Rationales and Prospective Narratives
To be relevant in 2050, or even in 2100, any architectural or urban intervention today must be considered from a forward-looking perspective. We now know that climate change, which is something of an ongoing battle, is causing disruption that is already showing results: because the conditions of habitability today will not be the same as those of tomorrow, it is fundamental that any future changes are already integrated at the design phase. From good “perspectivists”, who apply known data from yesterday and today in their work, we all need to become good “prospectivists” leveraging knowable data from the future through assumptions, simulations, and probabilities.
To help with decision-making, clarify biases, onboard all actors, and demonstrate probabilities, we advocate the development of future-thinking rationales and narratives that facilitate a forward-looking approach. Told through stories and images, assumptions made about a future with climate conditions different to what we have today become clearer, all the better to be shared and accepted. By showcasing, presenting needs and sensations by simulating the journey of a resident, a child, or an elderly person, or, taking a sensory approach, exploring the evolution of systems or actions put in place so people can feel their benefits, stories reveal the meaning behind a system or action following the contours of a scientific approach.
Excerpt from Balade Urbaine Prospective, à Ivry (A Forward-Looking Walk in the City, in Ivry)
“When I arrived, Ivry was already a territory teeming with brown sites and gardens, individual, collective, shared, near the metro station. Space and life on the outskirts of Paris. Another world. I think they’d done a good job at bringing it back to the site, but it was a brilliant opportunity after all: the businesses in the vicinity—Truffaut, Leroy Merlin—had early begun their migration towards what we called ‘new economies,’ ‘new consumption patterns,’ ‘relocation and short supply chains bringing production closer, or the idea of production, to end consumers.’
My partner is a maker; we were already keeping a close eye on what local businesses were doing to give more room to mending and make do, to DIY, to resourcefulness. We were in a post-lockdown period where the French, early adopters of these new practices of “green” collar workers, of doers, were devoting themselves mostly to home repairs, gardening, flower arranging, and whatnot. And high-quality cuisine, if at all possible through short-supply chains. Superstores had accelerated their transformation to keep apace with society, offering do-it-yourself classes, value-added services such as tailored advice to individuals, and, in their stores, one-off, shared experiences, learning. I went to the City Hall’s site the other day, and you can track the “HDI of the High Rise”: the Human Development Index had been changed to become the Habitant Development Index, measuring the benefits of the site for its residents. This was part and parcel of the innovation protocol and one of the direct pilots was the site manager.
It is this spirit that is mostly found here; the companies had come together to bring these new values to the site in favor of the wellbeing andempowerment of the citizens, who were falling in line with their ecological policies, if you will. Basically what in 2020 we called CSR ecology and what today we’d call common sense! Grand Ivryien was the embodiment of possibilities, a kind of living laboratory for these new economies, more respectful of people and planetary limits, focused on the systems of supply chains and connections.”