Other Cities, Future Artefacts What will the future of cities look like, not the buildings and the streets, but the way we live in them? Whittled down from over 100 stories of our imagined far-futures we present 3 of the most compelling narratives. Grouped under the term of Other Cities we imagine how we will live in a world governed by data and our access to it; in a world where antibiotics no longer work and nuclear wastelands reaching their half-life are treated as nature reserves. Within are the original newspaper stories and speculative timelines for three cities. Then the stories, artefacts and images of those cities, so that we can begin to touch and imagine how these futures, some inevitable, others less so, might feel.
Like most problems in design and architecture, [planning for an event] is a problem in true speculation. You must relive the act before and evaluate many possible courses of action. Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report 1953
Near (- 20 years) The Data Cities
Server heat creates thermal tourism
Weather prediction needs server power, new economy.
Cities After Antibiotics
Change in social behaviour around how humans interact
Obsessive quantified health behaviour - taking prevention to the extreme
Chernobyl A Habitable City Again
Booking tours
Mainstream tour packages
Mid
Family house price Heat produ wars move from being by servers collec about schools to and piped to a pl people wanting to live of requiremen close to servers Servers as important as toilets in homes
Data dump l manageme introduced
Antibiotics no longer effective
Antibiotic a clean bloo black mark
Rise in anti bacterials as cosmetics
Homeopath resources
Active potent body monitoring - apps/services/ clinics
Tour guides volunteering as End Of Life mechanism
Gift pack
Inheritance process evolv
Emergence of radiation bravado amon the young
Radiation z app - clock in zoen - be for medici
ddle (~50 years)
uce cted lace nt
Development of settlements around data centres (like around water bodies)
law ent d
Data storage systems as physical building blocks as a substitute for cement. RCC etc. The building stores data
and od ket
New architecture house forms pyramids/ventilated/ health focused
hy s
e ves
e n ng
zone k hrs eep ine
Non-surgical toolkit for proving health
Building designs slowly encrouging on blast zone. New Architecture The Chernobyl arts show / fashion show top of the charts
Distant ( 100+ years) Server aesthetics common place
Personal home server stack as central to the home as a stove ot TV
Religious fervour increases Focus shifts to living happy, short lives
New World Boundaries defined by data access Servers become the new aga
People live in heavily controlled environments (homes/estates/ buildings less rich with poor
Marijuana will be the cure in the true sense
Last safehaven from a largely poluted landscape What’s the food menu at chernobyl spa
Chernobyl becomes centre for emergent biodiversity after being declared safe for 100 years The Chernobyl preservation business plan
Salekhard, Data City It might be hard to image that the port town of the land the servers are Salekhard, with its reputation for loose morals and on is still running, though a booming leisure economy, was until early 2020, events over the past few unremarkable in the Siberian history of fishing, years have taken some small industry and long, cold winters. Situated a mile of the impetus from south of the Polar circle and with a population of that fight as finance has just over 40,000 people, it was relatively invisible on begun leaving Salekhard. the world scale. It’s story really began in 2022 when As predicted by many, a consortium of hardware providers called Western the data cities of the Alliance, lead by Dell and Hewlett Packard, selected it future would be run on as a prime site for a data centre that the largest ever satellite transfers and conceived and on almost unprecedented scale. It’s lag times way in advance location might on first view seem unusual, but was of the cable technologies appropriate to both exposed-motherboard cooling built into the polar cities. technology of the time and potential for renewable Satellite transfer speeds energy sources. As data latency between Asia, most lead to orbital data notably the Chinesse and booming Korean digital centres, optical transfer economies, became more significant, suddenly speeds and optimum location meant everything in the processing economy. satellite positioning The true significance was really felt when, becoming the new on building completion, Bloomberg were announced financial science. The as one of Western Alliances flagship tenants. The servers of Salekhard financial giant had designs on sitting at the heart of needed new users. the pan-Asian financial markets. In the ensuing latency So what arms race Thomson Reuters quickly realised that in now in 2044? The algorithmic trading it servers aren’t going wasn’t just a question of anywhere and with a population of nearly a million where the servers were, it’s a city looking for a new calling. Throughout the latency meant companies 30’s, during the data race, the line between server also needed proximity. and city became blurred, as corporations loomed They moved their head both over and into the narrow server corridors, a new office to Salekhard and urbanity was made where server and civic coexisted. made it the finical capital Corporates vied for the shortest link between of the Eurasian land mass. operations and the servers crunching the multitudes For the next 20 of data. The distance between office and server was years, money flooded measured in millimetres. Data hackers sought new through Salekhard and ways to increase latency of their rivals and companies the polar circle became a who specialised in office networks and direct linenew data fault line, with data boomed. Now sat alongside the smaller scale a number of imitation financial organisations, Salekhard looks like becoming data cities emerging. A the E-Sport city, a digital Vegas. Whatever you’re into, long standing political you can play lag free. From new year all E-Sport world battle over ownership of championships are being played in Salekhard….
