8 Sophisticated may mean advanced or it may mean primitive in appearance but advanced in content

The necessities of the fundamental process ask us to change construction techniques profoundly.
If we are to build a living world, we need a new way of building that allows centers to be shaped and locally determined by the whole; that means that materials and techniques are chosen so that components can vary subtly in infinite but not extraordinary ways to fit the living structure of the context.

It is not feasible in this age to re-create old building techniques of another age. The problem with such re-creation is that is usually has the wrong labor factor (the percentage of construction cost spent on labor). It may require labor-intensive methods which were suited to one economic era, but are impossible in ours; costs do not make sense; it is not appropriate to our era. The techniques will therefore have to be ultramodern so that speed, technique, type, material all come from our unique time. But what is done with these materials, if they are capable of making parts that are beautifully fitted to the whole, will be unlike the insensitive and mechanical repetition we mainly knew during the 20th century. In the near future it may include use of concrete, glass, steel, aluminum, plastics, fibers, fiber cements, mud, sand, and polymers. Whatever it is and in whichever era it may come, it should be truly something of the 21st or of the 24th century.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/16 Continuous invention of new materials and techniques#