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to po s. no 107

2019

EXPEDITION 27 – How a utopian vision for the Swiss National Exhibition 2027 died 32

VISIONARY ROADS – Darran Anderson on a future for sale, buyable utopias and the power of utopianism in dark times

ISBN 978-3-7667-2455-7

66

Utopia

A SUCCESSFULLY FAILED PLAN – Vittorio M. Lampugnani on Ildefonso Cerdà’s utopia for Barcelona 88

to po s. no 107

2019

T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E V I E W O F L A N D S CA P E A R C H I T E CT U R E A N D URB A N DE S I G N

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Contents THE BIG PICTURE

CURATED PRODUCTS

Page 8

Page 102

OPINION

REFERENCE

Page 10

Page 106

TALE NT VS. MASTERMIND

E DITOR’S PICK

Page 12

Page 108

METROPOLIS EXPLAINED

Page 14

REALISING A FATA MORGANA

Page 50

BACKFLIP

Page 110 WINDOWS OVERLOOKING VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

Approaching an ecological utopia for livable habitats Page 18 UTOPIANISTS WANTED

Why we need a healthy dose of utopianism Page 26

VISIONARY ROADS

Darran Anderson on a future for sale, buyable utopias and the power of utopianism in dark times Page 66 “FLOATING CITIES LET US RETHINK HOW WE BUILD, LIVE AND WORK”

Interview with Alana Goldweit from BIG Page 72

ESCAPE PLAN

Page 112 FROM THE EDGES

Page 114 IMPRINT

Page 113

EXPEDITION 27

How a utopian vision for the Swiss National Exhibition 2027 died Page 32 “... ARCHITECTS MAY NO LONGER BE CALLED REM OR BJARKE, BUT GOOGLE OR ALIBABA”

Interview with Chris Precht on tomorrow’s architecture Page 40 AS ABOVE SO BELOW?

Creating underground spaces in Helsinki and Montreal Page 44 REALISING A FATA MORGANA

COSMIC CITIES OF TOMORROW

What futuristic cities of science fiction tell us about their authors and our present Page 76 DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF GREEN

Viewpoint: What if we started our own utopia Page 82 MAY AI BE WITH YOU

How AI can change the mobility of tomorrow Page 84

Greening the desert city: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Page 50

A SUCCESSFULLY FAILED PLAN

UTOPIA TO SOME, DYSTOPIA TO OTHERS

Vittorio M. Lampugnani on Ildefonso Cerdà’s utopia for Barcelona Page 88

Viewpoint: What students can learn from utopias Page 56 FACTS AND FIGURES

Page 58 CRACKS IN THE CONCRETE

Gibellina, Sicily: How (not) to revive a displaced town Page 60

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THE DA VINCI FLOW

Why the Renaissance polymath’s ideas on the “ideal city” are still relevant today Page 94 CONTRIBUTORS

“ FLOATING CITIES LET US RETHINK HOW WE BUILD, LIVE AND WORK”

Page 100

Page 72

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Beginning with the Garden of Eden, utopian scenarios have always been part of society. More so in times of crisis – be it of an ecological, a political or an environmental origin. The practicability of the suggested utopias only ever plays a secondary role. It is the thinking beyond the limits of the present times that makes up their significance: The status quo cannot be challenged without visionaries. This is why we need a healthy dose of utopianism.

DANILO PALAZZO

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Helsinki’s underground city will be as big as its above-ground counterpart by 2020.

Many structures already exist below the surface: The Temppeliauki church was built directly into solid rock.

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Typically, underground infrastructure goes as far as shopping centers or subway stations.

Helsinki’s underground city not only includes a subterranean swimming complex, but also a hockey rink.

As above The world’s population is growing rapidly. More than two billion people are expected to move to urban areas within the next two decades. The question is not a new one: Where to put all those people? But what if we look for obvious solutions instead of reaching for Mars?

Moving underground could be one answer. For this to become viable, four key issues need to be addressed.

Photos: Sebastian Wolf

FRANÇOIS MANCEBO

so below? topos

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Clusters in the Air • 1960

Fahrenheit 451 • 1953

1984 • 1949

Brave New World • 1932

Broadacre City • 1932

Fordlandia • 1927

1960 • Brasília

1956 • Minority Report

1925 • Plan Voisin

1921 • We

1902 • Garden City

1898 • The Human Drift

Siècle

1883 • Le Vingtième

Illustration by Juri Agostinelli

Metropolis • 1927

Cénotaphe à Newton • 1784

Panopticon • 1787

de Bougainville

au voyage

Supplément • 1772

There Was One

A Dream If Ever

The Year 2440: • 1771

New Atlantis • 1627

Utopia • 1516

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Qualityland • 2017

Blade Runner 2049 • 2017

The Matrix • 1999

Celebration • 1994

Brazil • 1985

The Handmaid's Tale • 1985

Espaces d'abraxas • 1983

A Clockwork Orange • 1971

Instant City Airships • 1970

Arcosanti • 1970

Monument

The Continuous • 1969

No-Stop City • 1969

Odyssey

2001: A Space • 1968

2013 • Her

2004 • I, Robot

1982 • Blade Runner

1979 • Mad Max

1973 • Crash

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Cracks The Italian town Gibellina was struck by an earthquake in 1968. The ruins were sealed in concrete and a new Gibellina was built 18 kilometers away from the site: A utopian project that did not cater to the needs of the people; it resulted in a near-ghost town. In a desperate attempt to revive the town,s heartbeat, mayor Ludovico Corrao initiated several art projects. Did Gibellina make it?

