1,721,035 research outputs found
POSSIBLE AND PREFERABLE SCENARIOS OF A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: TOWARDS 2030 AND BEYOND
Full text linkInvestigating the Future is an established practice for the academy and the world of crafts and industry. From the Chicago Columbian Exhibition of 1893 to the two Worlds Fairs of New York City (1939 and 1965) and so on, the future has been foreseen as filled with technology and amazing architecture but not every vision of the future has described promising scenarios. The four visions of the future proposed by Norman Henchey (1978) are conceptualized in classes – "possible" (any future), "plausible" (future that makes sense), "probable" (highly likely to happen), "preferable" (the best that could happen) – and have been brilliantly described in the ‘Futures Cone’ reinterpreted by Joseph Voros (2003). As we move away from the present, the ‘possible’ tends to ‘preferable’ due to the lack of elements and data on which to base the programming and the planning: in fact, the certainty on the type of technologies and production methods that will be available, on the social structure and user uses, and so on decreases. By 2030, the world will already be different: Thomas L. Friedman (2016) highlights that the three main forces of our Planet – Moore’s Law (technology), the Market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss) – are all pressing at the same time, with inevitable consequences for the territory, cities, architecture, products and services that will be designed, developed and used in the future.
The 17 2030 Sustainable Development Goals presented by the United Nations provide an answer for this time horizon, tracing the path towards a model to achieve a better and more sustainable future for everyone. But will these Goals be able to accelerate sustainable innovation? Paraphrasing Luciano Floridi, philosopher of Information and Technology at the University of Oxford, we ask ourselves if ‘green’ (of natural and artificial environments) and "blue" (of science, technology and therefore the digital world) will succeed in guiding a vision of the future capable of replacing ‘things’ (objects) with "relationships", "individual planning" with "common planning", the "experience economy" (and not consumption) with a "policy of care and relationships" (and not production). A vision of a sustainable future of living, by looking at the two-time horizons of 2030 and 2050, will be played on an increasingly synergistic work aimed at providing answers to many questions. In this regard, the book ‘Possible and Preferable Scenarios of a Sustainable Future – Towards 2030 and Beyond’ collects essays and critical thoughts, research and experimentations on the subject providing some starting points for debate for the international scientific Community
Ecosystem strategies and green infrastructures in symbiosis with the built environment
No full textIl numero 11 di AGATHÓN raccoglie saggi, studi, ricerche e progetti sul tema Vegetazione | La sua Simbiosi con il Costruito richiamando il ruolo che la Natura in generale e la Vegetazione in particolare possono svolgere nel breve periodo per affrontare l’attuale sfida del surriscaldamento globale e dei cambiamenti climatici causati da deforestazioni e incendi boschivi, urbanizzazioni selvagge, uso indiscriminato di materie prime non rinnovabili e incremento delle emissioni di anidride carbonica, tutti fattori che determinano un impatto devastante sul nostro ormai fragile ecosistema, sulla società e sull’economia. Se Simon aveva intuito già nel 1969 il potenziale di una ‘nuova ecologia’ in cui componenti animati e inanimati dell’ambiente costruito concorrono a caratterizzare un paesaggio ‘unificato’, gli studi di Beynus costituiscono un patrimonio di conoscenze utile alla rigenerazione consapevole e responsabile dell’ambiente costruito: nel corso dei millenni la Natura ha infatti perfezionato strategie e soluzioni, processi e meccanismi per adattarsi alle diverse condizioni climatiche e fisiche attraverso la razionalizzazione dell’utilizzo di materia e di energia ottimizzando gli scambi metabolici di tipo materiale e immateriale.
Mentre il Movimento Moderno ha considerato paesaggio, urbanistica, architettura e design come discipline separate, nel nuovo millennio si rileva uno ‘spostamento scalare’ in cui esse sono assunte come parti di un sistema territoriale unificato nel quale si è chiamati a superare l’antropocentrismo e a progettare per l’uomo e per le altre forme viventi, in un rapporto di profonda conoscenza e comprensione delle traiettorie e dei bisogni reciproci degli esseri umani e non umani. La relazione tra le parti del sistema assume un’importanza nevralgica quando adottiamo una visione più ampia e sistemica, supportata da un approccio olistico e partecipativo; le tecnologie digitali possono supportare questa ‘doppia convergenza’ verso una ‘ecologia cibernetica’, consentendoci di vedere il mondo naturale e quello artificiale come un unicum.
