Re: ARCHITECTURE: Nomadic Nano-structures

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2000 - 13:15:19 MST


On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:

> As usual I am thinking in terms of images:
> Architect suggests that Nanotech in architecture will have the effect of
> making buildings extremely temporary. Buildings will spring up overnight
> and disappear just as quickly. Corporate property as we know it will become
> obsolete as businesses are not conducted from "brick and mortar"
> institutions any more.
>
> Buildings can anything of course.
> One line of thinking is they be constructed out of very thin, strong
> surfaces and serve a place for projectionary illusion. A mixture of
> Virtual space and real.

This deserves significantly more consideration (given how prone I
am to growing "long-term" structures using existing biostructural
elements stolen from nature).

At issue is *what* is the purpose of a building -- to provide shelter
from the elements? to collect heat in one place? to localize people?

It is clear that nanotech can assemble and disassemble buildings
very fast. You may be limited as to how often you do it (on Earth)
due to the heat production limitations. Generally speaking
however self-assembling primitively "intelligent" nanobricks could
rapidly build and debuild almost anything you could imagine.

True, corporate property becomes much more "software".

The question of virtual & real space depends much on the nature
of *what* are the people who "use" the buildings (virtual or real).
What would be the point of constructing a real building to host
a virtual persona ?!?

This raises some interesting economics questions about the
discontinuity that occurs in the shift from "real" to "virtual".
Have Robin or others attempted to address this?

Robert



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