Futures

The very notion of sustainability is the preservation of the present for the future. The 1987 brutland report depicts ‘sustainable development’ as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own”. Looking at sustainability on a region scale has inspired many architects such as Le Courbusier and Ebenezer Howard. Designers, sociologists, geographers, topographers and architects etc must make certain assumptions or projected predictions about the future in order to provide for it. Le Courbusier demonstrated such a prediction in 1929 when he exposed the villa Savoye. A significant feature of it was that it contained a garage within its geometrical and cartesian structure. In 1927 only 28 percent of the country owned an automobile thus making the Savoye a confident proposal for the way in which we should live in the future. Courbusier embraced the growth of the car and successfully paralleled his design work with the trend.
Courbusier probably realised the unsustainable nature of the vehicle but with his designs for the radiant city (1930-1935) attempted a balance with large amounts of green space etc. The difficulty with sustainable design is due to the uncertainty of the future. In an technologically advancing society it is difficult to predict future demands for living environments. As a result we can see many examples from the past of failed ‘future designs’. Many modernist utopian ideals for example demonstrate how one persons prediction for a utilitarian future are unable to stand the test of time. The Pruitt-Igoe, housing project built in missouri (1951-1972) is a good example of such naive design. Kate Stohr states in response to such developments that “Slums have not been replaced by ‘new towns’ or ‘Radiant cities’ but by ‘vertical ghettos’.”
The methods and processes by which designers base future proposals must therefore be questioned in order not to repeat mistakes of the past. But in an ever increasingly environmentally concerned society we must aim to create a balance between “social, ecological and economic realms” and revert to a society that aims to clear our ecological debt.