Future Shift for ‘Big Things’: From Starchitecture via Agritecture to Parkitecture

Abstract

This article analyses three recent shifts in what called the geography of ‘Big Things’, meaning the contemporary functions and adaptability of modern city centre architecture. We periodise the three styles conventionally into the fashionable ‘Starchitecture’ of the 1990s, the repurposed ‘Agritecture’ of the 2000s and the parodising ‘Parkitecture’ of the 2010s. Starchitecture was the form of new architecture coinciding with the rise of neo-liberalism in its brief era of global urban competitiveness prevalent in the 1990s. After the Great Financial Crash of 2007–2008, the market for high-rise emblems of iconic, thrusting, skyscrapers and giant downtown and suburban shopping malls waned and online shopping and working from home destroyed the main rental values of the CBD. In some illustrious cases, ‘Agritecture’ caused re-purposed office blocks and other CBD accompaniments to be re-purposed as settings for high-rise urban farming, especially aquaponics and hydroponic horticulture. Now, COVID-19 has further undermined traditional CBD property markets, causing some administrations to decide to bulldoze their ‘deadmalls’ and replace them with urban prairie landscapes, inviting the designation ‘Parkitecture’ for the bucolic results. This paper presents an account of these transitions with reference to questions raised by urban cultural scholars such as Jane M. Jacobs and Jean Gottmann to figure out answers in time and space to questions their work poses.

Vertical farming in urban environments: A review of architectural integration and food security

“…This strategy involves repurposing disused or underutilized buildings for vertical farming purposes. Abandoned warehouses, industrial facilities, or obsolete urban structures can be transformed into thriving vertical farms (Cooke, 2021). Adaptive reuse minimizes the environmental impact associated with constructing new agricultural infrastructure while revitalizing urban spaces .…”

Research by design: architectural and structural solutions allowing the integration of the skyscraper complex with the urban space in Warsaw

“…Permeability touches on the basic aspects of connecting high-rise buildings with the city space: improves access into and through the site, allows improved reading of the site and its relations to the wider area as it improves access into and through the area, and gives opportunities for improved linkages of wider areas for pedestrians. Paradigms related to designing the architecture of high-rise buildings and their connection with urban space change over time [33]. However, theoretical considerations show that there is an attempt to strengthen the connection of buildings with the city [34], and the use of high-rise buildings for urban regeneration [35], which is favored by such a connection.…”

Beyond the Smart or Resilient City: In Search of Sustainability in the Sojan Thirdspace

“…This is commonly associated with advertising and marketing of the kind that might occur in publicly official literature. A case in point would be OECD [4], whose 2022 website on Resilient Cities defines them as being able to 'absorb, recover and prepare for future shocks (economic, environmental, social and institutional). Resilient cities promote sustainable development, wellbeing and inclusive growth.'…”

“…Supposedly 'heroic' fantasies can be realised if 'extraordinary visions' can be conjured up by 'pathbreaking' designers. In [4] this notion of 'heroic architectural fantasy' took root in the 1990s due to technological change, notably in metal framing of installations, and early declining budgets for public contracts occasioned by austerity. To this can be added the predominant maleness of 'starchitecture' and its narcissistic appeal to egotistic individualism unchained by municipal over-regulation.…”