Il quadro teorico e sperimentale presentato dal volume 11 di AGATHÓN, seppur non esaustivo delle potenzialità delle soluzioni basate sulla natura, dimostra come la loro essenza multifunzionale possa contribuire in maniera rilevante, sia con tecniche e approcci tradizionali e vernacolari sia facendo ricorso all’IoT e alle tecnologie digitali, da un lato a contrastare gli effetti derivati dai cambiamenti climatici realizzando un costruito più resiliente e meno vulnerabile a dinamiche di trasformazione erosiva, dall’altro a creare ambienti più sani, valorizzare la biodiversità, fornire servizi ecosistemici, migliorare la qualità della vita, favorire nuove opportunità economiche e sociali e creare catene di valore, agendo contemporaneamente sui processi di rigenerazione urbana con i temi fondativi della circolarità e gli strumenti multiscalari. Per raggiungere nel minor tempo possibile tali obiettivi e superare la cattiva pratica del greenwashing è però necessario dare avvio a un nuovo paradigma fondato sul ‘passaggio da un’economia di crescita a un’economia di appartenenza’ e su una ‘nuova ecologia’ con la consapevolezza dell’uomo a istaurare un rapporto di simbiosi, integrazione e adattamento alle diverse scale del progetto, magari incentivando iniziative di formazione come quelle del Valldaura Labs dell’IAAC di Barcellona che mira a diffondere pratiche per realizzare paesaggi ecologici e tecnologici olisticamente integrati.AGATHÓN issue number 11 is a collection of essays, studies, research and projects on Greenery | Its Symbiosis with the Built Environment. It recalls the role that nature and greenery, in general, can play in the short term to address the current global warming and climate change challenges. They are caused by deforestation and forest fires, urban sprawl, indiscriminate use of non-renewable raw materials and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. These elements cause a devastating impact on our fragile ecosystem, society and the economy. In 1969, Simon had already guessed the potential of a ‘new ecology’ whose animate and inanimate elements of the built environment characterise a ‘unified’ landscape. Beynus’ studies are a knowledge heritage useful for the informed and responsible regeneration of the built environment. Over the millennia, Nature has perfected strategies and solutions, processes and mechanisms to adapt to different climates and physical conditions through the rationalisation of the use of matter and energy by optimising material and immaterial metabolic exchanges.
While the Modern Movement has considered landscape, urbanism, architecture and design as separate disciplines, in the new millennium there is a ‘scalar shift’ in which they are considered part of a unified territorial system, in which we are called to overcome anthropocentrism and to design for man and living beings, in a connection made of profound knowledge and understanding of the trajectories and reciprocal needs of human and non-human beings. The relationship between the parts of the system takes on crucial importance when we adopt a broader and more systemic vision, supported by a holistic and participatory approach. Digital technologies can support this ‘double convergence’ in their shift towards a ‘cybernetic ecology’ allowing us to see the natural and artificial world as a unicum.
