An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise

An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise: Distributed Proximities, Posturban Landscapes and Reconstructed Ruins. Peter R. Diprose and Robert D. Hotten Acadia 2020 Conference: Distributed Proximities “When the wattle-blooms are drooping in the sombre she-oak glade, And the breathless land is lying in a swoon, He leaves his work a moment, leaning lightly on his spade, And he hears the bell-bird chime the Austral noon. The parakeets are silent in the gum-tree by the creek; The ferny grove is sunshine-steeped and still; But the dew will gem the myrtle in the twilight ere he seek His little lonely cabin on the hill.” Service, R W. The Younger Son. 1. The Current Situation: A Pandemic Paradise. New Zealand is currently in an unusual situation when compared with the rest of the world. Due to to its geographical remoteness, being surrounded on all sides by thousands of miles of ocean, New Zealand has very few cases of coronavirus. Body, G. NZ Herald, 16 May 2020 2. The Problem: Ecological Destruction, Isolation and Alienation A: Isolation Aside from the very real economic hardships that will be endured by many, we identify physical distancing (during and after lockdown) as a serious problem to be dealt with. The individual isolation, the fear and rising paranoia associated with the pandemic, and uncertainties over the future are some of the evolving issues. Isolation within small urban housing/apartments distances individuals/families from natural environments, removes spontaneity of shared landscape experience, and the spectacle of theatrical urban space. Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 1 The need for authenticity of experience and a desire for travel has been denied and continues to be denied in the form of international travel given border closures and fear of the virus. We have shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. B: Ecological Destruction & C: Alienation Isolation combined with the separation from vocation and friends has provided time for introspection and a reassessment of values with its associated social disruption. Problems that have been previously dismissed have been aired post-covid. Examples of this include the environmental debate that has been brought sharply into contrast with months of a low/no movement economy providing clear skies over previously polluted cities. Secondly, entrenched inequalities have come to the fore, highlighting persistent marginalisation and alienation of many. Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 2 3. Manifesto of Digital Solutions: Posturban Landscapes, Contested Hybrid Landscapes, Distributed Proximities, AI Eco Design and Reconstructed Ruins. For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye ...And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. Wordsworth, W. 1807 In our view potentially useful post-covid19 digital solutions that warrant further research include the following: • 1. Posturban Landscapes: Virtual and hybrid digital landscapes: To counter isolation and fear, providing spectacle, novelty or stillness. (Problem A) • 2. Distributed Proximities: To counter commercial and intellectual isolation. (Problem A) • 3. Distributed Proximities: To provide global collaborative initiatives in ecological design through supercomputing. (Problem B) • 4. Distributed Proximities: In the form of artificial intelligence assisted design that blurs mechano-human design agency in environmental design. (Problem B) • 5. GIS/Hybrid landscapes: To counter alienation and inform the observer, revealing political and historical information with contested landscapes. (Problem C) Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 3 1. Posturban Landscapes: Virtual and hybrid digital landscapes: To counter isolation and fear, providing spectacle, novelty or stillness. (Problem A) Virtual world in terms of the Dominant Social Paradigm pre covid: Vicarious Escapism • Rather than the vicarious escapism offered by negative current mediums (Television, film computer games) • specifically used in an attempt to reclaim lost passion and desire while maintaining a state of ignorance and/conscious avoidance of the ecological problem. Virtual world in terms of a rise New Environmental Paradigm post covid: Intentional Eco-escapism: •Create virtual worlds through which desire can be fulfilled while consciously avoiding actual degradation of the environment or the human spirit •For example - Virtual 3D Architectural follies and/or urban environments, virtual communities. Actual world in terms of the New Environmental Paradigm post covid: Ecological Post Urban space •Designers need to Refocus on the formless aspects of urban design - • Recapture actual community spirit and desire, and those places that reject unbridled consumption. • For example Art Spaces and public gardens - Need for spectacle – novelty satisfied through vicarious landscapes. Irwin Garden at the Getty Center Los Angeles, Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 4 - Need for stillness and curiosity. - Ryoen-ji, Kyoto - Virtual ruins. Agora of the Italians, Delos Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 5 - Virtual wilderness The Olgas (Kata Tjuta) “To approach the problem “of the new”, then, one must compete the following four requirements: redefine the traditional concept of the object; reintroduce and radicalise the theory of time; conceive of “movement” as a first principle and not merely a special, dismissible case; and embed these latter three within an all-encompassing theory and politics of the “event”.” Kwinter, S. 2002, Architectures of Time, p11. 2. Distributed Proximities: To counter commercial and intellectual isolation (Problem A) The film and animation studios have shown how distributed proximities can utilised post-covid. An example of this is described in the link below. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/23/how-hollywood-movie-making-becomes-virtual-after- coronavirus.html Weta Workshop. Web page -> Design Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 6 Distributed Proximities: 3 & 4 3. Distributed Proximities: To provide global collaborative initiatives in ecological design through supercomputing. (Problem B) “Entropic and climatic stasis requires humanity to: Reduce carbon uptake, nitrate use, and natural forest destruction... Commission an open input independent global good supercomputing facility; collate, interpret, trend, forecast, update and disseminate all manner of biosphere information and analysis.” Core Adaptation Markers, Page 151 Riddell, Resilience Adaptation Sustainability, Blackwell, 2014. Combined with 4. Distributed Proximities: In the form of artificial intelligence assisted design that blurs mechano-human design agency in environmental design. (Problem B) We propose that we utilise artificial intelligence that could convert architectural norms into appropriately designed forms, and (with some human intervention) simultaneously compare these to mores of cultural landscape, meaning, and theories of art and architecture. A design-morphing machine is proposed within a virtual augmented reality environment as a means of interactively investigating a mosaic of form possibilities. AI Eco Design provides a rich field of opportunities and options that blur current definitions of design agency. It is critical that the design process be assisted by big data and AI to go beyond the ordinariness, and quotidian results such as new urbanism. Analogue example of new design syntheses that could be assisted by an AI Eco Designer. AD HOCISM: AI ECO DESIGN Rural Hillside Town Plan, Auckland, New Zealand, reconstructed ruins from medieval hillside town planning. We suggest that the only way to quickly achieve ad hoc hyper complexity of a reinterpreted medieval town would be through the enhanced agency of AI Eco Design and machine learning design algorithms. Sustainable town, Rennes, France Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 7 Reference Images and Proposed sustainable village: Rural Auckland 2018 5. GIS/Hybrid landscapes: To counter alienation and inform the observer, revealing political and historical information with contested landscapes. (Problem C) Virtual/Hybrid landscape overlays could inform the visitors to the site, of the hidden and discarded histories associated with those sites. An example of an historical narrative / site is documented in the link below. Image from: NZ Wars: Stories of Waitara, RNZ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW20zpWlCC8 “This analytical model – based on developmental pathways, dynamical interactions, singular points, and qualitative movements in abstract, sometimes multidimensional space – arguably furnishes a far richer theory of site than most currently employed orthodox aesthetic or architectural practice.” Kwinter, S. 2002, Architectures of Time, MIT Press p28 Conclusion. We identify that the elements of this manifesto would operate simultaneously. A collection of collaborations, as distributed proximities in our pandemic paradise. The whole life ... in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (Debord, Guy 1995 The Society of the Spectacle Zone Books, p5) Diprose & Hotten, An AI EcoDesign Pandemic Paradise, Acadia 2020 8