Page 21 - Between light and shade

A knowledge base

3. The networking of communication and energy
is resulting in the disappearance of numerous
very large industries with their commercial
intermediaries, and strengthening the direct
link between citizens and creators, inventors and
discoverers. The latter are making their achieve-
ments available without selling them: resulting
in a renaissance of the greatest expressions of art
and craftsmanship with a major impact in terms
of architecture and civil engineering.

So, this is a summary of Rifkin’s thoughts
relating directly to the act of building.

energy and society
Our lives are punctuated and defined not only by
our relationships with others, but also by the daily
and seasonal cycles of nature. Each day influences
our experience, in a different way, depending on
the season, latitude and nature of where we are,
variations in temperature, humidity, the colour
and intensity of light, its direct or diffuse nature,
sounds, odours and the conditions of surfaces that
we touch. The purpose of a shelter (construction)
is to limit, or even eliminate, the adverse effects
of nature on our lives without depriving us of its
benefits. This is what is so charming about old or

increasing far more rapidly than the population served (see
The vertical city, note 17).

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