Bracket: ISSUE #1: ON FARMING
The typically architecturally-centric online magazine, Bracket, has turned towards the topic of urban agriculture, published at the end of Winter 2009. They followed the tide of change in the design cosmos towards more socially minded and environmentally conscious projects—no, this is not new, but man it certainly feels like it’s still a new turn in the way “we” approach the built environment.
Does form follow function or function follow form? This question may be an unsaid thread that is woven throughout the piece and definitely seemed very poignant during the call for entries. Are our architects of today and tomorrow going to draw from this archaic archetribe more consciously now, or will the mass of designers continue to tout the phrase within the ivory tower, but divorce it when economics and egos come into play? This Bracket issue pierces a hole into the design and planning world that has indeed been swayed—it’s been a slow wind, but the movement has ebbed and flowed with Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome and the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 to Dr. Despommier’s Vertical Farm Project.
I have a positive perception of how “we” are building and planning for “our” lifestyles of tomorrow in response to how we’ve been living yesterday. The interest in farming and building, as we briefly see in some of these projects published in Bracket, reinforces this. Maybe the next wave in architectural and planning revolutions will be to negate encapsulating our needs and lives and integrate our culture and land—this is not new either, but man, it certainly feels prepubescent.
