Archrecord has a good read about building foresight: Imagining the future: How will we make buildings in 2030? by Sara Hart.
magine thirty years from now. Will urban areas in 2030 look like Ridley Scott’s Los Angeles in the sci-fi movie Blade Runner—a prelude to Armageddon where the affluent reside in the tops of 400-story skyscrapers, and the less fortunate scratch out an unsavory existence in the seamy, polluted, and lawless regions on the surface? Or will Americans live the utopian dream in self-sufficient, fossil-fuel free communities. (...) At this moment, however, the future is already taking form. On one hand, materials scientists are locked in laboratories inventing new, smart, and sustainable materials and composites, which are touted elsewhere in this issue as the beginning of a revolution in design and construction. At the same time, building materials that dominated the 20th century still dominate in the new millennium. (...)Still, in an era of engineering virtuosity and genuine collaboration and teamwork, who will own the architecture?
The article describes the material of the future with specific case studies about new developments that concerns concrete, steel and glass. Why do I blog this? the blade-runner like city is still the nightmare of urban planners but it does not seem to be where we are heading; I find this discussion interesting in terms of foresight research and my interest towards urban computing makes me think about these issues too.