: A GUIDE TO SURVIVING SUSTAINABLY AFTER EARTHS DEMISE

BY RAPHAELA NICOLETTIS U191N0425

With every awakening of millennia, the elements of the earth are the only things to survive the past. The deterioration of our planet is something that people have been dealing with globally as a common threat. As we stand idly by watching our planet heat up, one tends to wonder what the future will bring. One can look no further than the projection of Arrakis, a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert and Screenplay by Denis Villeneuve et al. I imagine the trilogy as an alternate possibility of what could happen to our home, our planet, if we continue on the path of destruction and climate change. In a reality not so far from the one of our own, Dune’s opening scene features the sun, sand and wind having overcome their planet ,leaving the locals and Empire with nothing but the hope of technology protecting them, brutalist architecture and embracing the very thing that might kill them all, the natural elements of their world. welcome to Arrakis.

The deterioration of our planet begins with loosing simple needs, such as water and gaining too much natural resource such as the sun. Too little water and too much sun is a difficult combination for survival. The greenery of our planet will deteriorate too without sufficient water and too much sunlight. This starts a chain reaction which equates to us not only loosing greenery, but ecosystems, non renewable resources and finally the demise of us all. If this becomes a reality for us earthlings, one must look no further than DUNE, and how they responded to climate change, the loss of water and greenery, as well as excess sunlight ( the beginning of the demise). The solution lies within sustainability, and how we choose to survive with the materials that remain, efficiently use them and finally recycling them for a closed loop system.Sustainability in architecture is not something we should take lightly. Looking more specifically at Dune, I want to introduce the concept of surviving climate change, adding a positive twist on something that normally brings anxiety. For our future, we rely heavily on greening architecture, however Herbert displays a future with only 20 palm trees, for whole a functional civilisation ! There is also limited resources that are necessities to humans such as water. the city of Arrakis embraces technology to allow humans to live in such habitats. I will discuss how eco technology is honed and how the complexity of hitech and low-tech architecture can be seen with a brutalist twist. We are looking at the next generation of green, sustainable pluralism if you may, diving deeply in the environment, survival methods, clever usage and building technologies of architecture to utilise natural resources and the concept of desert power !

Arrakis is a basis of a new global landscape of green architecture. in a dystopian outcome, it allows us, the viewer, to get swept away in dust storms, hurled into the deep deserts to find water and then brought back to life in a city of brutalism to avoid the scorching hot sun. I will journey us into becoming a local, a Fremen, to cleverly work with the elements, such as the sun, integrating it into the buildings, utilising futuristic technology to convert sweat into drinkable water and the political corruption which holds back civilisations. A key concept that is utilised in dune is the notion of survival. sustainability as ‘survival’ means that we accept scarcity of resources, a form of irreversible climate change while also accepting that keeping our human environment viable is a necessity. We now accept a reality of surviving with what we have left. The weaving theme of future sustainability is survival. The survival of architecture(Shelter), physical attributes of humans(technology resources) and environmental exploitation(climate and natural resources). They all exist it tandem with each other growing at different rates. Each of the three types of survival will integrate the concepts of sustainable pluralisms as well as eco technologies, and their very own version of what “greening the future” looks like, without actual greenery.

Architecturally speaking, as we land on Arrakis we are immediately introduced to the city itself , “a huge concrete fortress” (Hart,2022), a desolate city , with a thick layer of sand covering. This architecture has been derived from an eclectic mix of Egypt, Mesopotamia’s ziggurat architecture, from Aztec architecture and from World War II bunkers. This is a thought of combinational outcome coming from specific sandy areas and places of war. This design responds directly to the reality of the weather conditions and the landscape, a shelter is created - the angularity of the building allows the wind to sweep over it at 750km/h - which directly responds to a climatic change in the environment. This is a beautiful example of eco technologies, due to the fact that the architects used preconceived ideas from the past , and sustainable solutions that have been used for millennia with just technologically enhancing them to match the new futuristic standard. Some shelters found within the community are elevated off the ground to create big shady areas which allow people to operate outside for longer periods of time in the shade, brilliantly. Looking into the living quarters of the royals, one can see that its mostly brutalist architecture- however the way they have utilised the light is very interesting. All rooms only have a window streak of light entering while the rest of the building is sealed off - they use the vertical and horizontal lines harshly to maximise light during all times of day, but not to burn or overheat the inside of the building - they utilise the climate by working with the “wet bulb”(Dvorsky,2021) , so if the building sweats, they utilise the water for cooling - and the same apples with their suits.

On the contrary, we dig a little deeper to the local mindset of the Fremen. The Fremen live underground in shelter caverns, they call it the Sietch - a community of village within the mountains or rock outcrops - one can now connect sustainable pluralism, using biomimicry. The Fremen utilised the natural paths or outlined nature to build their civilisation - one must look no further than how an ant builds their networks of tunnels and caves - water reclamation facilities, small scale farming, power supply and food processing could all be commonly found to sustain the Fremen- in todays day and age, we would call this low tech sustainable methods. The utilisation of landscape urbanism , hitech and low-tech sustainable methods as well as heating and cooling can be seen in the most extreme conditions in Dune which is fairly impressive- the future of technology also allows these concepts to come to life and make it seem more liveable for humans. One can analyse a distinction between the two categories of people that live on the planet and the different ways that they deal with survival seen through the different architectures and ways to provide shelter. The Fremen , who are the locals utilise local solutions embracing the sand , living in the natural terrain underground and adapting to the hunting lifestyle, whereas the other category is formed by colonialists that impose a brutalist and monumental architectural approach that implies a false abundance of resources . It can also be seen as a metaphor of their power over the environment. The categories show the true ethos of the empire and the fremen, and who truly cares about surviving with sustainable solutions or surviving to dominate and control the power, which is seen as more robotic, the empire can be compared to a world in which technology is using humans as a opposed to humans using technology like the fremens.

