Prioritizing the List

The group began by choosing the highest priority items from the list of 2050 vision ideas from the morning brainstorming session. Each group member selected 5 items, using colored “dots”. In descending priority, the items receiving the most dots were: * All buildings will produce/ manage their own energy, water, waste, etc. (can this be done on a building scale or is it a larger scale?) * Every city will have an eco-map with inventory and flows (inputs and outputs); this will tell you how much food and energy you will need to provide back to the community – exchanges will take place within this system to the greatest extent possible. * Buildings will be unplugged – whole life and climatically – and will be culturally “of a place” and “drop dead beautiful”. * Buildings will no longer be economic “commodities” – all needs of all species will be considered; the language will expand beyond average dollars per square foot and other commonly-used parameters used to describe commodities. * The vast majority of building materials will be biobased, compostable. * Buildings will be net positive for energy, food, and water. * Safe, healthy, and inspiring housing will be seen as a basic human right. * Recognition of the impact of the built environment on humans and the natural environment will lead to paradigm shifts similar to the one that occurred at NASA in the 1960s. * All building projects will be carbon-neutral or net positive. * Natural areas will still exist, without oil rigs, etc. * The built environment will enhance our ability to create schools and communities that learn and encourage learning. * Cities will revert to self-supporting communities linking food and buildings. * Project teams will be integrated, holistic, creative learning environments with no “disconnects”.

Dialog:

Various approaches to thinking about this list of priorities were suggested:

1. Vision statements could be categorized by topic:

   • Transportation
   • Buildings
   • Energy
   • Water
   • Food
   • Beauty
   • National Areas
   • Regions/Cities
   • Social Impacts

2. We need a crystal clear vision that will help us and others understand where we are going. Language is important – must be clear to everyone. It must convey a picture that can be understood by all. A vision should also motivate.

3. It would be best to put the vision in systems language – functions and flows within a network. A network or flow diagram shows how the project will relate to the system of which it is a part. Good example to use: Fritjof Capra’s characteristics of living systems:
   A cell is structurally coupled to its environment, membrane bounded, self generating, connected by metabolic networks/ interconnectivity, materially and energetically open, operates far from equilibrium/ not static/ dynamic equilibrium, and emergent, properties arise that cannot be anticipated from looking at individual elements.

4. Process needs to be part of vision – vision cannot focus only on the physical world. It needs to include the people explicitly. Right solutions will emerge from right processes – Who are we? What we are doing? Who gets together to work on the project? How do they relate to project and each other? How do they bring their values to the process?

5. We should look at why this is important and work backwards from problems that need to be solved for 2050 and potential solutions.

6. Resilience is a useful concept – do we grow in healthy or cancerous ways? If buildings or aspects of buildings fail, do they fail gracefully? What happens when the energy grid goes down, for example?

7. A shared vision is needed – technological and cultural or social advances must go hand in hand. A UK project aimed at reaching the ecological footprint of 1.9 hectares per person. It found that the best possible design could only reduce the footprint from the average of 6.9 per person to 4.9 – more than technology (design) was required – a cultural change is also needed. There must be a shared vision to accomplish this.

8. Now, a desire for “security” is driving buildings more than concern for the environment. What will be driving the buildings and design in the future? These will define the systems we are envisioning:

   • Water shortages
   • Energy shortage
   • Population
   • Food shortages
   • Inequity and resulting tensions
   • Security and insecurity What should be driving the system?

9. Our vision needs to address global issues and solutions – think about China.

10. All aspects of vision we are discussing represent a shift from a mechanical rational industrial model to an organic integrative ecological model – metabolism, flows, networks, cycles are the key words. Much of this can be encapsulated in “place”. What will it take to make this shift? These shifts are created by certain drivers.

11. Language is very important – not to get “stuck” in some of the words. So much is required to make this understandable to people on a deep level.

Suggested visions or core thoughts: * All buildings grow out of and reflect the unique character of their place and are an integral, value-adding reciprocal member of the living system they are a part of. * All buildings are no longer commodities. * Shift from mechanical industrial model to an organic ecological model. * Rethinking “what is a building?”

The group also discussed a model to organize these thoughts and illustrate how elements relate to one another and the system.

As illustrated, this model has the following components: * Vision: all buildings grow out of and reflect the unique character of their place and are an integral, value-adding reciprocal member of the living system they are a part of. * Directions (compass, “polar star”): ever increasing health-generating capacity of the whole – growing resilience through greater vitality, viability, and capacity for evolution, to bounce back rather than fail catastrophically. * Grounds (drivers – positive and negative): * Intrinsic drivers (hard wired into people) * Innate biophilia * Power of connection to place * Extrinsic drivers * Economic systems are divorced from reality – do not reflect ecological reality. * Built environments and institutions suck the life out of natural/ social environments. * Metabolic drivers: climate change, fuel shortages, water and food shortages, increased inequity, insecurity. * Instruments (means for transformations required to move toward goal) * Processes so that communities can understand vision and start to determine their values and macro-level principles for that community and its design strategies. * Education/ communication processes, institutions, and tools that reinforce community understanding and love for the place they inhabit (through, for example, maps help people “see” the whole, eco maps for cities, intelligence centers) and training for building professionals in new paradigm rather than component design. * Creation of local real economies through, for example, local currencies, cradle-to-cradle recycling.

“Shared mental maps” is vague, “shared sense of place” is more understandable. Maps that really take you into a place, with metabolisms, flows, etc. communicate well.

The group recognized that it might not be easy to communicate much of this conversation to a wider audience. However, a critical idea that emerged was that communities holding an overall vision while working locally to honor a “sense of place” was key to the health of that place as well as the health of the whole. To encourage and facilitate the capabilities of communities, the group agreed that it would be very useful to establish “intelligence centers”—repositories of maps, information on flows, expertise, and other knowledge needed to understand their place.