The theoretical and experimental framework presented by AGATHÓN issue number 11, although not exhaustive of the potential of nature-based solutions, shows that their cross-disciplinary essence can relevantly help – both with traditional and vernacular approaches/techniques and using IoT and digital technologies – to counteract the effects of climate change by creating a more resilient built environment, less vulnerable to erosive transformation dynamics, and to create healthier environments, enhance biodiversity, provide ecosystem services, improve quality of life, foster new economic and social opportunities and create value chains, while acting on urban regeneration processes with the circularity and multi-scalar tools as pillars. To achieve these goals in the shortest possible time and overcome the greenwashing bad practice in design, it is necessary to start a new paradigm based on the ‘shift from an economics of growth to an economics of belonging’ and on a ‘new ecology’ in which man and nature characterize an unprecedented ‘unified’ landscape in a profound bond made of mutual knowledge and understanding to build a relationship based on symbiosis, inclusion and adaptation at the different scales of the project. For example, by stimulating training initiatives such as those of the Valldaura Labs of the IAAC in Barcelona, which aim to disseminate practices for holistically integrated ecological and technological landscapes
Reflections and trajectories for interdisciplinary research on the digital transition
Full text linkThe contribution introduces the topic covered by vol. 12 of AGATHÓN through essays, studies, research and projects on Innovability©® | Digital Transition to investigate the current widespread transformation that unites dichotomies (analogue and digital), enhances oxymorons (artificial intelligence), creates paradoxes (materiality of the intangible), while indiscriminately involving architecture, humanities and social sciences, anthropology, sociology, ecology, biology, physical-mathematical sciences and neurosciences, with impacts that – while already visible today and accelerated in part by the extraordinary global health emergency – will become even more evident in the medium and long term. A ‘digital’ transformation, which academics such as Floridi (2020) and Galimberti (2020), but also Haraway (2018), Searle (2017) and Chomsky (2011), have placed on a primarily ontological and epistemological level insofar as it involves the essence of ‘things,’ the way we define them, the world around us, and in particular our relationship with the elements that constitute it
Resilience between mitigation and adaptation
Full text linkThe relation between architecture and time is the subject of two papers. The first illustrates the variations this relationship can make on the notion of resilience, applying it to architectural design and current experimentations of Design for Disassembly. The second focuses on the important subject of population ageing and on the need to study and develop forward-looking forms of a sustainable elderly-friendly living environment in Bulgaria, suggesting potential directions for future development in the context of a resilient society. Finally, the book includes an essay dealing with the importance of new digital technologies in the transition towards a resilient and sustainable city: the document describes a new design process that allows participants to collaborate with ‘virtual elements’, creating specific dynamic three-dimensional systems capable of self-adapting to constraints and of evolving into new spatial configurations shaped by adaptation.
The framework of research, experimentations, projects, interventions, advanced implementation is varied, in ferment and, above all, in constant evolutionary progress. Our era has now become aware of its limits, of the meaning of ‘living in times of crisis’, of the scarcity of available resources, of the need to move in a circular sense, of the seriousness of the threats coming from the climate crisis and the environmental and social emergencies. The term ‘resilience’, once borrowed on tiptoe from the natural and ‘hard’ sciences, is now fully assimilated and key player of action, knowledge and know-how of the disciplines revolving around the intricate and increasingly complex world of contemporary design, building and living. The line is drawn, we are starting to assume ethical responsibilities, the principles, the methods, the operational strategies and the application solutions are emerging, and – by being aware that they can never be definitively codified but rather will have to perpetually regenerate, update, adapt to changing times, conditions, spaces and contexts – we are entering the main road with those who believe in a more desirable future
TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN. THE INNOVATION IN THE METHOD
No full textThe book presents reflections on the centrality of Design in the discipline of Technology of Architecture and on the need to adapt the design method to the innovation of thought implemented by the research world. The theme of the Innovation in the Method of Technological Design is an interesting challenge that in this volume has been addressed considering the complexity of the levels of thematic depth, opening up to critical reflections, proposals for tools and illustration of case studies that show the breadth, relevance and multidimensionality of this issue.
The era of digital and information technology have significantly influenced the way of doing and thinking in architecture and this evolution of design thinking takes on different connotations in training or professional practice. In the volume, it is transversally observable as the degree of innovation is to be found in the contents (ideas, techniques and procedures), as well as in the tools. The need to adapt the design method to the innovation of thought, carried out and encouraged by the world of research, obliges us to rethink the existing contents and training paths that must generate it and to privilege the didactic experiences in which the traditional procedure (frontal teaching, individual study, profit examination) is passed.
