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I will begin detailing my agenda with a brief account of humankind’s development through the ages, focusing on Europe as the protagonist for change. I think it is important to understand how we have developed as a species and the factors that have shaped who we are today in order to understand where we will likely be in the future. Through this overview I will touch on social progression and technological innovation as two key intertwining factors that have fed off each other to provide a constant cycle of innovation; through observation, comprehension, creation and documentation. The earliest forms of social communication and documentation can be found on the walls of caves. These murals would depict scenes of hunting, battle and earths cyclical phenomena. Ultimately these stories were an educational tool, informing future generations about the world around them. One can only assume that this process of observation and comprehension was one of the key factors in the creation of tools, a milestone in our existence. Skipping forward through the millennia and following the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean, the Egyptians provided a breakthrough in communication; the introduction of a widely recognised and mobile form of documentation through the writing of hieroglyphics on papyrus and wood. The transformation of hieroglyphs into letters, words and text gave the ancient Greeks greater articulation of their thoughts and stories that were not bound by the art and misinterpretation of verbal discourse. This ability to transfer and build upon knowledge provided the building blocks for a strong culture of philosophy, mathematics and expressive art forms. The rise of the Roman Empire was largely an adaptation of the Ancient Greek way of life. Through the use of Latin as a common language it assimilated the inhabitants of conquered regions bordering the Mediterranean and consuming North-West Europe. This unification of culture and language saw immense improvements to political systems and engineering feats, with many core elements still in practice. The Roman Empire lasted approximately 1,000 years. Its collapse at the end of the 5th century saw the beginning of the Middle Ages, a time that was dominated by power hungry feudal states. Many of the technological gains of the Roman Empire were lost during the Middle Ages. This can be greatly attributed to the leadership of tyrants. Control and power were accessed through the entitlement to land and maintained through self-preservation and social oppression. The Middle Ages was a time of land-locked states constantly at war, providing little opportunity for trade, influence of external cultures and self-expression for the common man. The dark times of the Middle Ages ended in the late 15th century with a wave of social progression and technological innovation across Europe. In northern Italy there was the Renaissance; a period marked by the rebirth of cultural pursuits where the curiosity of mankind to understand the mysteries of the world around him once again rejuvenated the cycle of innovation. Not too long after the social progress in Italy there was the creation of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. The mass production of literature through moving type provided the vehicle for social reform and progression across Northern Europe, harnessed by Martin Luther as he informed the masses about corruption within the church, freeing them from their shackles. The social reform within Europe and a revitalised intrigue of the world, saw the European states set sail for the far reaching parts of the globe, in search of the unknown. The age of exploration laid the initial building blocks for a global community. Through the colonisation of previously indigenous lands, European states spread their language and culture as they laid claim to their newfound territories. After colonising the corners of the globe and planting the seeds of globalisation, Europe once again returned its attention to the prosperity within its own borders and the growth of its economies. A focus on the ways of working, transportation and applications for coal and steam power were the catalyst for the industrial revolution. This period provided the first glimpses of the world we see today; the mass manufacturing of products, increased mobility through the steamlocomotive and the utilisation of electricity. The industrial revolution not only gave mankind machines, but also made us fascinated by them. A fascination, which throughout the 20th century led to rates of change, progression and innovation that had never been seen before on a global scale. The 20th century is widely regarded as the Machine Age; the first half of which transformed the love of the machine and economic prosperity into military power and brinkmanship, culminating in the First World War. The seven year affair, which was fought across three continents and involved countries from five, was the first occurrence of an interconnected world; ultimately setting a precedence for our nature of response. Through the creation of the League of Nations, an intergovernmental organisation, there was the recognition of global issues and the need to respond to these phenomena as a global community. Following the First World War there was a wave of depression across the Northern Hemisphere. Hardship and social strain brought about radical leaders, actions and ultimately World War II. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the League of Nations had failed in its intended purpose. This failure saw the dissolution of the League in 1946 and the creation of the United Nations, which absorbed its predecessor’s departments. Although the United Nations was and still is a global forum, it was overshadowed by a bipolar world, as two opposite ideological views sought to gain supremacy through satellite states and proxy wars. Ultimately capitalist nations won this battle, but their social progression and technological innovation, though grand, left no consideration for the wheels of motion they set in place. The formation of a global community, which marks the latter half of the 20th century, was one of little transparency, where governments and multi-national corporations controlled the systems of society, exploiting the elements that they had laid in place. However, during this time there were two important forms of social uprising and technological advancement. The first, a backlash to this control recognised as the hippie subculture, which was symbolised through the exploration of alternate states of consciousness and our human connection to the earth. The second; the rise of the computer and the internet as the epicenter to the Age of Information, resulting in the integration of technology into our everyday lives. This brings us to the present day. Looking retrospectively at the 20th century, we can see the rise of issues and agenda that we must recognise as a global community and address unanimously at local level. Through a new wave of social progression spurred on by technological innovation, we have found ourselves