Salekhard, Data City Objects common to the late 40’s in the hacking and gaming culture of post financial boom Salekhard
i. Data Sabotage Object 1 These two objects are hacking devices used to increase latency of rivals’ data transfer.
ii. Data Sabotage Object 2 The first object uses an increase bend and distance, that data has to cover, to work. The second uses a PTE splice. Both are designed to allow work to continue.
iii. Network Quality Tester This data analysis is used by gamers at all times to find transfer speed sweet spots.
some time been on the radar for development, but it has been a surprise to many that residency has been applied for so far in advance of the estimated possibility to resettle. Commentators have dismissed nostalgia and the idea of living in a monument, interest in Chernobyl as a heritage site waned years ago. The Chernobyl, The First Settlers new breed are coming Following the submission last week of the first for a way of life. The planning permission application for a residential eco system is unique, dwelling at Chernobyl, nearly a century before it’s with some specices thought to become habitable, a look at why someone rarely seen outside this might plan to set up home here. northern corner of the In the early part of the 21st century Chernoybl Ukraine. With increasing became a site of fascination for dark tourism and crowding in the west an increasing sense of mythology built around the and an ever decreasing blast zone. Early tourist were drawn by the scenes biodiversity around most of abandonment and the stories of the still affected urban hubs, Chernobyl community. Chernobyl represents a chance to represented a snapshot live in in an unspoilt environment. So even with unsafe in time. A growing tourism levels of radiation and the core contained within a industry emerged and by Sarcophagus people are making concessions to live the middle of the century amongst nature... the Chernobyl exclusion zone became a UNESCO site. Infrastructure, previously limited to the road network extended to a direct train link between Chernobyl and the Ukrainian capital. Nearly 400yrs after the explosion, with interest in the disaster waning, what are the new citizens of Chernobyl coming for? The previously deserted Pripyat had for
Chernobyl, The First Settlers Objects typical of the current planning permissions process and the office in Prikpyat.
i. City Stamp The stamp used to confirm or deny applications.
ii. Rejected application This object has risen to prominence in the late date immigration of the past few years.
iii. Town plan This object has risen to prominence in the late date immigration of the past few years.
Los Angeles, After the Crash Today the new Capsule Transit system opened in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s been heralded as the first germ free transit network in the world. The CT system is certainly the first to be built with sterilisation at its core with incendiary hygiene and Ultraviolet irradiation sterilisers. The structure of the system most closely resemble a cable car, with carriages hung at even intervals like slender cocoons. This first line, opening today, closely follows the old no.10 bus route, from Downtown LA up through to West Hollywood, though two more are planned this year. The patented hygiene system works using smart carriages which register a passenger entering or exiting through pressure pads (and other sensors). On arrival at a new station, as a car is vacated, it is highlighted for sterilisation. Each station is fitted with a sterilisation unit where any vacated pod can pass through edgeless design. The and be treated before city is now terraformed pulling up to the entirely by health and safety. In separate departures the restaurants, even of platform where waiting Melrose Ave and Wilshire passengers can board Blvd, only the elite or germ free pods. hardy few still serve meat. The licensing and risk Since 2019 and associated with serving even the best quality cuts the antibiotics crash, represents a gamble only a few are prepared to take. when the world realised However perhaps the most interesting cultural antibiotics were no longer change to have been written into the city is the coded controlling the spread of bacterial tattoo system. Though not currently legally disease, Los Angeles has enforced, small communities are forming around been at the forefront of the biological transparency it encourages. Now both implementing anti-germ citizens and machines can read, at a glance, the technologies, from this infection history of anyone tattooed. Some bars now new capsule network, only serve people publicly displaying their ‘sign’. Last through to early enforced week a story emerged of a woman who, under pressure blood testing and the new from her friends to conform, got one. Following the all anti-migration laws. clear from a pre tattoo blood test, she got her sign, As the city and the including data points for all the latest diseases (all world adapt to this multi official tattooists get pushed updates daily). That day threat pandemic, we’re non-typhoidal Salmonella had been added to the list increasingly seeing a of diseases no longer controllable by antibiotics and new architecture emerge within a week the related tattoo cube had changed and that is nowhere from the dull-grey of neutral to a turquoise green. She more evident than in committed suicide 2 days later. the CT system. It’s single That was a shocking case, and for many the piece aluminium shell pro’s of communicate health are seen to far out way and seamless electronic the cons, but there’s no doubt we need to question the integration reflect the culture of transparency that has for so long been at global obsession with the heart of the anti-germ legislation….
Los Angeles, After the Crash Infrastructure and transparent health marking tattoos typical of LA in the 30s and 40s.
i. Capsule Transit Network The recently opened CT network has sterilization built in at every platform
ii. Biometric Tattoo (celtic) These tattoos are unique to each user, but contain reactive ink, and immediately convey illness.
iii. Biometric Tattoo (geometric) Tattoo designs are often done through an online design. The common element is the 5x5 point grid.
Made at Unbox Labs in Ahmedabad India, 25th Feb - 7th Mar
Other Cities, Future Artefacts made by: Ayaz B Ben Barker Ben Eaton Carlo Zapfino Cassie Robinson Dan Watson Patrick Stevenson-Keeting Sara Anand