Reaching 1,450 feet in the air, Willis Tower in Chicago was the tallest building on the planet for nearly a quarter of a century. It now ranks 26th, having long been surpassed by the towering Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which rises nearly 3,000 feet into the atmosphere.
From a simple cave to buildings of steel and glass that touch the upper limits of the sky, humans have reshaped Earth. This transformation is so profound that we now talk of a new geological age, the Anthropocene.
But how did we get here? How did humans go from living on the ground to thousands of feet in the air?
Beyond reshaping the planet, each individual also constructs their own physical, symbolic, and imaginative worlds. This new CARTA symposium focuses especially on one form of creation—the construction of buildings—while stressing that such construction is shaped by diverse factors, from landscapes and cultural traditions to the historical narratives they embody.
We begin by exploring how birds build their nests as an example of species-specific design, and then follow humanity’s journey through cultural evolution and niche construction. We trace our progress from the first stone tools of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, through the Neolithic era and the rise of cities, to today’s formal and informal architecture. Finally, we consider how artificial intelligence could revolutionize the ways humans construct both mental and physical worlds in the future.