If one focuses more on a human level of survival, looking at resources and technology, one must look no further than Stilsuits- an ecotechnology created by the Fremen , a highly efficient filtration system that cools the body and recycles water lost to sweat. This resource is revolutionary as the body’s movements power the suit itself and allows you to drink the recycled water. This is a very impressive notch in this futuristic fantasy of resources, as it can also be applied to architecture itself within shelters - Dune gives an example of a stiltent- a tent that can keep you safe from the sand, that can be buried by the sandstorms and convert sweat and tears of humans into drinking water, as well as the inflected weather conditions on the tent itself. This is a smart eco technology which relies on the climate of their planet combined with futuristic technology, which in fact could become our reality one day on earth, which can be considered as hopeful survival. Other smart technological resources designed as sustainable pluralism practises are sand compactors - it sends out a natural vibrational pulse through the desert to confuse the Sandworms and guide them elsewhere - this naturally changes the terrain of the desserts and uses the mimicry of natural vibrations of footsteps shifting the desert itself. When humans follow nature and its natural path in Arrakis, it could protect or save a life. This seems to be a recurring theme even on earth, allow nature to take the lead and follow in its path to sustain or survive- with a little addition of future technology we just might be able to get through climate change with resources, shelter and using the climate to our advantage.

Lastly, we must analyse the agricultural terrain of Arrakis and the Environmental exploitation that followed. Arrakis has a deep rooted terrain, it has a subsaharan sand climate with verbena and incense bush thriving. This is what you would call a nutrient poor landscape. However one can find inbeded in the sands of Arrakis, the spice Melange. “The spice” is primarily known as a entheogen - it helps navigate humans in between the stars for interstellar missions. It is the most valuable substance in the universe. It unlocks prescience , cognitive thinking, ability of heightened awareness and precognitive / genetic memory. The technology used to harvest it is called a spice harvester, also known as a crawler. “It was dropped by carrier ships (known as carryalls) onto spice fields. These machines would then harvest and process the spice off the top of the desert floor.”((schoenherr,1964). These machines are a futuristic take on harvesting machines. They are what you would call eco technologies. They “crawl” a little like how a Sandworm crawls, which gives homage to biomimicry copying the natural sift of the the spice. If one looks more into the environmental exploitation —spice represents a key feature of world-building that assists in tying the threads together and driving through to viewers the ecological message about the interconnectedness of life and exploitation of a resource, which echos in todays day and age, playing a huge roll in the battle of climate change. “Being grounded in real-world historical and social contexts such as the historic spice trade, Middle Eastern conflicts over oil, the 1960s drug culture, spice aids in the world-building process by enabling viewers to immerse themselves in a world that resembles their own but contains humans who have pushed their potential to extraordinary heights through consumption of this precious substance.” (Kennedy,2021) Spice showcases the consequences of addiction and political actions taken to safeguard its continued production. In addition, as a driving force for the narrative, spice helps illuminate the principles of ecology and interconnectedness that underpin the film. Seeing first hand how humans have navigated using and distributing limited special resources, the film sends an ecological message of environmental awareness and a projection of what will happen in the future.

In conclusion, we are barreling toward a future in which survival and sustainability go hand in hand for the futuristic world that is coming. A world of climate deterioration and change. Dune has served as a guide to the apocalypse of climate change and how to deal with the repercussions, showing perfect examples of shelter, technological resources and usage of climate/ natural resources infused with eco technologies and sustainable pluralism. Some eco-technologies found on dune that put this into practise, were seen in two particular categories. The Empire and the Fremen. We saw that the Empire decided to proceed in a brutalist way of closing off nature and creating their own cityscape as one big shelter using eco technologies mostly while prioritising power over the well-being of others. Their resources only consisted of tehcnology for most of the light while completely disregarding natural resources. They blocked out the climate with architecture of concrete and made a wall around their community away from the dunes while trying to preserve 20 palm trees, prioritised over humans.The fremen utilised sustainable pluralism more in the sense of biomimicry , working with nature rather than against it and using low-tech architecture and technology to sustain theirselves. This was seen through the shelters they utilised underground the sand dunes, the sietch and caves. This was soon through technological resources such as stilsuits and stiltents and also how they work with the climate embracing the heat, sun and desert. The Empire used environmental exploitation rather than harnessing the environment, which will lead to the demise of their civilisation while the Fremen will continue to live on and eventually take back control. All in all , once we accept survival sustainability, one needs to practise the way the Fremen live, otherwise the demise of humans and the planet, will be here quicker than anticipated. FIN.