The Affects of Peak Oil on Architecture

The following is part of a talk given to Western Branch NZIA which met at Whanganui River Institute, 27 June 2008.

First Point - Architecture pre-existed the use of cheap fossil fuels, but it was a little different then.

Secondly – There are many definitions of an Architect, but one that is useful to the discussion about Peak Oil and resource scarcity is Architects as “concretisers of culture”. Just as bacteria are instrumental in turning carbon rich algal deposits into fossil fuels, Architects are instrumental in fossilising the agendas of those with resources at their disposal.

On the face of it, the advent of PO and reduced flows of energy unfortunately means that there will be fewer resources play with and to plan with. It is almost certain that the communities that Architects recently served will be going through a certain amount of upheaval, and as resources become more expensive new needs will emerge and old ones will disappear. It is highly probable that resources will be refocused on basic needs and agendas will be recast in the light of new and very pressing needs.

Not all of this will be a bad thing. Post-modern deconstruction will be seen as the last gasp of bankrupt ideologues who had no idea what times they were living in. Their architecture is destined to moulder and become an enigma for post-oil generations to marvel at. Decadent lifestyle pornography which architects have been totally complicit with over the past decade is likely to be greatly resented by those who cannot afford basic housing and for their owners will be expensive to maintain and heat. Many examples of what is currently called sustainable design will be seen to be sustainable in name only.

I suspect that there will be a re-evaluation of what architecture is actually about and that the future will have both opportunities and threats. To get a handle on this I have done some armchair analysis to examine the kinds of issues that are likely to raise their heads. I think there will be food for thought for councillors as well as architects.

So how will the advent of Peak Oil work through our world?

It will not be “Business as Usual”

The first obvious affect of reduced volumes/increased demands will be expensive energy. This has started happening. The second affect will be patchy supplies of fuel, which will be equivalent to a chronic heart failure. See below a chart of some of the trends that seem fairly predictable from this side of the decline, but there are sure to be many more:In addition to their knowledge of building design and procurement Architects have some significant skill-sets that are likely to prove valuable:

The ability to see/imagine a project at many different levels of scale consequtively over both space and time.

The ability to generate multiple solutions and to evaluate them for the best fit to the circumstances and situation.

The ability to act as a communication hub in which there are many different players all with interests at stake.

The ability to marry analytical and aesthetic judgements in the best interests of the project – The Art of Compromise.

The ability to think through and resolve complex staging issues arising from the implementation of implementing change on existing situations.

The ability to make decisions under conditions of stress and make fair-ish judgement calls in real time. – Also the ability to reverse those decisions when they are found to be wrong.

The ability to generally maintain the appearance of calm in the face of unbelievable bureaucratic frustration.

These skills are not acquired quickly or easily and are the intangible values upon which our reputation and utility rests. These skills are likely to be in demand during any period of significant change, and it will be interesting to see how well we are able to market our skills and perhaps diversify the role of Architect.

So what should Architects do? Some suggestions to start a discussion:

- design with the future in mind

- understand the times we are living in

- observe the forces in play

- re-think people’s actual needs

- re-think level’s of Architectural services

- advocate long term planning and declaim dubious projects including past ones

- acquire tools to demonstrate value for money

- re-think material use

- re-think design – Keep It Simple Sustainable & Sensible

- passive solutions better/cheaper than fallible active systems.

The great project over the next decades will be to help bring our lumbering hubristic civilization down to a survivable landing. This will involve different mindsets and value-sets from the ones that have held sway and become accustomed to working with. It will not be business as usual but business for the shrewdest, and all business involving resources will be carried out under the greatest scrutiny. The new frugality will focus on basic needs and will view as contemptible profligate waste the kind we currently experience as normal. The future is a mixed. There will be opportunities for both Chaos and Community. If we don’t lead or assist those who do lead by providing workable solutions, the forces of chaos will establish themselves by default, and the opportunities for community will dwindle.

HAT WEARING AND HEDONISM

Those with an interest in photographic history will know that hat wearing as a dominant feature of social scenes faded from view some time in the 1960’s. With that shift in fashion, once essential items such as hat stands, hat hooks and hat racks required less consideration for architects and builders, than toilet roll holders and thermostat control units currently do. Prior to the 1960’s, gatherings of men (particularly outdoors) could often be glimpsed through fields of Panamas, Fedoras and Straw boaters. One of the striking observations is the uniformity of hat styles that can be seen in photos of such gatherings.

