Mike Jobes Lecture

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Mike Jobes Lecture:Future Primitive provokes the idea of time being introduced into the urban environment. Mossy sidewalks, civic creek, strip mall farm, commute hike, industrial sacred, new ancient, urban natural hybrids rearranged matter, upscale, geological planning, deep time, future primitive.  What would it feel like to live in a living city 50 years from now where there was zero energy, zero water in the city? It will certainly be possible within 50 years. Mike Jobes is interested in the “dense wilds”. He wants to have the feeling of a natural ecosystem. Jobes’ firm wondered if dense wilds and natural ecosystem could both occur right next to each other and called it the “Urban Wild” and put the two side by side. Natural zone, rural zone, sub urban zone, general urban zone, urban center zone, urban core zone is how they combine the two. They realized they needed to do things in a simple, low tech way. Israel has markets that are very dense and culturally diverse, open air markets, people go there every day, it is packed with people, the food is direct from farmer, the layout of the market is not over planned or over controlled but they feel good. In Los Angeles, all the restaurants are from a strip mall which doesn’t cost much to put a building up and doesn’t cost much to maintain one. The food is a direct mainline to several cultures. Although they are ugly and filled with exhaust, they are good for the city and make the cities diverse. Architects don’t want to introduce a city that is so beautiful and pristine that you lose the collisions and diversity of things sitting next to each other.  Topography of Seattle, need to be able to understand the waterways. In Seattle, Capitol Hill needs to produce its own energy. So far they are trying to use wind but is hard in a city so PB is the only way to go. Capitol Hill has many 5 story buildings but you need to make them dense and let some sunlight in. they thought that the automobile’s role would have to lessen and there would have to be cars that plug into a building and help the building get energy. They proposed taking out every third street and making it a natural green area and a green boulevard. They tried to evoke the texture of natural feeling to have salmon spawn in the city. “The future doesn’t arrive like a monolith, removing all traces of what came before. The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed”. Wm Gibson.  Deep Time: So much has gone on in the history of the earth and there is so much going on and discovered and understood since before humans were on earth. Robert Smith, architect took rocks out to Salt Lake City and put them into a spiral. Sometimes under water but there is algae blooming and white salt on water. Urban- Natural Hybrids: Technology has recreated the natural cycle of rain and nature. Architects have tried to depict the carnivorous period in the middle of an urban city museum. In Venezuela, there is a 45 story building but work on it was stopped after the funder died. Now squatters live there, rent free but they building doesn’t have windows, kitchens, air condition or even some wall. The residents have manipulated the space to make kitchens, get electricity and running water up to the 27^th floor. The government does not evict the people but it does not help them out financially either. Habitat for Humanity:His firm got the opportunity to design a house for Seattle Habitat that is looking at what a home for habitat will look like in 50 years. They talked about doing a double stud wall. They consolidated the bathrooms, kitchens and laundry room into boxes. They are collecting rainwater and using it for flushing toilets. Every room is going to share a wall of the wet quarter and placed it in the back so it was small and the living area was larger. They tried to express the horizontal lines through the house and tried to express the entire design and fit into the context a little more. It is completely net zero energy.