EKATERINA REYZBIKH
THE "CITY BALANCE" HYPOTHESE
Introduction to "City Balance" Philosophy
Is it possible for an autonomous city to consume absolutely nothing from the outside and emit nothing beyond its boundaries? An autonomous looped system, akin to a biotope, self-contained yet not cut off from the outside world. Can we envision a city network where all needs are automatically met by self-reproducing resources, eliminating the need for exchange mediums and payments?
Is it possible for an autonomous city to consume absolutely nothing from the outside and emit nothing beyond its boundaries? An autonomous looped system, akin to a biotope, self-contained yet not cut off from the outside world. Can we envision a city network where all needs are automatically met by self-reproducing resources, eliminating the need for exchange mediums and payments?
My vision
I believe such an autonomous urban system is possible. Every need on this planet arises paradoxically amidst colossal wastage of resources. With 150 million homeless people, about 30% of buildings are vacant. Space is just one of the many resources; we also have water, energy, food, and more. A significant amount of electricity is wasted because buildings are designed inefficiently. Imagine a white villa with five air conditioners but nearly cardboard-thin walls, cooling the outdoors year-round. My hypothesis is that intelligently redistributing resources, linking needs with self-reproducing resources, would simultaneously close many needs and reduce much waste. Ideally, they would nullify each other, forming a closed autonomous symbiotic system where waste becomes a component necessary for producing resources, which after use, turn back into waste.
"Balancing" Ideas
Neighbour Business
Business Among Neighbors: a project where residents of a building adopt roles they excel at and enjoy, creating a community where everyone's skills are valued and paid for, saving time for all.
Cars City-Matrix
Most city vehicles (cars, moto, busicle) transform into a shared fleet, with nearly free rentals. Under each residential building, office, and mall, there's a park of these shared vehicles.
The new dwelling Basics
"Residential buildings evolve with modern trends: autonomy for in-apartment and rooftop food growing, co-working spaces, and infrastructure supporting 'Business Among Neighbors' to reduce city travel."
The City Bonus
"Every resident contributes to the community by growing balcony flowers, working from home, or sorting waste, earning city bonuses. It's a resource exchange system, not penalties."
Flexible walls
"Embracing the concept of diversity, mobility, and constant change. In these homes, spaces are flexible, walls move to meet needs, focusing on 'joker' rooms for adaptable layouts."
Earning on City
"Earning by just being part of the city. Even those disengaged in city life earn from urban processes, as every individual contributes to the system, active or not."
About Me
On the surface: I am an architect with experience working in 5 countries, with a total practice of 20 years, including universities and work. I have been involved in designing completely different buildings of various scales and, depending on the client, pursued different goals. However, in most cases, I had to compromise my own conscience because all the architects I have personally met, including myself, are executors of someone else's will, trying to give a decent form to someone else's ambitions. In other words, I had to choose between beauty, cost-efficiency, safety, ecological friendliness, or inclusiveness - because in the context of the given tasks, one began to exclude the other, making balance unattainable. 20 years of imbalance - that's how I can describe my journey until I saw this very imbalance.
Discovering the imbalance doesn't mean eradicating it. It means starting a long path of trials and hypotheses in building a system that is difficult to even describe.
I identified a tactical error in my design, which led to the impossibility of achieving balance: I tried to change people. To educate the client, show them the importance of beauty or ecological sustainability, while they were only interested in financial gain. I tried to inspire city authorities, convincing them of the need to help people, while all they were interested in, in one form or another, was achieving and maintaining power. I have to speak very generally, and this undoubtedly puts me in a risky position for criticism. But without broad strokes, it is difficult for me to give form to my reflections. Of course, not all politicians or developers are the same, and there are people, each in their own way, striving to achieve the same balance that I am. And in general, I think that in the end, we all talk about roughly the same thing. But, I repeat, at this point, I am forced to generalize to indicate the reasons for the formation of the system we deal with today. By the system, I mean cities with all their components: institutions, infrastructure, housing, residents, opportunities, problems, and everything else. So: my mistake was in the emotional perception of the system's participants (how can the client not understand how important fire safety is) and attempts to change them by imposing the goals of other participants on them (safety is important for residents, not for the developer. For the developer, profit is important - it's their engine and motivation. And only the fact that their profit is threatened in the event of a fire - motivates them to take steps towards safety). Not only did such a tactical error exclude the possibility of achieving balance, but it also cost me a lot of emotional strength: because it's very morally difficult to live in a world where you are "not understood", and if understood, then "not listened to".
