WEEK 7 - READING REFLECTION

ENVIRONMENTAL ADAPTABILITY - by Kevin Lynch.

This weeks reading established design strategies that successfully portrayed adaptability and flexibility and certain systems that may prevent future adaptability. Lynch quotes that 'preparation for a known change to come may have its complications, but can be approached and solved in a straight forward manner. The more adequate our predictions of the future become, the more will our anxiety for flexibility be transmuted into such tangible problems'.  The debate begins that creating an environment of low differentiation, such as an area where uses are highly mixed, is often more resistant to change than otherwise. Similarly when a designer states he/she is being 'flexible', generally he/she is only being vague. On the other hand complexity of organisation does not necessarily entail inflexibility, perhaps even the opposite, if the complexity has a purpose. For example, A complexity of organisation such as an arterial highway network may realise new potentialities of functions which enhance the adaptability as a whole. 

-And yet city environments may be more inflexible if designed for specific purposes. 

This raises the question, will a building still be adaptable to future changes if designed with complexity due to a specific purpose? 

One solution - Analyse what specialised components are required and what unspecified components are needed within the building, and place them apart from each other in the design. 

This way the necessary remodelling in the specialised zones for example, can occur without disturbing the unspecialised units. 

A simple guide to follow includes: Separate permanent from temporary, lightly built areas from heavily built areas. It is also important to note that residential requirements change less rapidly than production requirements. 

PROBLEMS WITH MODULAR SYSTEMS

Modular systems can be highly flexible considering they can be picked up and re-located with minimum effort, however if change is required in the module itself, if the trailer becomes obsolete, then the system is a dead loss, presenting no means of sustainability. To avoid this modular systems do require to be at a neutral and simple function in order to reduce the risk of its function becoming obsolete.