Thursday, April 29, 2010

Necessity is a *Mother* ... oh... of invention

This is a short video of how one architect has used very limited space (344 sq. ft) to maximum effect (24 purposes built into that single space) in a city (Hong Kong) where space is at a premium.





I'm not saying this is how we should all strive to live or even how we'll end up living despite our ambitions, however, it does get one to thinking about what we'd do differently if we were faced with scarcity of this sort on more of our design problems.

  • Not enough space to have 3000 sq ft. per home.
  • Not enough fuel to drive 30 miles to work and back. To drive 10 miles for groceries. To ship groceries 1000s of miles to a supermarket.
  • Not enough water to "waste" it on grass or even on washing clothes.
  • Not enough chemical or electrical power to level mountains or keep our homes and workspace air conditioned or heated. Or lit for more than a few hours a day artificially.

I'm not a Luddite, but it seems like thinking as if we had these restrictions might actually result in some greener, more sustainable approaches.

No comments:

Post a Comment