Women of course had the luxury of expending small fortunes on these identity forming (or was it concealing?) garments and social hat wearing is now generally reduced to casual wear for protection from the sun or when one really wants to be noticed at the races. The last vestiges of indoor hat wearing has been conserved by religious groups often in out of the way places with little pressure to change. The spine of fundamentalism resident in such sects as The Salvation Army, the Brethren and The Taliban has given these hats, heads to sit upon and tresses to pin them through, as a counter-measure to the winds of “bare-headonism” that have blown and gusted for nigh on half a century. Hat wearing at the beginning of the 21st century is chiefly a matter for firemen, construction workers, farmers, bishops and monarchs who need either protection from falling objects including ultra-violet light, or who have need to project their badges of office to the world at large. Hats are also adopted by those of both sexes who’s hair has fallen off their heads through disease or sheer forgetfulness. But why did hats get blown off heads in the period when Dylan was singing ‘How many times can a man turn his head”?

The answer to that question is of course blowing in the wind, and Dylan’s generation expressed it perfectly when they let the hair on their heads grow longer and stronger to the point that hats popped off with every breeze. In fact it was fashions of hair that put the boot into the statistics of unemployed hat-makers, and underpinning this trend, like all trends, there were reasons why hair grew and hats flew. During this period to “let ones hair down” became something of a cliché expressing antipathy towards ones parents, and more particularly against the oppressive values that shoe-horned the previous generation through war and austerity. With peace handed to them on a gold edged plate, the post-war generation thanked those who gave this gift, with all the petulance of a pampered adolescent. Personally I blame the parents – but what did they do wrong?

I preface the answer by mentioning that in the circumstances we would do no better, and probably much worse – the circumstances being huge relief that the war was over, that the horrors of death and destruction had had their season and the discipline adhering all levels of society was no longer essential to prevent collapse of that society. This has been commented upon by many examining the fashion explosion of the 60’s and the reasons that the value sets of the baby boomer progeny were so different from their parents. An immediate consequence of the post-war shift in values was a relaxation of the demands of authority over the individual, and the boomers were able to inhale deeply of the oxygen of freedom and self-expression absolutely denied their parents by circumstance. Thus was the teenager born to the sounds of Elvis and others in the delivery room of the 50’s.

Concurrent with this freedom, the material benefits of wartime research were re-mobilised to service the general public (instead of destroying it), and luxuries such as indoor sanitation, better housing, personal mobility and increased leisure became part of the post-war largess. These technologies attended a brave new world in which science was king, engineering was admiral and capitalism was Marshall in the field. The new technologies required energy to function and resources were both abundant and cheap, permitting droves of manual labourers to leave their fields of toil in the country and enter factories of production in growing cities. Hot water was plumbed into every house and people washed more often including their heads - and even in winter.

Hats which had previously had the multiple functions of protecting heads, projecting identity, and adorning or concealing the state of their wearers’ heads and hair became generally superfluous (to the detriment of bald people) and wearing hair longer and more facially visible was a natural reaction against the cult of disciplinarianism deeply ingrained during the war years. The freedom from authority, to see and to be seen was like a draught of fresh air on the scalp of the newly bare-headed and so it has generally persisted with few exceptions, those who don’t want to be recognized such as secret agents and gangland hoodies being a case in point. Those people in third world countries who trudge daily through rice paddies in all weathers of course have yet to make the transition to bare-headonism and it is likely that they never will.

What is more likely is that we, the bare-heads, will gradually re-adopt hats as an essential accoutrement, as our circumstances slide away from the prosperity and self-confidence of the post war era. We will probably find that hats are an affordable practical response to the twin challenges of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. Hot water use is likely to decrease in direct proportion to the cost of heating, making us all smellier and unkempt. Air-conditioning usage will go the same way and we will learn to live with open windows and if we can afford them, fly-screens. Personal mobility will decrease and we will re-learn the subtle arts of crowding onto public transport and losing our personal space and identities as we merge with the hundreds of armpits and sweltering heads also on board.

For the above reasons we can expect to see hats make a come-back -and probably re-introduced with retro-hype and eco-marketing. And as we don our new found head-gear with our reduced identities and smart new conformities, some may even draw strength together in religious communities. Faith will once again become the asset it always was. Even so the rejoinder to Dylan’s song will still be able to be heard wafting gently in the wind.