Architecture

Today's global transformations, demographic shifts, business process re-engineering, and the rise of China and India, are having a dramatic impact on our world creating greater complexity and tightly interweaving many disparate conditions, profoundly changing how the world relates to each other and to itself. The thought processes of mass customization that can now be technologically enabled due to new nano-technologies are currently slowly and quietly occurring within our architecture profession. New movement systems such as destination based elevators, machine room less elevators, automated parking systems, highway guidance systems, and point-to-point travel as found in a Personal Rapid Transit System (Ultra) being constructed at Heathrow are going to dramatically change how we as designers will construct the built world. The three dimensional elevator (now no longer being marketed by Otis) but technologically feasible with its systems in use for the Tower of Terror at Disney, offers yet another example of the coming complexity that will occur in our students designs careers. This technological breakthrough will allow multiple elevators to function within one shaft of space. These new movement systems will impact architectural, urban design and construction processes at a spatial complexity that we are not currently preparing our students to handle. We have diverted our attention from our primary focus as architects as space shapers, and the subsequent benefits this has for society. Society is anxiously seeking these new spatial connections and interconnections that only we can provide. New movement systems will have a dramatic impact on how architects must think about design similar to the period of change that occurred with the advent of the elevator, the train, the trolley, and the automobile. We are being challenged again, however this time the lessons we have learned from the last 100+ years can assist us with moving forward.

PRT as a subset of APM is unique in the opportunities it can provide for solving many movement design issues in response to environmental and existing architectural conditions, while also providing the opportunity to create entirely new living spaces. PRT, capable of traversing inclines similar to those found in parking structures using small vehicles, smaller quideways, along with off-line stations and point-to-point travel, can when interfaced with the local topology and existing context allow for multiple movement options that interact respectfully with existing site conditions while also providing unique opportunities for growth. Flexibility in movement options for the vehicle when all of the design options are understood and taken into account, at each point in its specified route, can create new synergies and solutions for the built world. Designing for a local context, while complicated and specific, can suggest powerful and unique ideas in assisting to solve the many connection and movement difficulties we are all experiencing around the world. Rather than dependant upon a single focused design approach, choices and decisions can be responsive to the specific local, human, topology, and environmental conditions with different and unique solutions at multiple points in the layout of the system to address the myriad of concerns that face any new movement systems successful implementation. This level of complexity can now be addressed and managed with our expanding computer technology. However, what are all of the variables? How are sustainable decisions made at each step in the process and how can development physically occur in each area of guideway and station layout? This paper will address these issues in general through precedent and with some local solutions.

The missing link in creating a seamless system of movement is how to integrate the personal rapid transit device into the current automobile society. A first step to creating seamless movement is connecting all of the available technologies. By linking a three dimensional automated parking system with PRT more possibilities can emerge with integrated architectural and planning solutions. These possibilities in combination can reduce the amount of land required, create easier access for the user, and assist in providing points of transfer that share required systems and spaces.

New movement technologies such as the NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle), electric vehicles, segways, PRT (Personal Rapid Transit), bicycles and three-dimensional elevators are changing the ways that we can move in space. How we move, communicate and where we park are the formative aspects of design change and we are in the midst of "massive change". A brief history of the automobile and the parking garage that has its roots in the electric vehicle, sustainability and innovation will be presented. Amazing new projects such as Mazdar City and other new research that are creating carbon neutral environments with these new movement technologies due to innovation and collaboration with many other disciplines will be presented.