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The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

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Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#71

Post by gmueckl »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #29
gmueckl wrote: post #10

This is the first time I hear the term "solarpunk". So this seems to encompass visions of an optimistic future when exploitation of nature, pollution, climate change etc. And strikingly, looking up the definition made me feel an almost juvenile excitement about an idea again which I haven't experienced in a long time. That made me realize that most contemporary visions of the near(er) future seem so bleak and dreadfu…

Looks to me like leprechaun-land. How cynical I have become. I agree with the sentiment though, just wonder if it would benefit from someone positing a middle-ground that would show a transitional approach. Perhaps some of the larger buildings (I'm thinking of the one with the fountain spilling down it) represent that.

Visionaries often focus on the end goals, not the path. This might be the easy way to excite people, I guess. Talking about a path there sounds too much like actually having to put in effort.

I think I also have become quite cynical. Being confronted with these ideas made me aware of that in a startling way.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#72

Post by okareaman »

Solarpunk is a continuation and rediscovery of the Techno hippie movement that began in the Bay Area in the late 70's and early 80's. Apple Computer was part of it (while IBM was not.) This era is described fairly accurately in Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (a reference to the Richard Brautigan poem) and John Markoff's excellent "What The Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" Highly recommend them, even if Curtis does go a little off the deep end at times.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#73

Post by VladimirGolovin »

wrinkl3 wrote: 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 noticed the increased frequency of mentions, but who is pushing?

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#74

Post by jazzyjackson »

okareaman wrote: post #72

Solarpunk is a continuation and rediscovery of the Techno hippie movement that began in the Bay Area in the late 70's and early 80's. Apple Computer was part of it (while IBM was not.) This era is described fairly accurately in Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (a reference to the Richard Brautigan poem) and John Markoff's excellent "What The Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Sh…

“What the Dormouse Said” is very enlightening, I had never heard of psychedelics’ influence on the professionals of the day, I think it’s about time I read it again.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#76

Post by okareaman »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #74
okareaman wrote: post #72

Solarpunk is a continuation and rediscovery of the Techno hippie movement that began in the Bay Area in the late 70's and early 80's. Apple Computer was part of it (while IBM was not.) This era is described fairly accurately in Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (a reference to the Richard Brautigan poem) and John Markoff's excellent "What The Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Sh…

“What the Dormouse Said” is very enlightening, I had never heard of psychedelics’ influence on the professionals of the day, I think it’s about time I read it again.

Ken Kesey was responsible for starting a lot of it after he took LSD and part of CIA experiments at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital and started doing "acid tests" with music by what became the Grateful Dead. There's are some good documentaries on YouTube about this.

“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

― Steve Jobs

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#77

Post by JKCalhoun »

gmueckl wrote: post #71
JKCalhoun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like leprechaun-land. How cynical I have become. I agree with the sentiment though, just wonder if it would benefit from someone positing a middle-ground that would show a transitional approach. Perhaps some of the larger buildings (I'm thinking of the one with the fountain spilling down it) represent that.

Visionaries often focus on the end goals, not the path. This might be the easy way to excite people, I guess. Talking about a path there sounds too much like actually having to put in effort. I think I also have become quite cynical. Being confronted with these ideas made me aware of that in a startling way.

Me too. All I can conjure up is Fuller-worshipping hippies creating dome homes and communes. And it feels like: tried that. Next!

Maybe the second time it will actually work.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#78

Post by JKCalhoun »

clairity wrote: post #69
JKCalhoun wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like leprechaun-land. How cynical I have become. I agree with the sentiment though, just wonder if it would benefit from someone positing a middle-ground that would show a transitional approach. Perhaps some of the larger buildings (I'm thinking of the one with the fountain spilling down it) represent that.

because of the moderate climate, california has a lot of flat roofs. i've long wondered why apartment builders here didn't just plop (and planners allowed) a single family home right on top with enough dirt to grow a lawn and a few plants (with parking put underground). it's the best of both worlds--apartments and single family homes (albeit above ground level) can co-exist everywhere. that'd be one such middle groun…

Apartments need only add a communal garden that tenants can opt into.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#79

Post by shwoopdiwoop »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #23

I removed a comment of mine saying Schuiten was a famous belgian comics drawer ("dessinateur de bande dessinee") and his style was kinda unique (and I love that style)... I removed it because I was thinking of Francois Schuiten, not Luc Schuiten. After some research it turns out apparently these two are brothers!

It says right in the article that they are brothers and have collaborated on some of his works.

Re: The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect

#80

Post by datameta »

ryanjamurphy wrote: post #34

This looks sleek, but isn’t that a _lot_ of glass? I had read something recently (e.g., https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stop-building-glass-skyscrap... ) suggesting that too much glass was bad for the environment.

It would be interesting to see a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis of the energy savings from solar heating indoors vs the impact of mining, transporting, and converting the sand into glass (taking into account the environmental impact of deplete certain areas of too much sand).
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