We live in an era, dominated by the fear of exhaustion of natural resources, an era of expecting some global natural disasters of climate change. The scientific world continually produces «prophecies» about natural apocalypses and Hollywood attaches to them easy-to-perceive visually-acoustic background.
I am not the one to judge the extent of credibility of such fears and the degree to which they adequately reflect reality. Nonetheless, there is some plausibility to them which should not be argued with or denied. This reality is comprised by two factors:
1) Humans consume their immediate needs resources faster than they are restored in nature and the speed of their consumption grows.
2) These resources become more and more expensive.
I see the task of contemporary architecture, as well as the rest of the fields of human activity, in decreasing, as much as possible, the extent of influence of these factors on people.
At his time F. L. Wright stated certain principles, which have become the basis of what we call today organic architecture. It is clear that nothing is created in empty space - eventually architectural thought itself realized this although, it has used it for a fairly long time. For thousands of years people have been living in huts, “exquisitely matching the landscape”, they have built castles on hills and mountains, not particularly considering issues such as landscape design and principles of composition.
Wright’s genius does not lie in inventing a certain word or in stating that a house belongs to a given place, but in the fact that he was able to combine architectural cannons with this concept, creating bright masterpieces of architecture, while simultaneously following the hints of the environment.
However, a century has passed - and not just any century but 20th century, which brought unparalleled changes in all fields of the human life.
Architecture has changed too. Lords’ castles turned into skyscrapers, craftsmen’s huts - into nice apartments, lined up one above the other in condominiums, tradesmen’s shops - into supermarkets and trade centres, while city-centre fairs gradually move into the internet. But still, there is a field, in which there are not many innovations. The existing innovations, however, had not turned into a mass rule ( in our modern time of “standards”) – resource-supplying of various constructions is left unchanged in the course of quite a long time.
It is not a secret that the vitality of a construction depends on the timely supply of such resources. Moreover, we become more and more dependent on such supplies, and the consequences of installation faults are more destructive. For example, an electricity shortage in a hospital can cost the lives of tens of people. Therefore, a logical conclusion follows - the need of the construction in outer sources should be minimal.
The basic critical needs of modern building are fresh air, electricity, water, telephone. In many countries such a resource can be gas ( propane, as a rule ) and in developed countries, which increase in number, this can also be the internet.
So, engineers, specialized in different areas, or just enthusiasts with independent lifestyle, offer a multitude of solutions to one of these problems, or another, connected with man’s dependency on air, light, heat, water and communications.