Session 4 | Building Futures: Anticipating tomorrow’s needs with future-ready strategy

Buildings last a long time. What conditions will buildings designed and constructed today face decades from now? The past provides an important experiential foundation. But historical experience is no longer a reliable predictor of future context. Projected futures provide a framework for building from an experiential foundation in a manner that at least attempts to anticipate future context. How effectively can this framework be developed? What are the limitations of this crystal ball exercise, and what are the implications of these limitations? Accelerating social and technological change is an existential threat to the products of today’s building boom, one that demands measures to amplify the adaptive capacity of buildings and their major systems. This session blends reflection on past lessons learned, analysis of current market trends and assessment of future needs, all focused on buildings and urban habitat through the lens of the building skin.