predictions for 2011

In a post from last year I remarked briefly about the futility of making predictions. Well, that was last year, and with the new year upon us I feel encouraged to pontificate about the fate of architecture, economics and social movements. My credibility is limited, but readership of this blog is sparse so I'm not worried about blowback. So, in no particular order of importance:

1. 2011 will be a fairly dull year. Things will continue to go poorly in places where things are already doing poorly, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the drug war cities of Juarez and Tijuana in Mexico. It could hit the fan in North Korea, but I doubt it.

2. American politics will have more than usual sound and fury and idiots. It's the deep breath before the plunge into the 2012 election year. Obama may do something surprising, but I doubt it.

3. Revolutions in architecture will be subdued because there isn't enough money to do crazy stuff. The construction boom in China will slow down, maybe they'll have a real estate collapse, but strong government action will mitigate its effects. U.S. architecture firms will continue to experience consolidation and contraction. Tough luck for me, but so it goes.

4. The upcoming changes in building codes, specifically as they relate to energy use, will start to take effect, but the impact will be marginal. The long term positive impact will have profound consequences, but excitement over "green" design will be more constrained.

5. The end of the middle will accelerate. I will give some banal examples of what I mean by this: Retail opportunities will be dominated by either discount goods or extreme luxury items--a few Hummers counterbalanced by lots of subcompact sedans. People will be either very rich or lower class. Aspirational impulses will be constrained by the long odds of achieving superstar success. But, life at the bottom will be distinguished more by grumbling than full-out misery. Perhaps on this note I am being too optimistic

6. Conservative design trends will dominate. Curvy stuff, which used to look so revolutionary, will be continue to dominate mass-produced products, but we might start to see more right angles and subtle details in architecture. The stuff in the magazines will still be curvy, expensive bl0bs, but ordinary stuff will be boxier and more restrained.

7. None of these predictions will be borne out perfectly--they aren't very aggressive or original in the first place, but so what.

8.Something entirely unexpected will happen.