makeshift

PROJECTIONS

Dubai is the latest act in a vehemently scripted drama. It looks undeniable that there is an important role for it to play in our future understanding of architecture and the city. If only as a calling for architecture to take itself less seriously.

Koolhaas observes:

Our society continuously reinvents its needs, and these needs are real... I think architects are unable to read the mutations that take place and to reinterpret certain phenomena as being new versions... of phenomena they previously knew in architectural terms... we as architects still look at it in terms of a nostalgic model, and in an incredibly moralistic sense, refuse signs of its being reinvented in other more populist or more commercial terms.[1]

On deduction, the following projections are perceived mutations to the city as we expect it. With a brief tribute to Koolhaas’ Generic City—This is Dubai’s Tribute City:

1. Welcome to Tribute City. 1.1. Your connecting flight will be leaving shortly.

2. The pseudo-population of Tribute City is part-time. 2.1. You are either here: on a business meeting sustaining the economy, as a tourist sustaining the myth, as a builder/chef/cleaner sustaining its attractions. 2.2. There is no such thing as ‘locals’. 2.3. One of the many fleeting, magnetic incentives of Tribute City has brought you here. 2.4. You are now categorised as either the cosseted or the cosseters. 2.5. Density in the pseudo-population is a myth—everyone who ‘lives’ here also ‘lives’ somewhere else. 2.6. ‘Home’ is a fictional concept used by the pseudo-population. 2.7. Tribute City is constantly functioning at a fraction of its maximum capacity. 2.8. Segregation does lead to the successful coexistence of many cultures. 2.9. As a temporary citizen you have little genuine affiliation with Tribute City, your loyalty is conditional. 2.10. When Tribute City implodes you can simply run away.

3. Architecture in Tribute City illustrates, concurrently, the climax of the Icon and its ultimate submission to commercialism. 3.1. The skyscraper is a play thing and a ticket to the elite club. 3.2. Function, form, efficiency, originality as justification for architecture are all passé. 3.3. Tribute City has become saturated with extravagance, rendering the possibility of distinction obsolete; therefore the ‘starchitect’ and ‘cad-monkey’ are one and the same thing. 3.4. Architecture is the servant of capital—its current typology has become the resort. 3.5. You should produce, by any means available, expedient, disposable architecture that adequately addresses just the problem at-hand[2]. 3.6. Tribute City is factored so that things that change at similar rates are together.

4. Nature in Tribute City exists only to be tamed. 4.1. The prevalence of profligacy ensures both urbanism and architecture are unsustainable. 4.2. In the future, the final battle of the current crisis of sustainability and global-warming will be fought in Tribute City—sustainability will be the biggest protagonist in the revolution for a brand-new model of city life—until then, stainability is simply a pithy marketing mantra. 4.3. Landscaping is either for the purpose of golf courses or identifying wealthier areas of the city. 4.4. The unsustainable is the tourist attraction of the global-warming era.

5. Infrastructure comes second to creating spectacle in Tribute City—the usual, prehistoric, considerations are left to flippant afterthought. 5.1. Other forms of transport exist, but the car is the only one that is used. 5.2. Tribute City boasts 4.9 taxis per 1,000 people, compared to 1.6 in New York and 2.7 in London 5.3. Power and water are the biggest challenges facing Tribute City. The power and water demand rises at an incredible 20% and 15% respectively every year. 5.4. All of Tribute Citys water come from desalination plants and it has the highest water consumption per capita on the planet—you have to keep the greens green. 5.5. Maintenance needs have accumulated, but an overhaul is unwise, since you might break the system.

6. The urban grain has become a piecemeal of follies—the city is no longer a slave to the master-plan. 6.1. The master-plan is rigid, misguided and out of date[3]. 6.2. Piecemeal growth is undertaken in an opportunistic fashion, starting with the existing, living, breathing system, and working outward, a step at a time, in such a way as to not undermine the system’s viability—the programme is simply enhanced as you use it[4]—refactor unrelentingly. 6.3. If you can adapt quickly to change, predicting it becomes far less crucial—hindsight is better than foresight.

7. Farewell. 7.1. This is the last call for flights leaving Tribute City—please pass through again soon.

1. Koolhaas, Rem. “Conversations With Students” in Architecture at Rice 30. (New York: Rice University School of Architecture/Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), p.44-45.

2. Foote. “Big Ball of Mud”. Go to http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html#ThrowAwayCode

3. Ibid. Go to http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html#piecemealGrowth124

4. Ibid. Go to http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html#piecemealGrowth