IF, THEN // CALIFORNIA DELTA DEVELOPMENT

UCLA Research Studio
Winter 2006
Roger Sherman

While most of us consider cities to be by nature dynamic, changing and adaptive organisms, we seldom think of the buildings that comprise them in the same evolutionary sense. At least some aspect of the real horror of 9/11 was due to the way in which the event completely undermined our common belief in the permanence of the edifices we construct. One great irony of today is that, due to an often blind faith in technology, we tend to presume a greater stability and predictability in our buildings and cities, when in fact the exact opposite is true: architecture has never been more vulnerable to the vagaries of circumstances and conditions often out of our control as authors. The fact is that Architecture is practiced today in an environment characterized by an unprecedented rate of change. These constantly fluctuating cultural, political and economic circumstances are such that by the time that a plan is realized, it is often already obsolete. >>

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