Perspecta 55: Futures Index: Introduction

Although the temporal triad of past-present-future—each stage succeeding the other in an orderly progression, ad infinitum—seems to be as transhistorical a fact of existence as ever there could be, judging from contemporary architectural practice, these terms and their positions relative to one another seem to be losing their stability. Lately, as climatological and other computational models bring distant tomorrows to bear on the world of today, the future’s position in the temporal sequence has shifted. Nowadays, it is not the present that dictates what is to come; rather, it is a model of the future that compels action in the present ...