Response to Reply re: Essay "Anticipation"

 

My most recent essay was entitled, “Anticipation”. It generated a reply that I’m including with a response since I think the whole adds to the conversation.

ORIGINAL ESSAY

I normally post essays that attempt to improve the arguments of city design opinion, and preservation of the Natural Domain, based on the mathematical derivation of shelter capacity evaluation, or Tegimenics. I attempt to avoid debate based primarily or solely on opinion because it becomes political argument, but proof begins with anticipation and opinion seeking justification. I’m submitting this opinion based on an anticipation of consequences struggling for acceptance. I recognize that it is vulnerable. I am simply submitting it for your consideration since anticipation is where we have always begun.   

ANTICIPATION

Survival depends on the ability to anticipate consequences. Demanding proof  builds knowledge until the anticipation needed to survive is defeated by conflicting opinion.

THE RESPONSE (edited)

So, your article basically says that a strong architectural concept isn't merely an aesthetic opinion — it is an anticipation of what architecture can achieve.

That fits well with my emphasis on architecture beginning with an idea that deserves to exist, rather than simply following fashionable styles.

So, for myself, I'd extract one principle:

Don't ask only, “Does this design look good?”, but also ask “What consequences will this idea produce if it actually exists?”

MY REPLY

From my perspective, architectural ideas often ignore the consequences of unlimited land consumption. They will address whatever land the client owns, and a client is free to  speculate with any land available. This is the reality of our current investment format. Property lines define commodities for sale. This has often led to excessive land consumption, sprawl, congestion, conflict, and overbearing shelter intensity because government lacks an effective, interactive, correlated, mathematical language capable of defining, explaining, guiding, and producing shelter quality of life within a limited Built Domain designed to protect and preserve its source of life. This is the goal in my opinion. It means we must contribute to this source of life as well as consume.

A static city plan or map is quickly outdated. Daily interactive planning based on data science, shelter capacity evaluation, digital mapping, and economic evaluation is needed to integrate the goals of government and investment with the potential of architecture, engineering, urban design, city planning, and economic development. It will require a new, mathematically correlated leadership language. Our ability to define city design consequences and opportunities in convincing terms is the challenge we face. Building appearance will evolve to reflect increasing knowledge that has always been its underlying message.

We have learned to be consumers and written the rules accordingly. We must now anticipate the consequences and learn to be contributors.

Walter M. Hosack, August 2026