Man is a complex animal

With apologies to Aristotle, of course.

Yes, we may be social, even though sometimes some people tend to be anything but social, with eyes glued to the shiny screens in their hands, more often than not hooked into what is going on in - ironically - their social media following.

We may also be political, but sometimes what seem as massive failures of democracy worldwide similarly cast shadows into how beneficial the 'political' tag is to mankind.

What I think is true is that man is, more than anything else, a complex animal.  And increasingly becoming so.

Take what I do for a living.  I am concurrently working on 3 projects: 1 office building covering some 25,000m² and 2 residential developments (1 covering over 200,000m² including 3 towers and the other a single tower creating some 75,000m²).

Whenever I fill in my weekly time sheets, I am increasingly amazed at the sheer number of hours I put into each of these projects, and I am one member of fairly large design and construction teams across many disciplines, firms, offices and countries!

I ask: is it really required?  Do we need to spend thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of pounds (or Euros or whatever currency it may be) to create houses?  Mankind has been living in some form of sheltered spaces for millennia.  The basic requirements have not changed since the Neanderthals: all we need is a space to feed, fornicate and eventually sleep.  Why then all the complexity and 'fighting' and arguing over millimetric discrepancies or differences?  What distinguishes today's (or tomorrow's) homes from those of yesteryear?  I was about to say "except that those of the past were more beautiful" but beauty is subjective and I happen to work with extremely talented people who can indeed create beautiful buildings.  Beautiful but complex.

And then the offices.  Why all the effort, time and money to design and build a structure which is typically used for only 33% of the time, to be left empty for the rest of the time (to occupy the houses for remaining 67% but sleep for 50% of that time, but that is another argument)?  And what more, creating workspaces which are sedentary, leading to disease and unhealthy lifestyles.  Why has the workspace become a desk and a screen?  What was happening a mere 50 years ago?  People did not go to work?  What was happening 1000 years ago?  Did people not work?

I think we need to step back from the complexity of the modern age and go back to basics.  And stop creating massive buildings which are used only Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm and to remain empty for the rest of the time and then in parallel another suite of equally massive and intricate buildings for evening and night use only (and potentially weekends, unless people are away and/or out at the weekend, and rightly so).

By some twist of fate, I am listening to some Beatles playlist and Lennon's "Imagine" found its way in it; am I a dreamer, too?  I do hope I am not the only one.  Alas, I am just a simple structural engineer and what I am suggesting shakes the fundamentals not only of architecture and urbanism but probably of society at large.

Dream on.  Aerosmith, anyone?