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The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

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Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, where is the 'punk' aspect? There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word. This sort of organic-growth-everywhere aesthetic is not new, it has been in utopian urban visions for the last 20 or 30 years. Personally I think it started with SimCity 2000 arcologies, but I am probably wrong.

> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word I disagree, "punk" is not about dystopia, it's about rebelling against the status-quo. Solarpunk, at its core, is about rejecting our current way of life. That's where the punk comes from.

But that rebellion is from a stimulus of some kind. It's a subculture in rebellion from disenfranchisement, war, fascism, or what-have-you. There is anger and lots of other negative emotions.

This vision is too bland and perfect to be 'punk'. 'Avant garde' is a better term, since that is used to describe things 'rebelling' against the current aesthetic. 'Solavant Garde' doesn't have the same ring to it though.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#52
The images in the article can be divided in two groups:

* ideas from new urbanism to greenify the urban core with its dense streets, to make them a nicer place, which is a good idea. * the old modernist ideas of detached houses, now in "ecological" form, which is a total utopia, exactly as it was stated in the Athens Charter.

They also seem to look like Frank Lloyd-Wright's words that "sometime people will live in an entirely rural landscape with houses 100 meters apart from each other and greenery and trees between them" (he hated cities quite a lot) (here's one of his houses, sometimes posted with a motivator text below: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=frank+lloyd+wright+waterfall+house...)

The first part of these, is generally a good thing, but has to be done moderately. I see some images have curves and round forms, which is not a necessity, but rather an attempt to make a nicely looking bird view, which causes various inconveniences -- like park paths that are never walked by, or cut corners.

Curved grass strips are especially a problem: if people walk over them, they have to be protected by fences, or by elevating them -- in this case it 1) will require artificial watering, 2) will produce side pockets, unusable for walking (but hopefully used for benches).

Andres Duany said a lot about this in his lectures, and I can only sum it up as greenery in the city is needed, but has to be done cautiously and reassessed critically. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO3CaJtSfjg

The other half of the images are mostly reshaped detached houses or modernist apartment blocks. Same Duany criticizes the detached house concept a lot -- it costs much, it makes people have tons of stuff, drive cars, live in isolated way, unlike the urban dwellers (I followed these ideas when buying apartment, and never regret -- I felt a lot better near a small city center, than before that living on the fringe.)

The modernist concept of apartment blocks and large green spaces between them appeared as an answer to extremely dense cities of 19th century, which were hardly livable without our modern tech (tap water, sewer, central heating, electric light and active ventilation). The most promiment responses were Garden City Movement (basically, make towns not more than 60K ppl, put them at some distance with forests and fields between, and connect with railways), and Athens Charter (build cities of large apartment blocks standing apart from each other, no closed perimeter like in traditional cities, have greenery betwee, and make city blocks large to let cars go without intersections).

The latter was widely implemented in the Socialist block from East Germany to Vladivostok, and failed in many ways.

Jan Gehl saw this development in socio-democratic Denmark and criticized for 1) places devoid of any street retail and other local business, because streets are too wide, which made people commute or drive a car to city center to get services, and 2) de-socialization. In a large apartment block it's hard to meet and get along with neighbors for many purely physical and psychological reasons.

The Human Scale documentary sums up Gehl's points: https://vimeo.com/458139267

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I read their manifesto that appeared earlier, and that's fine.

The problem is with these pictures: to me they seem simply a fashionable landscape design with lots of trees, or detached houses with strange shapes. The former is just arts, and I don't see it reflecting any new thinking. The latter is new attempt at century-old failed ideas.

What would I offer instead? High-speed commute rail in Germany, Netherlands and maybe Scandinavia, made Garden City ideas actually happen. You can work in a large city, but live an a town in 30 km (20 mi), commute in 40 minutes, but near your home you have both, all the great things of a city (cafes, services, meeting friends in the main street) and of countryside (10 minutes to the city edge and hike or bike). Or you can have a business that is entirely in a small town but has easy access to large markets in big cities -- just 1 hour in train.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, where is the 'punk' aspect? There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word. This sort of organic-growth-everywhere aesthetic is not new, it has been in utopian urban visions for the last 20 or 30 years. Personally I think it started with SimCity 2000 arcologies, but I am probably wrong.

> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word. Hard disagree. I think "punk" has always been about an ethos that individuals are empowered to make change from the bottom up. The punk aesthetic stands between dystopian and utopian. The former says those in power have made everything horrible and there's nothing you can do about it. The latter says those in power make everything amazing so there's nothing…

I've never heard it put that way before, but I love it. Rings 100% true.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#54
post #22

There's currently a huge push online to make Solarpunk a thing, as a kind of an optimistic counterpart to Cyberpunk, but I'm skeptical about whether it can attain the same level of cultural traction as the other big *punks. Cyberpunk and steampunk both fetishize aesthetics from the past - 80's corporate Japan and the Victorian Britain, respectively, - there's a sort of nostalgic longing that keeps them culturally rel…

They need to ditch the 'punk' word if it's not dystopic. Like have these people forgotten what it means to be a punk?

Given Wikipedia's definition Solarpunk fits squarely into the punk ethos:

The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-fascism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action and not "selling out".

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same reaction to VR, what is the optimistic non-dystopian view? I am generally curious because near complete human absorption in technology is what I see and it's hard for me to picture that in a positive light.

VR has given me a new sense of imagination and creativity, similar to what some might experience with 3D printing. Being able to perceive a digital space in three dimensions is a significantly different human-computer interface than a 2D screen. It feels like so much more is possible once you break into the extra dimension. From the outside, VR definitely has a dystopian look to it. But from the inside, it can give a…

I guess for me the dystopian slant gets a bit steeper in the context of global warming and consumerism and the sort of head in the sand mentality that VR seems to project.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, where is the 'punk' aspect? There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word. This sort of organic-growth-everywhere aesthetic is not new, it has been in utopian urban visions for the last 20 or 30 years. Personally I think it started with SimCity 2000 arcologies, but I am probably wrong.

> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word. Hard disagree. I think "punk" has always been about an ethos that individuals are empowered to make change from the bottom up. The punk aesthetic stands between dystopian and utopian. The former says those in power have made everything horrible and there's nothing you can do about it. The latter says those in power make everything amazing so there's nothing…

This is a wonderful take on the 3 states!

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word I disagree, "punk" is not about dystopia, it's about rebelling against the status-quo. Solarpunk, at its core, is about rejecting our current way of life. That's where the punk comes from.

But that rebellion is from a stimulus of some kind. It's a subculture in rebellion from disenfranchisement, war, fascism, or what-have-you. There is anger and lots of other negative emotions. This vision is too bland and perfect to be 'punk'. 'Avant garde' is a better term, since that is used to describe things 'rebelling' against the current aesthetic. 'Solavant Garde' doesn't have the same ring to it though.

The "what-have-you" in this case is the stronghold that capitalism and tragedy-of-the-commons has on urban society and our way of life. Of course, capitalism could produce such neigborhoods, at least on a small scale, simply because affluent folks will pay for it. But the ethos of solarpunk is to create these environments by taking matters into our own hands. Perhaps a decent analogy from the punk world is magazines versus fanzines.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#60
post #22

There's currently a huge push online to make Solarpunk a thing, as a kind of an optimistic counterpart to Cyberpunk, but I'm skeptical about whether it can attain the same level of cultural traction as the other big *punks. Cyberpunk and steampunk both fetishize aesthetics from the past - 80's corporate Japan and the Victorian Britain, respectively, - there's a sort of nostalgic longing that keeps them culturally rel…

I guess the first step then is to build a wider foundation for sustainability! I feel like building closed loop systems well is extremely rewarding(think aquaponics) but it is also hard to scale...and in a world where everything seemingly gets pushed to be scaled, adoption is more in a hobby form.
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