quality of life for people living in or around the area. Though, subtractive architecture probably doesn't have a lot of significance for those in the most heavily built up areas, it'd probably be best to attempt to repurpose most architecturally complex structures rather than actually modify them. (Skyscrapers, for example, will be beyond the engineering capacities of most people to alter, but I'm sure you could still make good use of at least part of them for something.

    I see architecture as an activity that is done for the benefit of people, and I view subtractive architecture in the same light. It seems like we might be too busy with other problems to remove "scars" just for the sake of aesthetics. I want to "subtract" from the built environment when it makes structures more useful to our new needs.

    How could re-claiming green space be used to help me with my Project ARK. Developing isolated and hidden ARK communities.

    Well, if - as WorldChanging contests - the ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century's frontier ... (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007801.html) ... and the kids are partying in the abandoned suburbs ... (http://www.superstructgame.org/StoryView/522) ... perhaps this "subtractive architecture" could restructure the abandoned urban for agriculture, as per "farmidelphia". (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/farmadelphia.html) ((I must say, there's something about this idea that really resonates. I like the idea of knocking down walls to reveal new, often anticipated, architectural forms. There's a weird poetry there.))




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