Since the labour market rewards those who demonstrate their ability to control the design process with creativity and predictability, concreteness and feasibility, sensitivity and respect for the transforming environment, the book proposes the centrality of the technological project, based on a technical culture, since it is able to guarantee the correct use of resources and an appropriate management of the transformation process. New paradigms of regenerative architecture, ‘cradle to cradle’ approach, methodological approach to the design of shelters in archaeological sites, building with water, materials for digital production in architecture are interesting design experiments wisely described: the development of such a debate can also lead to useful contributions to the development of technological thinking
ARCHITETTURA SISTEMICA. MATERIALI ED ELEMENTI COSTRUTTIVI (III EDIZIONE AGGIORNATA E CON ILLUSTRAZIONI A COLORI)
Full text linkQuesta terza edizione di Architettura Sistemica, rispetto alla seconda del 2010 che introduceva illustrazioni a colore, poggia ancora sulla struttura del testo elaborato nella prima edizione e sulla stessa veste grafica. Ma abbiamo constatato che talune questioni, anche se di uso limitato, erano state tra- lasciate e che, al contrario, altri concetti ed espressioni della cultura tecnologica in questi ultimi anni hanno assunto un’in- discussa rilevanza.
Pertanto l’edizione attuale si propone di integrare e ag- giornare il testo con tre questioni particolari. La prima si riferisce ai materiali di nuova generazione, riferibili alle nanoscienze e alle nanotecnologie, che stanno provocando un salto innovativo nel campo dei materiali, utilizzati in molti settori manifatturieri, e dei servizi; in particolare sono specificati i significati dei termini e sono descritti i diversi processi per la produzione dei materiali nanostrut- turati, le proprietà e i tipi che li caratterizzano, le applica- zioni nei diversi settori e, infine, i prodotti nanostrutturati che sono impiegati in architettura
PROCESSO CONSERVATIVO E SIGNIFICATIVITà UN APPROCCIO METODOLOGICO PER LA PROGETTAZIONE DEI SISTEMI DI PROTEZIONE NEI SITI ARCHEOLOGICI/CONSERVATION PROCESS AND SIGNIFICANCE A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PLAN SHELTERS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
No full textPatrimonio culturale in generale e dei beni archeologici in particolare, in ragione della loro duplice natura (materiale e immateriale) e coerentemente con l’interesse della Cultura tecnologica per la centralità di quegli aspetti di processo che sono determinanti per una loro adeguata valorizzazione e ampia fruizione, il presente contributo propone un modello di valutazione per capire ‘cosa’ conservare e ‘per- ché’ nell’ottica di uno sviluppo sostenibile, ancor prima di ‘come’ farlo, consentendo una più chiara lettura e una più agevole interpretazione delle complesse relazioni esistenti fra le preesistenze archeologiche, il contesto naturale e i sistemi antropici aggiunti. Il modello di valutazione proposto potrà guidare gli operatori verso una progettazione consapevole dei sistemi di protezione con valenza architettonica, favorendo l’individuazione delle soluzioni morfologiche, tipologiche e tecnico-costruttive più idonee alla restituzione delle potenziali significatività del bene.Within the scientific debate on the conservation of Cultural Heritage in general and Archaeological Heritage in particular, due to its twofold nature (material and immaterial) and consistently with the interest taken by Technological Culture in the importance of those aspects in the process crucial for their proper development and broad enjoyment, this paper proposes an evaluation model to understand ‘what’ to preserve and ‘why’ for a sustainable development, even before considering ‘how’ to do so, allowing a clearer reading and an easier interpretation of the complex relationships existing between the archaeological pre-existences, the natural environments and the added anthropic systems. The offered evaluation model can guide operators towards a conscious sheltering planning with an architec- tural value, promoting the identification of the morphological, typological and technical-constructive solutions most suitable to return the potential significance of the Asset
Resilience between Mitigation and Adaptation
No full textThe climatic, environmental and anthropic changes that characterize the beginning of this millennium increasingly are a major subject in the international debate since they influence, on the one hand, the protection of territories, landscapes and fragile urban areas, and on the other, the uses, performance and efficiency of architectural artefacts and everyday objects. Moreover, the shortage of natural resources, the global economic
crisis, the mass migratory flows and the unpredictability of seismic events, are a source of continuous instability which can be dealt only with ‘resilient thoughts’ capable of answering continuous or sudden changes. In general, Resilience is considered as «[...] the property of complex systems to respond to stress events, activating response and adaptation strategies in order to restore functioning mechanisms: resilient systems, facing stressful events, react by renewing themselves but maintaining the functionality and the recognizability of their systems» (Gunderson and holling, 2002). Within a positive dynamic process, aimed at managing events and rebuilding a new (landscape, urban, architectural, economic, social, etc.) balance, resilience does not imply the restoration of an initial state, but the acquisition of a new balance and maintenance
of functionality through two approach strategies.
