New Babylon
= a city of automated structures that could continuously change in response to the environment and people's needs for space and desires for comfort (vision by Constant Nieuwenhuys)
Discussion
Eric Hunting:
"Unfortunately, though interested in architecture--and particularly obsessed with the New Babylon concept--all his life, Nieuwenhuys was more artist than architect and never able to illustrate New Babylon in a way that suggested anything that could actually be built in the present. It was more a philosophical construct than a physical construction, perhaps because he understood just how far in the future the technology necessary to realize it was. (just imagining the integral machine intelligence this was based on was a great cognitive leap for a time when computers were still gigantic things doing batch processing and storing most information on punch cards and paper tape)
Today the technology may still be rather far off unless in the context of modular structures that could function as both habitation and host for some collection of robots that can manipulate its structural components. But the recent concept of Programmable Matter along with different concepts of structurally-integral robotics seem to offer some possibility of achieving self-assembly with minimalist technology and high structural diversity long before the advent of things like nanotechnology. Designer Scott Howe's work in construction automation has been particularly interesting.
http://www.plugin-creations.com/us/ash/index.htm
Most of his work tends to have the aspect of a contemporary reinvention of '60s Japanese Metabolism with the benefit of robotics. (no surprise, many of his clients/sponsors have been Japanese corporations) Metabolism, which largely inspired the motif for late 20th SciFi depictions of future urbanism, was largely about the industrialization of architecture for the benefit the corporate developer--modularity to enable construction at ridiculous scales rather than to empower its inhabitants in any way. It very-much suffered from the technological gigantism that typified that era of Big Machine Futurism, inspiring the likes of Jacque Fresco and even Walt Disney. Today, in the wake of the now long-ago-popped Bubble economy, it is a collection of sadly deteriorating Modernist relics akin to the state follies of Soviet era Modernism. But Howe's Trigon concept, devised to explore the possibilities self-assembly in a space context, is something with a more contemporary sensibility, taking an approach of structure/habitat as automated system rather than a product of one. And what makes it especially interesting is it's potential for hobbyist/Maker experimentation that, surprisingly, still remains unexplored. It remains an open question, however, whether hardware of this complexity could be realized at a cost relative to module scale that could be considered practical in a more conventional context. At what scale of mass production would such modular elements need to be produced to be cost-effective for mainstream uses--as opposed to the use of a modest number of robots building 'passive' structures?
In TMP2 I speculated on the future of the human habitat in an era of robust nanotechnology and how such technology and structures might evolve. I've been strongly influenced by the '60s notions of futurist designer Rudolph Doernach. In an era typified by technological gigantism and modular concepts based on impractically gigantic modular elements, Doernach looked at the 'megastructure' in a radically different way--an organic creation. Much of his work--little of which made it into English language publication--was an exploration of natural building--the reliance on natural organic materials--and 'biotecture'; architecture grown through the cultivation of plants or in various ways hosting plant life or microbiomes. Long before concepts of nanotechnology became commonplace, he imagined the possibility of a future organismic polymer material that could be electronically communicated with and 'fed' organic material to self-replicate and grow as directed. He envisioned mobile marine settlements created from this material. Artificial floating islands grown at sea and seeded with plant life. Dwellings would be created from self-formed excavations, tunnels, and terraces in the island mass, largely hidden by the plant growth. These structures would be perpetually evolving with the life they hosted and the changing needs of inhabitants.
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080716221012/tmp2/images/d/d3/DoernachBiotectureSketches.jpg
In TMP2 I envisioned a future path of nanotechnology development culminating in a concept called NanoFoam; a self-fabricating intelligent material that becomes artifacts rather than fabricating them. NanoFoam would be an evolution of tank-based nanoassembler systems that seek means of portability and freedom of production scale through the creation of 'chrysalis' forms; micro-lattice structures enclosed in impermeable platelet 'skins' that serve as scaffolding for the support of things fabricated by assembler colonies inside them. Instead of employing a tank of fixed scale for the hermetic environment needed for nimble assemblers (in the ambient environment they would need to be armored against free radicals, which would impact them like land mines) the system would grow this skinned scaffolding as the project under fabrication was being produced, minimizing the volume of processing medium needed, then dismantle it from around the finished project. This could be particularly useful in the nanofabrication of very large items or for medical applications where the chrysalis could function in the manner of a cast. At a certain point it would be realized that the chrysalis itself makes the separate nanoproduction systems and their enclosures redundant, being durable enough to serve as a permanent enclosure and hosting the computing, communications, and other production subsystems as synthetic 'organelles' within the scaffold lattice. This would lead to use of the chrysalis as a functional item, changing its shape and internal features on demand to assume the function of things rather than making them. Thus NanoFoam would be realized.
