Everything must Scale: Empathy and Energy

This studio explores the realms of empathy at a close range in terms of detailed equipment and industrial design; at the architectural/industrial ground of a future fuel (energy) stop or a mobility station; and at the confluence of macro-economic and technological change. The site brings all this to bear in a realm where people are increasingly living and working beside robots; where truck drivers are emerging from newly sophisticated near computer-driven trucks (if we still call them that); and where the public travelers mingle with the once-gritty realm of trucking. The studio focuses on the future of the nation’s approximately 120,000 fueling stations and, in particular, a new form of fueling stations for electric and near-autonomous would-be cars and trucks. Trucks today are re-emerging as quasi-robots; their interiors mirror high tech offices and become in effect architectural as the drivers are more passive residents of motion.