The first strategy is Adaptive, focused on the dynamic nature of operational methods – from ideational, compositional/design, to productive, realization, operational and management methods – in which all the elements of the built environment, from the territorial and urban scale, building, to the material and object scale, effectively adapt to new balances with higher performance levels. The second strategy is Mitigative, where research is directed to innovative technologies (process, project and product) aimed at risk prevention and minimizing any impact – concerning unsettling events due to environmental, seismic, anthropic and social change – and aiming at the realization of urban systems, buildings, objects, components and sensitive materials, with variable behaviour and in an energetic-dynamic equilibrium with climatic and environmental changes.
In this regard, the book on Resilience between Mitigation and Adaptation collects essays and critical reflections, researches and experiments, projects and interventions referred, on interscale terms, to the different dimensions of the man-made and natural environment, to which risk, fragility and vulnerability can no longer be dealt with individually by the traditional tools of sustainability, innovation, redevelopment or regeneration,
but only through a systemic approach capable of supporting, integrating and fostering relationships between individual, group and community, cultural and multi/transdisciplinary competences (urban planning, architecture, representation, history, restoration and recovery, technology, design and communication, economy, sociology, psychology, etc.) thus integrating humanistic and technical knowledge. More specifically, the main areas of interest concern:
– Landscape and Territory Area, as cross-disciplinary synthesis of systemic and integrated knowledge of the Environment, in its natural aspects (natural and naturalized signs, natural network systems, etc.) and related to anthropic uses and transformations (networks and infrastructure, etc.): a resilient landscape policy must take into account, above all, the non-material interests and desires of the population, such as beauty, biological
and landscape diversity, habitats, identification with the territory, etc.;
– Urban Area: the quality of cities requires complex strategies, both for intervention scales (structural and process) and for fields of action (economic, environmental, social), to be continuously implemented over time and with respect of the characteristics of the contexts; the resilient city changes by designing innovative social, economic and environmental responses that allow cities to withstand (by changing) the demands
of the environment and history in the long run;
– Architecture and Building Field: to ensure a resilient approach, Architecture must absorb, on the one hand, the principle of adaptation (to contexts, to climate, to risks), and on the other the principle of limit/envelop (to be implemented increasing the permeability and going over the partitions), and finally the principle of reduction (intended as an essential tendency towards an increasingly stronger habit of saving natural resources and as a constant research on how to minimize/eliminate pollution and more generally climate-changing emissions at all stages of the life cycle: case studies and experimental creations, in this regard, represent a privileged key to interpretation)
INNOVAZIONE DEI MATERIALI NATURALI: TERRA E NANOTUBI DI ARGILLA PER UNA SFIDA SOSTENIBILE
No full textAll’interno del dibattito culturale che vede la questione ambientale come prioritaria e con riferimento a studi e ricerche che negli ultimi anni hanno promosso materiali compositi a base di terra cruda, gli Autori, consapevoli della necessità che il rapporto fra Progetto e Materia debba assumere una nuova centralità supportato dalle specificità della Tecnologia dell’Architettura, illustrano le risultanze di una sperimentazione che ha l’obiettivo di migliorare le prestazioni della terra cruda con l’apporto delle nanotecnologie, sviluppando un ‘nuovo materiale’ con una ridotta embodied energy e una ridotta quantità di emissioni di CO2 in atmosfera
AFFRONTARE LA COMPLESSITÀ : conoscenza, progetto e gestione dell’ambiente costruito
No full textLa ‘complessità’ (dal verbo latino ‘plectere’ = intrecciare, ‘cum’ = insieme) è una condizione nella quale sono presenti tanti elementi interconnessi a formare un’unità. La complessità della condizione in cui versa il Pianeta è evidente: il cambiamento climatico, secondo Amitav Ghosh (2017), non è un pericolo in sé, ma rappresenta un ‘moltiplicatore di minacce’ che stressa e amplifica l’instabilità e l’insicurezza già presenti in alcune aree del mondo, ancor di più perché molti Paesi industrializzati hanno già superato notevolmente la relativa ‘biocapacità’, diventando di fatto ‘debitori ecologici’.
