patterns evolve by themselves as well as through tactful interventions aimed at reinforcing positive system behaviour whilst reducing entropically ineffective configurations. Secondly, it imbues as much as possible the objects in our landscape with a dynamic nature that enhances their lifetime, regenerative opportunity and afterlife. This second focus is akin to barcoding every suitable object (that is, product) and capitalising on the latent and distributed computing capacity of the world to relate this vast catalog with its physical properties and geographical position. Since the aim is a self-organisation of the system, this barcoding is more similar to a genetic code which can influence object-system behaviour in a long range of changing contexts. The third focus is inviting and making available the tools of this system to everyone. No end-product user or designer is expected to be innately ecologically conscious neither of the present situation nor of the consequences of the object or energy sources which they possess, these tools are meant to encourage idealism and help us shepherd our intelligent flock of enlivened objects.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

The project is at the initial, goal definition stage. The aim of submitting this entry as such is to initiate discourse, gather interest and resources to establish a research and implementation group. This research group should have 5 distinct personalities which will carry out the following roles:

1.System implementation and research coordination: the actual programming of the project and its platform in a public domain distribution (i.e. Internet site, Agent simulation programs and distributables, and materials knowledge base)

2.Chemical expert who defines and validates the affinity-relationships and combination protocols of material interactions.

3.Spatial and Visual-strategy expert who studies the way in which we cognize the potentially complex patterns of material movements while suggesting linkages and implementation within a Geographic Information System.

4.Physicist / Mathematician who will oversee the algorithms related to the transport situation of materials in the energy and mobility network.

5.Urban economist who will focus on the tools' relation to existing economy and governmental policy or regulatory devices.

It is more likely that each personality (a.k.a. department) is undertaken by one or more persons, than having one person with overlapping personalities/responsibilites. With the given circumstances, a more compact research initiative can be the starting point. The timeline of a fully mature movement is likely to go beyond the next three years, however a sketch of the first three years is presented here: for the first 8 months (after the initial nomination of researchers) a selection of settlements for potential implementation will be carried out and there will be a phase of base research; this should lead into a first version public release of the project after a 10 month development period. The remaining 18 months will be the process of societal reflection through user responses of the tools and community participation, the tools are in principle user-modifiable. The initial research group should be able to continue concretizing the project and seek applicability in diverse community and industrial interactions to which they have personal commitments.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

The solution is principally a software strategy in the general sense, as such it seeks to hook into the hardware, physical world around us. The project creates user-modifiable tools to manage materials' lifetimes, creating opportune pre-life and after-life scenarios and destinations for both creators and users of products. The premise of giving an identity to objects (or in some cases, large object assemblies which are recyclable) is to shift their identification as abstract chemical entities in the landscape (pollutants and nutrients are not simply chemical names and occurring quantities) into living, genetic and hence potentially creative entities within our real and charted landscape.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

I am an architecture student who has graduated from the undergraduate programmes of Singapore and Italy and currently completing my final year in the University of Roma Tre in Rome. My commitment to architecture and urban issues dates back to 1999, roughly a decade of studying interspersed with 3 years of work in the architecture field. Having studied and lived in two different parts of the world I am still enthusiastic about the idea that the fundamental values of ecological production and consumption make sense regardless of apparent differences in social and natural contexts. The team is yet to be formed, but a list of potential collaborators, with their corresponding qualifications can be submitted upon request.