[HN Gopher] The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect
___________________________________________________________________
The Imaginarium of a Solarpunk Architect
Author : emsimot
Score : 184 points
Date : 2021-07-18 10:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.messynessychic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.messynessychic.com)
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| Very cool, but I don't want to dwell on all the bugs one would
| swallow cycling through one of these cities.
| naravara wrote:
| I'd actually have to imagine the bug count wouldn't be that
| much worse than a typical city, replete with flies and
| mosquitoes from the abundance of humans and human food waste to
| feed on.
|
| If anything the bug problem might be slightly improved since
| the ecology would be friendlier to things that eat bugs, such
| as frogs, lizards, and bats.
|
| Of course, then you've got the problem of frogs and lizards
| getting into your house. And, ultimately, things that like to
| eat frogs and lizards, like snakes.
| mellavora wrote:
| Bolivian tree lizard cleanup plan
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9yruQM1ggc
| mellavora wrote:
| I used to get a lot of bugs on my windshield driving through
| Germany. That stopped in 2014. No more bugs.
|
| Bug populations are down 80%, anything we do to help them is
| needed.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Did you happen to buy a new car? Cars are a lot more
| aerodynamic now.
|
| I recently drove an old van through the countryside and had
| to spend 20 minutes washing off insect bits afterwards, like
| in the good old days...
| Majestic121 wrote:
| That seems like a small cost to pay to live in such harmonious
| places.
| asmxyz wrote:
| If you're swallowing bugs while cycling that means you're
| probably mouth breathing. It's pretty challenging to convert to
| strict nasal breathing, but it's worth it and a side benefit is
| bugs aren't a big deal if you're wearing something on your
| eyes.
| andai wrote:
| In case people thought mouthbreather is just an insult, it
| can cause serious medical problems and even change the
| structure of your face. There are videos about it on the
| internet, with dramatic before and after photos (in both
| directions).
| jeltz wrote:
| Or it may just mean he is cycling fast. It is only when
| cycling st a relatively comfortable pace that you can get
| enough oxygen through only your nose.
| fredsir wrote:
| Bugs are not really problem if they have amble places to live
| and gather nutrition and so on.
|
| We have a wild garden, and people often ask if there are not
| bugs everywhere, and tell us they like grass to keep the bugs
| away. Well quite contrary - our findings are, that in our wild
| garden, bugs are around the plants, in the plants, but they are
| not are problem in the spaces we have created for ourself at
| all. I think people have misunderstood why insect swarm.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Some of the structures in Singapore(Supertree Grove) feel like a
| step towards this! Although I don't think they are fully there, I
| would be absolutely thrilled to see more architecture and design
| like that.
| aaaxyz wrote:
| The building the Supertree Grove sits on was designed by Moshe
| Safdie. A lot of his works feature similar green and open
| spaces (jewel changi airport, eling park)
| motohagiography wrote:
| Solarpunk I suspect is more important that we know, because I
| think rich subcultures are the seeds of massive growth.
|
| It's just some funny drawings and internet fanfic twigging our
| sense of novelty on HN now, but when you see it as representing
| the desires and longings of young people for wilderness, and also
| know people who left cities in the last 10y, they were the thin
| edge of the wedge, where post-pandemic, younger people are
| leaving cities to get on the real estate ladder, with remote work
| and amazon-style supply chains, and they are family-inclined. It
| incorporates passive and renewable energy techs, argritech,
| biotech, cannabis-driven value added production, organic and
| small scale food production, brewing and distilling, civic minded
| prepping, local vs. global, etc.
|
| I'm interested in when solarpunk blips on the radar because to me
| it is an aesthetic that represents new growth.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| This comment moved me more than anything I've read on HN in
| years.
|
| The neo-utopian evolution of "dropping off the grid" into "mesh
| networked sustainable resilient community" is a vision and
| ethos I can get behind. There has been a lot of loose talk in
| my circles about Foundation-like ideas for surviving the coming
| dark years, which I think of as "cultural VPN"... this is a
| very compelling way to articulate some of those and inspire
| with it.
|
| Going to think about this in the mountains for a few weeks...
| Proven wrote:
| > I'm interested in when solarpunk blips on the radar because
| to me it is an aesthetic that represents new growth.
|
| Don't be confused by that - those are just pretty pictures. See
| what nynx said below.
|
| > because I think rich subcultures are the seeds of massive
| growth.
|
| I that's quite hard to quantify (even the statement itself -
| "rich subcultures") but it's safe to say that socialist
| subcultures don't produce much of anything.
|
| Look over time, over cultures (and subcultures) - their results
| have been consistent: misery and even starvation. But they've
| done really well in terms of controlling their CO2 output, if
| that's a plus in your book.
|
| (How come North Korea never gets any recognition for their
| fight against climate changes?)
| tomc1985 wrote:
| First of all, where is the 'punk' aspect? There needs to be an
| aspect of dystopia to use that word.
|
| This sort of organic-growth-everywhere aesthetic is not new, it
| has been in utopian urban visions for the last 20 or 30 years.
| Personally I think it started with SimCity 2000 arcologies, but
| I am probably wrong.
| taylorlapeyre wrote:
| > There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word
|
| I disagree, "punk" is not about dystopia, it's about
| rebelling against the status-quo. Solarpunk, at its core, is
| about rejecting our current way of life. That's where the
| punk comes from.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| But that rebellion is from a stimulus of some kind. It's a
| subculture in rebellion from disenfranchisement, war,
| fascism, or what-have-you. There is anger and lots of other
| negative emotions.
|
| This vision is too bland and perfect to be 'punk'. 'Avant
| garde' is a better term, since that is used to describe
| things 'rebelling' against the current aesthetic. 'Solavant
| Garde' doesn't have the same ring to it though.