In quest’ottica il ‘complesso’ va riportato al suo significato etimologico di ‘tessuto’ o ‘tenuto insieme’, connettendo i saperi nel circolo virtuoso di una conoscenza che si articola in una visione sistemica del mondo reale fondata sul principio di ‘coevoluzione’ dei sistemi sociali e dei sistemi ecologici (di cultura e natura) e sulla consapevolezza che essa determina, da un lato l’intreccio di molteplici catene causali (ad esempio, la crisi da pandemia oltre che sanitaria è diventata anche crisi biologica, ecologica, economica, sociale, culturale e spirituale) con effetti interdipendenti, dall’altro effetti che retroagiscono anche sulle cause perché la causalità è circolare; secondo Ceruti e Bardi (2021) purtroppo questa visione stenta a tradursi nell’operatività del quotidiano e nel guidare sia l’osservazione del mondo sia il progetto, che è espressione del nostro essere nel mondo.
Le modalità di vita, indipendentemente dal luogo, hanno un impatto sulla biosfera e determinano reazioni a catena in ambiti differenti che influenzano tanto la natura quanto l’essere umano a scala globale: cambiamento climatico, rischi per la salute, perdita della biodiversità, uso indiscriminato delle risorse non rinnovabili, ineguaglianze e accessibilità concorrono a una condizione di ‘policrisi’ che amplifica lo stato di incertezza sul nostro futuro e la vulnerabilità dell’intero ecosistema, soprattutto perché le azioni progettuali messe in campo non affrontano la cogente questione ambientale in chiave sistemica e olistica.
E allora, come trasformare la complessità da sfida a opportunità? Come affrontare le complesse questioni che riguardano la conoscenza, il progetto e la gestione del costruito rispetto agli ormai imprescindibili pragmatici indicatori di sostenibilità ambientale, sociale ed economica? Quali le strategie, le misure, le azioni e gli strumenti che le aree disciplinari dell’Architettura possono mettere in campo in una visione olistica e con approccio sistemico per rispettare i termini dell’Accordo di Parigi? Come individuare quelle con il miglior rapporto costo/benefici e capaci di produrre sinergie per il raggiungimento del maggior numero possibile degli Obiettivi di Sviluppo Sostenibile promossi dalla Nazioni Unite? Come ripensare i sistemi economici estrattivi (basati sulla produzione) e indirizzarli verso quelli rigenerativi (basati sulla valorizzazione dell’esistente e sui servizi)? Come mettere in pratica nuovi approcci progettuali sistemici capaci di affrontare la complessità del presente dalle radici, sviluppando soluzioni attraverso le quali intere società possano intenzionalmente passare a un futuro a lungo termine più sostenibile, equo e desiderabile – anche attraverso visioni co-create – per informare le soluzioni del presente e aprire la strada verso un futuro auspicabile? Come mettere a sistema conoscenze e saperi per meglio cogliere le questioni multidimensionali, fondamentali e globali dell’epoca attuale nella loro irriducibile complessità?
