Postcards from a Dystopic Utopia
Project Scope: Illustration
Completion Date: 04.2021
Project Type: Conceptual Architecture
The world is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction due to anthropogenic changes to the earth’s climate. We face certain ecological collapse if the industrialized world does not drastically change the way that we live and operate. Postcards from a Dystopic Utopia begins here. The project explores how the narrative of progress has shaped the world we live in today and considers how it might influence humanity’s everyday reality moving forward. Through four illustrations, Postcards from a Dystopic Utopia imagines the eventual state of the world as a result of the pursuit of progress. The drawings propose a utopian civilization that exists within a dystopian setting that is geared towards constant technological progress.
The Sunken City
As the earth’s average global temperatures increased, all of the ice in the polar regions disappeared. The result was a gradual increase of sea levels by over 70 meters. This caused coastal regions across the globe to flood, leaving billions displaced and homeless.
Industry Removal
After the anthropocene, the earth was left riddled with industrial remains. As part of the project to rehabilitate the planet, many of these industrial ruins are being dismantled to make way for net-positive interventions.
Carbon Sequestering
Machinery is being installed around the world to help sequester carbon and methane. This piece of machinery is modeled off of Climework’s direct air capture facilities that exists in 2021. This technology removes carbon from the air and condenses it into rock forms which are then buried underground.
Eco-Tourism
The second illustration from the postcards collection is titled Eco-Tourism. The people of the post-anthropocene era are encouraged to visit Earth for vacation and to learn about the destructive waste cycles that annihilated life on Earth. Visitor numbers are closely monitored as to not interfere with rehabilitation efforts. During their trip, tourists can partake in educational activities such as skiing through industrial ruins!
Mining Buildings
Buildings that are still intact are mined in order to be transfered into the sky cities.
The Sky Cities
The third drawing, Sky Cities, takes a peek inside one of the sky colonies. A large geodesic dome protects each city from UV rays, while also helping to regulate its interior systems. Everything within each city is controlled by a real-time operating system that responds to each citizen’s comfort and health needs! Individual travel pods are the main method of transportation and the cities are multi-tiered to achieve maximum density!
Evolutionary Impacts
Homo sapiens were severely affected by the effects of the climate catastrophe. Constant exposure to toxic chemicals resulted in a gene mutation that causes blue-coloured skin!
The Oxygen Farm
The fourth and final illustration is The Oxygen Farm. This drawing dives into the systems that support the sky cities and introduces the technologies that they rely on. Each sky city has an oxygen farm which supplies air for the inhabitants and which doubles as a biodome for people to visit and explore! There is a diverse range of flora and fungi within the biodome as well as insects and small fauna. This allows the oxygen farm’s biodome to be a healthy and self-regulating micro ecosystem!
Electrolysis Machine
The electrolysis machinery that is used in the oxygen farm is modeled off the devices that supply oxygen on twenty-first century spacecraft! Electrolysis is a process which uses an electrical current to break apart water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen molecules.
