entrada hacia donde el viento lo permite, hace de ejemplo a una comunidad que recién toma posesión de un lugar. Epergos provee de una primera capa divisoria entre el hombre y su medio ambiente, una primera técnica o ar- quitectura que proviene de los elementos existentes en el lugar. No existe aún distancia entre el mundo construido y el medio natural, son el uno del otro. En su afán modernizador Doxius y Epergos continúan su viaje. Un viaje en que a lo largo de milenios el hombre desarrolla su dominio sobre la naturaleza, siguiendo el espíritu que 250 años atrás Francis Bacon había expuesto en Novum Organon, "recobre ahora el género humano su derecho sobre la naturaleza, el que le compete por el legado divino …” 7 , visión que se extiende en mayor o menor medida aún hasta nuestros días. Ciento cincuenta años después de Bacon, Marc-Antoine Laugier, en “Essai sur l´architecture”, en una reflexión simi- lar a la de Viollet-Le-Duc, escribe acerca de los primeros asentamientos humanos, y establece una directa relación con la naturaleza. El “salvaje” descrito por Laugier se mueve por el paisaje en busca de refugio. Asustado y desvalido crea la arquitectura como un reflejo al clima que lo rodea, el “salvaje” se resigna a las restricciones de su medio, no intenta dominar a quienes lo comparten con él. Se encuentra aún en el estado anterior al descrito por Harari. Para Laugier, el arte y la arquitectura nacen como un primer (e ineludible) vínculo con nuestro medio natural, como un primer lenguaje de conexión con el mundo que nos rodea. No nos separa de él, sino que nos permite estar en él, habitarlo. Cuando Laugier escribió este ensayo, en 1755, la población del mundo aún no llegaba a los 750 millones de habitantes. 8 Tanto para Laugier como para Le Duc, los primeros habitantes, como entes sociales y políticos, se instalarán con relación a otros de quienes podrá beneficiarse, en un incipiente orden de ciudad, definiendo los acuerdos necesa- rios para compartir un predio. Aparece entonces la primera infraestructura, aquel eje regulatorio que dispone la posición de la vivienda y la secuencia de los espacios habitables. Una primera definición normativa o una forma de situarse en el mundo, la primera infraestructura urbana, la calle.
a first (and unavoidable) link with our natural environment, as a first language of connection with the world around us. It does not separate us from it but allows us to be in it, to inhabit it. When Laugier wrote this essay, in 1755, the population of the world was not yet 750 million inhabitants. 8 For both Laugier and Le Duc, the first inhabitants, as well as social and political entities, will be installed in relation to others from whom they will be able to benefit, in an incipient city order, defining the necessary agreements to share a property. This is when the first infrastructure appears, that regulatory axis that arranges the position of housing and the sequence of living spaces. A first regulatory definition or a way of situating oneself in the world, the first urban infrastructure, the street. THE MACHINE It has been proposed that the history of the world since the industrial revolution has introduced us to a new era or period in the history of the Earth appropriately called The Anthropocene. 9 Man, through mechanical, physical, and chemical processes on a large scale, has managed to interfere with the great forces of nature, intervening or ac- celerating climatic, biophysical, and evolutionary processes on a planetary scale. The way human beings live, which for millennia was the village, begins to transform into a city. In 1890, 200 million people lived in cities, a number that in a little more than 100 years will reach 3 billion. 10 This accelerated evolutionary process came hand in hand with the development of system connectivity within the city. This infrastructure, later including movie theaters or hair salons, are the services that define the city and that removes us out of the precarious situation of Laugier's sav- age, but at the same time have created a distance from the environment in which that savage moved with reluctance, responsible for his place in the ecosystem and aware of a living and changing environment. At the end of the XVIII century, the power of industry and the development of commerce gave a definitive push to the expansion of man on earth. By 1820, the number of human beings reached its first billion and by the time Le Duc wrote Historia de la habitación humana, there would be 400 million more. Infrastructure has a connective role in the city´s life, but it is disconnected from the environment where it is installed. Watercourses are intervened, surfaces lose their infiltrating capacities, ecological communities are modified and new species are introduced. This same infrastructure has calculated and defined resources, which are affected by climate change and population growth, to the point that some of them (especially those related to the urban water cycle) are difficult to adapt over time if they are underground and depend on unsustainable maintenance over time. The issue is then how to restore the hydraulic abilities of the non-urbanized basin to the urbanized one, otherwise, the effects of climate change and climate volatility will have an increasing impact. As biologist Janine Benyus tells us, "The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.” 11 Green infrastructure means the interconnected network of open spaces and natural areas (greenways, wetlands, parks, forest reserves, and native vegetation) that natu-
Tanto para Laugier como para Le Duc, los primeros habitantes, como entes sociales y políticos, se instalarán con relación a otros de quienes podrá beneficiarse, en un incipiente orden de ciudad, definiendo los acuerdos necesarios para compartir un predio. Aparece entonces la primera infraestructura, aquel eje regulatorio que dispone la posición de la vivienda y la secuencia de los espacios habitables. Una primera definición normativa o una forma de situarse en el mundo, la primera infraestructura urbana, la calle. For both Laugier and Le Duc, the first inhabitants, as well as social and political entities, will be installed in relation to others from whom they will be able to benefit, in an incipient city order, defining the necessary agreements to share a property. This is when the first infrastructure appears, that regulatory axis that arranges the position of housing and the sequence of living spaces. A first regulatory definition or a way of situating oneself in the world, the first urban infrastructure, the street.
(7) Bacon, F. 1620. Novum Organon; this edn trans. RL Ellis and James Spedding. (8) www.worldpopulationhistory.org
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