Gli articoli pubblicati sul volume 16 di AGATHÓN forniscono alcune risposte per affrontare le complesse questioni che riguardano la conoscenza, il progetto e la gestione del costruito rispetto agli ormai imprescindibili pragmatici indicatori di sostenibilità ambientale, sociale ed economica, dimostrando che la complessità del costruito da sfida può diventare opportunità per raggiungere i 17 Obiettivi di Sviluppo Sostenibile. I contributi pubblicati certamente non esauriscono i campi di indagine, le strategie, le misure e le azioni che la comunità scientifica e il settore delle costruzioni possono mettere in campo per contenere l’azione antropica entro i limiti planetari e rendere più resilienti il costruito e i sistemi biofisici, tuttavia restituiscono un primo quadro teorico-pratico sul tema che si auspica possa contribuire ad alimentare il dibattito scientifico e stimolare nuove azioni di ricerca improntate ad approcci multiscalari e capaci di mettere in valore le potenzialità delle tecnologie digitali atte alle cogenti le sfide della contemporaneità, comprese quelle globali della neutralità climatica e carbonica.Complexity (from the Latin verb ‘plectere’ = to weave, ‘cum’ = together) is a condition in which many elements intertwine together to form a unit. The ‘complexity’ of the Planet’s condition is evident: climate change, according to Amitav Ghosh (2017), is not a danger in itself but rather represents a ‘threat multiplier’ that stresses and amplifies the instability and insecurity already present in some areas of the world, even more so because many industrialised countries have already greatly exceeded their relative ‘biocapacity’, effectively becoming ‘ecological debtors’.
In this view, ‘complex’ should be brought back to its etymological meaning of ‘woven’ or ‘held together’, connecting different forms of knowledge in the virtuous circle of a body of knowledge articulated in a systemic view of the real world based on the principle of ‘co-evolution’ of social and ecological systems (of culture and nature) and the awareness that it determines; on the one hand, the interweaving of multiple causal chains (e.g., although the pandemic crisis is a health crisis it has also become a biological, ecological, economic, social, cultural and spiritual crisis) with interdependent effects, and on the other hand, effects that also retroact on causes since causality is circular. According to Ceruti and Bardi (2021), unfortunately, it isn’t easy to translate this vision into the workings of everyday life and to guide both the observation of the world and the project, which is an expression of our being in the world.
How we live, regardless of where this happens, has an impact on the biosphere and determines chain reactions in different areas that affect both nature and human beings on a global scale: climate change, health risks, loss of biodiversity, indiscriminate use of non-renewable resources, inequalities, and accessibility contribute to a condition of ‘polycrysis’ that amplifies the state of uncertainty about our future and the vulnerability of the entire ecosystem, especially since the actions put in place do not address the cogent environmental issue in a systemic and holistic key.
Therefore, the question is, how do we transform complexity from challenge to opportunity? How do we deal with the complex issues that concern the knowledge, the design, and the management of the built compared to the now essential pragmatic indicators of environmental, social, and economic sustainability? Which strategies, measures, actions, and tools can Architecture disciplines implement in a holistic view and with a systems approach to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement? How do we identify those with the best cost/benefit ratio capable of producing synergies to achieve the largest possible number of the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the United Nations? How do we rethink extractive (production-based) economic systems and direct them toward regenerative ones (based on the enhancement of that which already exists and of services)? How to put into practice new systemic design approaches capable of addressing today’s complexities from their roots, developing solutions through which entire societies can intentionally transition to a more sustainable, equitable, and desirable long-term future, including through co-created visions capable of informing the solutions of the present and paving the way to a desirable future? How do we place knowledge and learning into a system to better understand the current era’s multidimensional, fundamental, and global issues in their irreducible complexity?
The articles published in issue 16 of AGATHÓN offer valuable insights into addressing the complex issues surrounding the knowledge, design, and management of the built environment in light of the increasingly urgent pragmatic indicators of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, demonstrating that the complexity of the built environment, rather than being a challenge, can become an opportunity to advance the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The published contributions certainly do not fully encompass the fields of inquiry, strategies, measures, and actions that the scientific community and the construction sector can implement to contain human activity within planetary boundaries and make both the built environment and biophysical systems more resilient. However, they provide an initial theoretical-practical framework on the topic, which will hopefully contribute to stimulating the scientific debate and inspire new research initiatives based on multiscalar approaches, capable of leveraging the potential of digital technologies to address the pressing challenges of contemporary times, including the global goals of climate and carbon neutrality
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