Architecture and Engineering in the Future

by Eva Sutherland

Over the years our Earth’s population has grown to around 7.4 billion and it continues to increase every year. To match this, our town and cities are evolving to accommodate an ever changing population. As populations grow and resources become scarcer, the efficient usage of these resources becomes more important. Our land is ever shrinking, due to a toxic combination of climate change and population growth; the answer is for our cities to grow in a new direction.

Dealing with population growth and climate change

The solution lies in being more sustainable and seeing the environment as an opportunity, not a problem to overcome. Humanity currently faces urgent and difficult challenges, including the perpetual decline of our arable land and scarcity of natural resources, extreme climate events, rapid population growth and environmental destruction. Sustainable architecture and engineering holds the key to an environmentally positive future. The construction industry has developed new concepts and traditional spatial ideas are no longer appropriate to meet the needs. For our earth to survive, we must nurture our resources and use them wisely. For example, natural materials (E.g compost) are being used in construction; modern architects and engineers are approaching projects with an emphasis on green infrastructure and energy efficiency. In the future, environmental scientists will become prime members of design teams.

Using New Technology

To maximise the Earth's life, architects and engineers are using new technology such as smart cities. These are key to the future, because as population grows and resources become scarcer these cities help reduce consumption. Smart cities will allow the future of humanity to make more efficient use of our resources, lower our energy consumption, and build our cities to maximum efficiency. We should expand upwards, with high-rise buildings that make better use of the land than building across the ground. The idea of vertical cities is becoming popular and vertical farming is already a reality. Vertical farming has become popular with farmers because it is a solution to the negative effects of traditional farming can have on our environment. Whilst also meeting the increase in demand, as the population gets bigger and the available farming land decreases. Another new technology includes 1:1 scale BIM models, architects and engineers are using these to model their buildings and the landscape. This new technology allows architects and engineers to create visions of the future, and combined with Virtual Reality modelling, allows clients to experience their building before it has been built.

Inhabiting Space

Our planet Earth is running out of space therefore we must look to the stars. As we pollute this planet more and more we have less habitable land and a growing population we must move our race to a planet such as, Mars or the Moon. For this our engineers and architects must adapt and change their ways in building. If we were to inhabit Mars the buildings will have to be smart and efficient systems, that make use of the resources and work with the environment. The engineers of the future will need to create a horticultural area as the main source of food and bases that have the same amount of gravity as our Earth. Integrated in this system there will need to be key resources for living, for example running water that is connected to every house/base. More importantly, space agencies will need good engineers to design and build a rocket that can get people to Mars. In the past landers and rovers have been successful in exploring Mars and it’s environment but no human has set foot on the planet. The reasons Mars is perfect for colonisation is that it has economic interest in its resources and we can gather information on the environment of Mars via our rovers. However there are difficulties and hazards that include radiation, toxic soil, lack of ground water and the very cold temperatures. Architects and engineers will have to build suitable places for people to work and live that completely overcome the dangers.

The architects and engineers of our future will overcome the difficulties and thrive in a new direction. This direction will be smart and sustainable, so that Earth does not become a planet that just consists of landfill. We must start now and change our ways. The future is ours.