Coucill, L., Kaushal, V., 2011.

Subtle Technologies -

"The more the citizen is trained in the consumption of packaged goods and services, the less effective he seems to become in shaping his environment." Ivan D. Illich1 The future is 2050, but how ideal is it? Current future urban landscapes are achieved through speculative standards that surpass today's expectations. These standards are the products of calculated and definitive policy objectives that through design, become manifest in the urban landscape creating a vision of a sustainable future for 2050. This is a vision that will be sustainable only on the basis of today's understanding of the term: If today's rules govern tomorrow's cities, how can society engage with that which physically exists, but is not socially and culturally integral? During the 1950's Yona Freidman hypothesised that Architecture's task was to provide citizens with a framework within which to implement ideas of their own. Freidman believed the rise in automation of industrial labour and recreation would render traditional urban structures obsolete, replacing them with flexible mobile structures that would lead to emergent social change. Instead, legislative frameworks economically drive the urban form: Producing landscapes within which, vernacular heritage is reproduced outside of its indigenous domain, forming patterns of familiarity. What impact will 'generosity' have on the emergence of culture? And how, in the future, will society engage with contemporary reproductions of the past? This formed the bases of the research.