Abstract
We are now going through a shift to a new epoch constituted by machine landscapes where it is the digital technology and machine intelligence that is going to compute, condition, and compose the post-oil reality far beyond our imagination. Out of the constraints of traditional energy technology, machines intrude into and redefine the space where we work and inhabit, while we are learning as well to adapt, cooperate and live within the space we share. This new form of relationship between people and machines is also taking our understanding of urban factories within cities into this transformation. Factories were once an essential core of the city engine in history, but they have been pushed from inner-city to the edges. As we can see in Europe, manufacturing activities have de-localised out of the cities to reverse the pollution from fossil fuel and mitigate the processes of anthropogenic ecological deterioration. However, after years of de-industrialisation and its effects, many cities including London, Brussels and Rotterdam have shown signs of urban industrial return. This growing trend is due to new possibilities and opportunities that the development of digital fabrication and material innovation has brought to the post-oil urban manufacturing. Our plans and strategies should reconsider the value and new position of the production space in cities, because the way we design and produce in cities will be different, and the construction of mass customization will become a reality. Many researches have shown the vision that factories will return, reintegrate back into the city, and equally participate in the growth and metabolism of the city. We are going to see this new spatial typology of the Post-Anthropocene in which machine landscapes integrate and interact with the human habitation. The report hopes to explore this possibility of a future symbiosis between us and post-human production which thrives in digital fabrication.