I imagined this material eventually becoming the predominate medium of civilization as its ability to mimic various surface characteristics and incorporate diverse internal systems is progressively refined. Thus the planet Earth would become host to a pair of vast connected superstructures made of this material; a RhiZome which permeates the near-surface strata of the planet serving as a self-growing utilities infrastructure and biosphere symbiote and a BioZome growing out of this infrastructure as a network of self-formed urban habitats. Other planets and bodies in the solar system would be colonized in similar ways, RhiZomes seeded by NanoFoam spacecraft then growing BioZomes in anticipation of human settlement--though in space these BioZomes would be enclosed in nature.
The Post-Industrial culture imagined in TMP2 would be a stateless one, society dynamically organized into adhocracies defined by various shared interests and group projects. Most of the human habitat would be composed of a network of linear cities; urban structures that host and follow the path of a modest number of key high-volume high-speed transportation routes, reducing the physical footprint of the civilization to within a few kilometers of these paths so as to allow for the systematic restoration of the natural environment. This network would be interspersed with 'nodal arcologies'; more specialized and self-contained urban environments created by the more coherent adhocracies to host specific aesthetic/architectural themes or for specific purposes like universities, science research facilities, entertainment/recreation centers, and the like.
The BioZome would tend to be organized in a simple hierarchy supporting different scales of structure and different paces/intervals of evolution. The lowest level is the 'infrastructure' of the NanoFoam medium itself. Then there's the human scale or 'microstructure', where spaces for individual dwellings are freely created and rapidly customized for their inhabitants needs. Then there's the 'mezzostructure' which constitutes the environment of the local community of neighborhood and is subject to peer-organization depending on local needs and issues. Finally there's the 'macrostructure' which constitutes the larger structures of the urban landscape whose design is largely in response to the natural environment and the needs of infrastructure. Much of the BioZome would be left to procedural design and self-management employing machine intelligence and operating at the macrostructure level to create 'tectonic', generally organic and contour-terraced, architectural forms in mimicry of nature and in response to the more generalized needs of humans and the specific situation of surrounding natural landscape, environment, and climate. The mezzo and micro levels of structure would employ the most interaction with human beings, accommodating on-demand customization/personalization. The nodal arcologies, however, would be created by the active involvement of specific organized adhocracies and so would be the most deliberately designed from the macro level down. They may purposely seek to create architecture of a symbolic nature or in imitation of styles and cultures of the past or the appearance of certain materials keyed to their aesthetic approach. Marine settlements would also tend to be nodal arcologies, varying wildly in very deliberate design, though some may be very utilitarian in purpose, such as those hosting renewable energy collection through OTEC, hosting massive mariculture facilities, space centers, or 'downstations' for Space Elevator structures. Though remote wilderness living would be discouraged because of its environmental impact, the living density along the linear city megastructure would vary greatly with zones between denser areas hosting mostly farming activity and possibly providing a suburban or even rural aspect, even though still providing immediate, perhaps even door-to-door, access to high-speed intercontinental transit. There would be places even for the most misanthropic among us. And, of course, in this transhumanist future some people may prefer a lifestyle in the virtual habitat, technically becoming 'residents' of the RhiZome superstructure." (email November 2013)
More Information
Via Eric Hunting:
http://benandjess.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/nb0.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZSdKt4HowU4/TM5Z0VUyBzI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/1mId-8RcZ8E/s1600/pano+view.jpg
http://vladivostokfilmfestival.ru/media/upload/images/films/aaa4d2eb-2f6c-447c-8037-95605d1caf87.jpg
