Jody Beck's lecture on future landscape design painted a picture of how society and civic life might formally operate when we start the downhill ride from peak oil. He painted several futures, some utopian, some feudal-esque, some relying on a new form of energy altogether.His models focused largely on two important issues - food production and transport. His solutions tended to be small-scale, community based alternatives which would rely on a high degree of trust or a new form of currency.
From his lecture, I understood that his belief was that once oil had run out and our reliance on energy becomes decentralised, so too will our formal social structure. This would equate in more self reliance, and a direct connection between everyone's life and food production. The scenario is basically a scale shift from what we have now, with more emphasis on social responsibility and direct involvement.
How this relates to landscape design is based on the centralisation of productive gardens into our urban landscape. Schemes proposed by his students at Lincoln overtook car-dominated spaces such as wide roads and carparks and turned them into community orchards and bike-repair collectives. Which is nice. But, Beck admitted that the role of the designer is not to get up and say, "we need to do this now," but rather to wait with the solutions if and when society comes and asks for them.
Admittedly, this sounds more rational that Corb's interventionist schemes which disregard the true needs and wants of the people, but how are people going to agree to a beneficial scheme without fully understanding the situation?
Beck looked at some historic models such as the Garden City and FLW's Broadacre City, and medieval society structure. I don't think that these will end up informing how we go about managing future issues, because they failed for some reason or other in the past. We can't just impose a one-size-fits-all social structure.
Right now, I just can't see us gearing down our energy consumption and giving up individual freedoms in favour of weeding the bean patch. Right now I have faith in solar power, bikes, efficient public transport systems and am hoping the Americans manage to pull off a fusion reactor which is actually cost and energy efficient (better on their soil than ours).
Urban design is complex, and no single person has the answer. I think it relies on the involvement of all, education, and some wise wise people. The future is an unknown, here's hoping we make some good decisions.
