Circularity and Timeliness - New Roles and Changing Attitudes in Architecture

Abstract

It is striking that each of the projects in this publication, as well as demonstrating proficiency in the act of building as a technical matter, also display a certain openness to seizing opportunities. Opportunity is closely linked to chance, but it is also related to timeliness (from the adjective timely). Timeliness was defined in the Ancient Greek concept of Kairos as the fact or quality of happening at the best possible moment or most opportune time. However, Thomas Rickert points out that it also encompasses a spatial meaning since “the earliest uses of Kairos were grounded in a sense of place.” Timeliness is therefore as much a spatial concept as a temporal one, referring to the possibilities, opportunities, and potential arising from a particular context — social, cultural, and material — at a given point in space and time. This positioned, situated aspect of timeliness is reflected in the contextual approaches adopted by the practitioners featured throughout this book.