Let's Face the Future

by Stan Kabacinski

Following millennia of undisputed reign of traditional building materials such as timber, stone, sand and clay, the world has witnessed establishment of glass, iron, steel and concrete, as the classic of today’s construction site. When the time of plastic materials came, the architectural and building environment looked reassured that the development of building technics has just been accomplished. But was it?

At the dawn of new Millennium, dynamic progress in DNA research keeps delivering evidence daily of yet another realm evolving – Modified Genes Organisms (MGO’s). As we live, MGO’s are about to spread from their traditional domains in medical sciences, defence, agriculture and food industry to computer, textile and other industries.

Many visionary designers have anticipated long ago that the moment would come for the MGO’s to enter architecture, building and the affiliated industries. Hardly anyone has ever realised that it would be on our generation to make the decision …

And there is no reason why valuable contemporary achievements in science and technology should not be introduced to architecture, building and affiliated industries, just as they are to other disciplines. The truism, maybe, but everyday industrial conduct denies it persistently. The list of arguments justifying existing negligence is endless. On rare occasions of this issue being discussed at all, business viability goes first to preclude positive results, when it or anything else fails, concerns in ethics are raised. And they win, to my amazement!

The following is yet another effort by my generation to tackle one of the most sensitive issues and the biggest challenges of our times – to put the mankind on the right track towards harmonious development of its own habitat by means of taking straight advantage of, to my belief, the most important natural resource found on Earth – the DNA.