CAUSE / EFFECT
Exhausted from the emotional strain, I once came to the hypothesis that it is necessary to let people keep their roles and goals, which they have chosen for themselves for some reasons. To stop trying to correct them, but to accept them as an axiomatic element, which I cannot influence in any way. Even if someone, not involved in construction, finds it difficult to understand why a developer might skimp on a fire suppression system - this is still not as difficult as understanding, say, a criminal (who is also an equal participant in the urban system). But giving each participant an axiomatic status allows focusing on correcting external factors, which are most likely the reason why a person chose a particular role. A vandal painting walls in an elevator has a specific reason for what they do. And they will continue to do it until this reason is eliminated. One can influence their fears (as with the developer, causing financial damage to his business in the case of unsafe buildings - we motivate him to comply with the norms). For example, the vandal can be fined. This will have an effect, but such an approach requires a complex infrastructure of "reforming people." And in place of this vandal, a new one will appear. In place of one fined developer, another will appear. This is the natural course of things, a result of social evolution. I wondered if it's possible to adjust the system so that the vandal would want to change his role himself? Without influencing his conscience or fears. He would change his role because it no longer corresponds to achieving his goals. Essentially, no one is born with an irresistible desire to destroy. We start destroying when destruction becomes a way to achieve our goals. No one is born with the desire to litter, kill animals, and enslave other people. If there are other ways - more in line with human nature, which, as I believe, is in creation and development - then the roles will stop being so rigid, and one day we may forget that we had to actively work with our current problems. Thus, we shift the focus from "reforming people" to "reforming the conditions in which these people live." This approach does not cancel the infrastructure of working directly with the person, but complements it. In this approach, I try to draw inspiration from natural mechanisms. Animals or plants do not have the concept of conscience, but at the same time, the system is balanced (without human intervention). Yes, there is also an influence on fear, but their goals are less "reflexive" than those of humans. Animals do not have ambitions to "improve" their society. Inspired by nature, I envision a system where events happen by themselves according to the logic of "cause/effect."
To start changing the conditions, one must first create a general picture of the world. It sounds like "first, we need to understand the meaning of life." But, as they say, set big goals for yourself - it will be harder to miss. By the "general picture," I understand the collection of two maps:
1. A set of known resources necessary for the viability of cities and the well-being of residents.
2. A set of all the needs that arise among residents or urban elements (it's clear that a person needs food or warmth, but, for example, a car also has needs for its existence - it needs at least physical space, which the car will occupy).
And so, by gathering all the resources and needs together, we can link them to each other. The superficial model of urban circular economy already represents the looping of resources with needs, but we will go a little deeper. To water, electricity, space, and others, we will add non-physical aspects - for example, time (every person has a limited resource of time) or desire (someone gladly cooks dinner, while someone else prefers to pay for food and spend their saved time on something else). Here is what I have accumulated so far:
1. A set of known resources necessary for the viability of cities and the well-being of residents.
2. A set of all the needs that arise among residents or urban elements (it's clear that a person needs food or warmth, but, for example, a car also has needs for its existence - it needs at least physical space, which the car will occupy).
And so, by gathering all the resources and needs together, we can link them to each other. The superficial model of urban circular economy already represents the looping of resources with needs, but we will go a little deeper. To water, electricity, space, and others, we will add non-physical aspects - for example, time (every person has a limited resource of time) or desire (someone gladly cooks dinner, while someone else prefers to pay for food and spend their saved time on something else). Here is what I have accumulated so far:
This may seem abstract or even utopian. A real architect works with reality and builds buildings that can be touched, right? At some point in my life, I had to define for myself what an "architect" is and what tasks they face. There's a notion that the one who pays calls the shots. Well, different countries have different attitudes towards this. But personally, I concluded that it's not the client who defines the task. The task is defined by the circumstances and challenges - and the art of the architect, in my definition, is to identify them. Today, I say that my role is to create a balance between various participants in small and large spaces. That is, to create an architecture that takes into account as many requirements as possible, such as ecological, economic, psychological, and other tasks, and meets the demands and needs (which are not the same) of all users and participants of the created architecture (residents, builders, urban structures, and others).
Expressing it geometrically and poetically: I, as an architect, am a point where many lines intersect. And this very point strives to occupy a position of absolute balance.
I am a strategist, a creator of systems, both large and small.
To create truly equitable systems, I cannot afford to favor some more than others, so I strive to understand and integrate into the system the balance of every person, no matter what roles they occupy. That is, it's quite challenging to reconcile people whose goals not only do not align but sometimes contradict each other. However, my somewhat utopian hypothesis suggests that despite its apparent naivety, such a system is not yet ruled out, and therefore is possible. The fact that we have not yet succeeded in creating systems in which everyone would be content (inevitably one using the other) does not mean that it is impossible. In my understanding of the world, this merely means that at the time these systems were formed, they solved the problems of their era and were therefore valuable in their own way.
I love people, believe in them, and believe that the moment we find ourselves in, and I personally find myself in - with all its ugliness and beauty - is a moment not to be judged, but to work with, trying to make it a little better, bringing my experience and love into everything I do.
I am a strategist, a creator of systems, both large and small.
To create truly equitable systems, I cannot afford to favor some more than others, so I strive to understand and integrate into the system the balance of every person, no matter what roles they occupy. That is, it's quite challenging to reconcile people whose goals not only do not align but sometimes contradict each other. However, my somewhat utopian hypothesis suggests that despite its apparent naivety, such a system is not yet ruled out, and therefore is possible. The fact that we have not yet succeeded in creating systems in which everyone would be content (inevitably one using the other) does not mean that it is impossible. In my understanding of the world, this merely means that at the time these systems were formed, they solved the problems of their era and were therefore valuable in their own way.
I love people, believe in them, and believe that the moment we find ourselves in, and I personally find myself in - with all its ugliness and beauty - is a moment not to be judged, but to work with, trying to make it a little better, bringing my experience and love into everything I do.