in an exciting cycle of innovation. I believe this cycle to be similar to that of the 15th century and the Renaissance period. Through observation and comprehension there is the recognition of an unsustainable world by various subcultures. This recognition is not solely concerned with the environmental aspect of sustainability, but equally as important, its economic and social implications as well. To draw parallels to 15th century Europe from an observation and comprehension perspective, we are witnessing a rebirth in the re-application of nature’s ways of working, through biomimicry and the earth’s cyclical systems (Da Vinci and Galileo) and also the questioning of political and economic systems (Luther). However the most integral change and parallel drawn to this period is the change to our form of documentation. Similar to that of the printing press, technology has provided us with an unprecedented rate of documentation and information transfer. Technology is so deeply entrenched in our lives that it has become ubiquitous; communication and access to information is in our pockets and accessible at our fingertips whenever we want it. This accessibility to the world around us, to events around the other side of the globe, is creating social movements on a global scale; increasing the rate of social change. The outcome of these social movements is social progression, and more importantly progression as a global community. Looking back through the ages and in particular the outcomes of the 20 th century it is clear to me that we, as a global community, are living unsustainably. As I touched on before, sustainability is not a concept simply narrowed to the environment (as our media will have you believe), it is deeply entrenched and interconnected by the economic and social systems we have in place. The change to a sustainable lifestyle will deeply impact on these systems. Economically, we use a system reliant on constant consumption to provide perpetual growth. This resulted in the continual expansion of the credit and debt margin, a key instigator in the global financial crisis. The solution to which was stimulus packages to encourage more spending and continue economic growth. As we feed this beast, we consume Earths finite resources, by definition an unsustainable practice. Unlike our economy, social factors are harder to reverse. As a specie we have a thirst for novelty and new things, which feeds our consumer economy. We also own and possess items that we view as integral to daily life, as the food we eat; things we couldn’t comprehend living without. This, coupled with the continued rise of the world population and the exponential migration to sprawling cities (the biggest per capita emitters), is a potentially unsustainable prospect. To reluctantly reflect a hippie ethos, these economic and social factors have impacted not just the environment; but our environment, resulting in climate change and global warming, a potentially irreversible process. However, I would like to believe that not all is lost, and more importantly that some of our creations and behaviors provide the key to the path of a sustainable future. Firstly, the inevitable progression of mankind as a predominantly urban species is an opportunity. The utopian construct of the 20th century; opitimised by sprawling cities, the dream home and the automobile at the center of transport is a thing of the past and should be erased from our outlook. Instead replacing it with this vision of a dense urban environment and the dream community. Conveniently for us we are a tribal species, so hopefully it shouldn’t be too difficult to imagine. The notion of density within the urban environment is imperative to its creation as a sustainable entity. The density of our population directly affects the proximity of our infrastructure; the increase in density, the closer the infrastructure. When infrastructure becomes convenient, people will begin to use it. The use of infrastructure also commonly involves the act of sharing; we share public transport and communal spaces. Ultimately the act of sharing creates and enhances social communities. Secondly, there is our fixation with technology. If you sit on a train or walk around the city of a developed region you will notice that people are consumed by their smartphones. They’re not looking at anything vital to their immediate existence; but simply using for the ability to use, staying “connected” for the sake of connection. This connection not only provides us with access to global, national and local media; it provides us with access to systems and services, it enables us to interact and communicate with inanimate objects. The ability to interact with inanimate objects removes their one-dimensional nature as products and provides a hidden web of systems and services. The combination of these new dimensions and the population mass of a dense urban environment it increases the viability to share products, creating networks of use. We no longer need to own predominantly idle products such as cars or washing machines, we can share them; immediately accessing their services and status through our smartphones. This act of sharing has many flow on affects. Firstly we drastically reduce our consumption of products and in turn material, changing the dynamics of supply and demand. A reduction in purchases of idle products reduces the capital invested in initial purchases and maintenance allowing us to spend our money on experiences, improving our mental well-being. We also create social communities based around the concept of sustainability, as the community becomes more accustomed to a sustainable way of living they will be more conscious to change other unsustainable behaviors. The geographical and living context for my project will be a co-operative housing establishment. I have chosen to restrict my shared network to this environment for a number of reasons. Defining the space in which people live can help define their behaviors; channeling their privileges (products) and opportunities (accessibility) towards a certain way of living, that can provide the opportunity for simultaneous sharing. In order to achieve a 90% reduction in our climate emissions we need to act fast and drastically (where possible). Creating a new model for sustainable living on a mass scale provides the greatest opportunity for short and long term reduction in net emissions. The residents are a captive market providing greater opportunity for behavioral change through gamification. The reduction in spending, maintenance and utilities will provide healthier bank accounts for residents; this money can be saved with the hope of owning their own home, or spent on a holidays and experiences, improving their mental health. When applying this model of living over various sites, there is the opportunity to include gamification between establishments, increasing the network of the community. Finally the people who will buy into this lifestyle are either investing because they feel strongly about the environment or want to reduce their expenditure; enabling predetermined common interests between residents.