CHIARA DORBOLĂ’

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Illustration: Chiara Dorbolò

The town of Gibellina was destroyed by an earthquake in 1968.

Returning to the ruins would have been unsafe, thus the entire town was relocated.

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“Floating cities let us rethink how we build, live and work” By 2050, ninety per cent of the world’s megacities will be affected by rising sea levels. Bjarke Ingels Group is working on a solution: Oceanix City is a floating constellation of platforms, designed to form a sustainable and self-reliant city on the sea. It sounds utopian. What convinced the United Nations to support this project?

INTERVIEW: TANJA GALLENMÜLLER

topos: Is it possible to build such a structure today, or how long do you expect will it take to realize the first Oceanix City project?

GOLDWEIT: What is great about this project is that prototypes of it already exist today. There are fishing villages in Vietnam and China, houseboat communities in Sausalito, California, and floating communities in the Netherlands. Urban Rigger, one of BIG’s student housing projects in Denmark is made of prefabricated units that float on a concrete pontoon. We already have all these different examples of floating structures all over the world. The difference between them and our project is that we aren’t simply creating one floating building or a cluster of floating homes, but instead, we are creating an entire city. So, returning to your question about what the timeline is: The technology already exists – so it could happen today!

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Aerial visualisation: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group

topos: Looking at the images and reading about Oceanix City as the world’s first resilient and sustainable floating community – resistant to storms, floods, earthquakes, self-sustaining, zero-waste and car-free – it seems like the perfect solution for responding to climate change, rising sea levels and the world’s growing population. But for me, it still sounds utopian...

ALANA GOLDWEIT: Oceanix City is a project that responds to the very real challenges that coastal cities are faced with today. Nearly 50 per cent of the world’s population live in coastal cities and this number is growing rapidly.

In particular, 90 per cent of the world’s largest cities will be exposed to rising sea levels. The world needs solutions to these unique and inevitable challenges. This project is really a bold step forward, aimed at a more resilient future. Floating cities offer a totally new opportunity to rethink how we build, how we live and how we work. What we realized is that such sustainable initiatives are already taking place, all around the world: There are cities that are looking into preserving fresh water, flood resiliency, and relying solely on solar energy. While these initiatives are being implemented as isolated solutions, sustainable floating cities let us think about how to create a truly sustainable project that embraces all these different initiatives for food, water, energy and waste, all in one place. It’s quite unique to start without any existing infrastructure, to actually build a city from the ground up, or in this case, from the water up. From that perspective, the project is utopian, but after all, our intention is to create an ideal world where sustainable living is embraced.

FACTS & FIG URES CLIENT: Oceanix ARCHITECTS: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group PARTNERS-IN-CHARGE: Bjarke Ingels, Daniel Sundlin PROJECT LEADERS: Alana Goldweit, Jeremy Alain Siegel COLLABORATORS: MIT Center for Ocean Engineering,

Mobility in Chain, Sherwood Design Engineers, Center for Zero Waste Design, Transsolar KlimaEngineering, Global Coral Reef Alliance, Studio Other Spaces (Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann), Dickson Despommier

Located in calm, sheltered waters near coastal megacities, Oceanix City is supposed to be an adaptable, sustainable, scalable and affordable solution for human life on the ocean surface.

Perhaps a utopia?

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May AI be Autonomous cars, self-driving trucks, driverless buses, flying drone taxis – ten to twenty years ago this type of mobility was associated with movies like Blade Runner or Star Wars. It was utopia, and not reality. Today we find ourselves and our cities in the middle of a digital transformation. All thanks to AI, Artificial Intelligence, which is progressively changing our surroundings. AI may frighten us to a certain extent, but it can also be a great opportunity, especially for mobility within our cities.

ANTHONY ELLIOTT

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All illustrations: Elisabeth Moch

For this copy of topos magazine one of the editorial teams' favourite illustrators, Elisabeth Moch, designed a potential AI-driven utopia for us.

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Utopia

In response to the devastation of Milan caused by the plague, Leonardo da Vinci began with his sketches of an "ideal city". In his architectural work he combined his extensive knowledge of art, mathematics and engineering.

All images: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Foto

The da Vinci The Renaissance has shown that creative, unconventional ideas and plans have arisen as a result of necessity. Leonardo da Vinci was one of those who developed ideas for the “ideal city� to solve urban problems of his era. In times of climate crisis, his sketches and ideas are still relevant today, as he designed urban concepts that are efficient and ecologically and socially sustainable. The unconventionality of da Vinci, who is celebrating his 500th anniversary this year, is more in demand than ever.

ALESSANDRO MELIS AND CLAIRE COULTER

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