Opportunity is a decidedly optimistic, positive word that brings to mind that ideal moment when everything is possible. However, it also has a dark side, as it is frequently linked to the negative concept of crisis. This duality seems to be an essential condition for defining the value of an opportunity as inversely proportional to that of its opposing crisis. In this sense, the proposal of VAD could not be more relevant at a time when we, as a society, are facing one of the greatest and most universal crises in living memory.
There have been numerous examples in architecture of the success of the crisis-opportunity dialectic. The crisis that Malthusian theories could potentially trigger motivated Fuller to define "Ephemeralization," an opportunity to create a better, more supportive world. More generally, if we accept a linear—and therefore simplified—view of the history of architecture over the last two centuries, we can understand the movements that have occurred throughout that time as a consequence of this dual mechanic.