| svantana wrote:
| The "what-have-you" in this case is the stronghold that
| capitalism and tragedy-of-the-commons has on urban
| society and our way of life. Of course, capitalism could
| produce such neigborhoods, at least on a small scale,
| simply because affluent folks will pay for it. But the
| ethos of solarpunk is to create these environments by
| taking matters into our own hands. Perhaps a decent
| analogy from the punk world is magazines versus fanzines.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| I don't know, that argument isn't super compelling. It
| kind of reminds me of that one marketer at SXSW a while
| back that wanted the whole conference hall to have "idea
| sex" as some weird way of framing brainstorming or
| innovating.
|
| Like if yall want to have your utopic fantasies then
| cool, but if you want to use the punk name there needs to
| be some raw grit
|
| Besides... light has no meaning without dark to contrast
| it
| svantana wrote:
| Your idea of what is punk sounds like the mass-marketing
| by malcolm mclaren. Consider a band like the Buzzcocks,
| all around friendly looking blokes but they pressed up
| their own 7" singles, that is the true spirit of punk.
| munificent wrote:
| _> There needs to be an aspect of dystopia to use that word._
|
| Hard disagree. I think "punk" has always been about an ethos
| that individuals are empowered to make change from the bottom
| up. The punk aesthetic stands between dystopian and utopian.
| The former says those in power have made everything horrible
| and there's nothing you can do about it. The latter says
| those in power make everything amazing so there's nothing you
| need to do. Punk says those in power made everything horrible
| but you can make things amazing.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I've never heard it put that way before, but I love it.
| Rings 100% true.
| mym1990 wrote:
| This is a wonderful take on the 3 states!
| gmueckl wrote:
| This is the first time I hear the term "solarpunk". So this seems
| to encompass visions of an optimistic future when exploitation of
| nature, pollution, climate change etc. And strikingly, looking up
| the definition made me feel an almost juvenile excitement about
| an idea again which I haven't experienced in a long time. That
| made me realize that most contemporary visions of the near(er)
| future seem so bleak and dreadful in comparison. But, if we paint
| our future as this thoroughly unattractive place, then what
| motivation remains to make progress?
| dbish wrote:
| I always consider myself a techno-optimist for this reason and
| wish there were more folks who look at the possibilities of
| tech that way. I'm very happy to see this new solarpunk idea
| that has aspects of techno-optimism taking 'root'
| parentheses wrote:
| I feel the same way. My SOs reaction to VR was so viscerally
| negative. Once I probed it was clearly driven by trends of
| dystopian futures.
| kamranjon wrote:
| I have the same reaction to VR, what is the optimistic non-
| dystopian view? I am generally curious because near complete
| human absorption in technology is what I see and it's hard
| for me to picture that in a positive light.
| inlikealamb wrote:
| I suppose an advanced version of VR could replace some
| amount of travel, which is a significant source of
| atmospheric pollution.
| npteljes wrote:
| It's hard to ignore the level of abuse it enables.
| beeandapenguin wrote:
| VR has given me a new sense of imagination and creativity,
| similar to what some might experience with 3D printing.
|
| Being able to perceive a digital space in three dimensions
| is a significantly different human-computer interface than
| a 2D screen. It feels like so much more is possible once
| you break into the extra dimension.
|
| From the outside, VR definitely has a dystopian look to it.
| But from the inside, it can give a sense of "creativity
| unlocked" once you start thinking about how to build
| immersive experiences. This liberating mindset, in some
| ways, is the _opposite_ of what it appears to be on the
| outside.
| kamranjon wrote:
| I guess for me the dystopian slant gets a bit steeper in
| the context of global warming and consumerism and the
| sort of head in the sand mentality that VR seems to
| project.
| neartheplain wrote:
| For me, VR has been a means to stay in touch with distant
| friends and family. It's not too different from traditional
| computer games + voice chat, but the extra level of
| immersion does increase the sense of connection. The lack
| of distraction in VR from e.g. smartphones, tabbed windows,
| or nearby things in the physical world all helps foster an
| increased level of engagement with other people/players in
| VR.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Looks to me like leprechaun-land. How cynical I have become.
|
| I agree with the sentiment though, just wonder if it would
| benefit from someone positing a middle-ground that would show a
| transitional approach. Perhaps some of the larger buildings
| (I'm thinking of the one with the fountain spilling down it)
| represent that.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Visionaries often focus on the end goals, not the path. This
| might be the easy way to excite people, I guess. Talking
| about a path there sounds too much like actually having to
| put in effort.
|
| I think I also have become quite cynical. Being confronted
| with these ideas made me aware of that in a startling way.
| clairity wrote:
| because of the moderate climate, california has a lot of flat
| roofs. i've long wondered why apartment builders here didn't
| just plop (and planners allowed) a single family home right
| on top with enough dirt to grow a lawn and a few plants (with
| parking put underground). it's the best of both worlds--
| apartments and single family homes (albeit above ground
| level) can co-exist everywhere. that'd be one such middle
| ground.
| guerrilla wrote:
| For more inspiration and positivity:
| https://solarpunkanarchists.com/
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Solarpunk is a cool concept. I saw it in 2067 (the movie -I
| haven't actually time-traveled).
| hiidrew wrote:
| Any open world games with this type of aesthetic? I would love to
| play.
|
| Recently read this on the topic, the artist in the post is great:
| https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/drawing-pictures-of-cities
| anthk wrote:
| Not open world but Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald had a city
| which could be accesed from an underwate route in order to
| emerge in a solarpunk styled "town.
| wrinkl3 wrote:
| There's currently a huge push online to make Solarpunk a thing,
| as a kind of an optimistic counterpart to Cyberpunk, but I'm
| skeptical about whether it can attain the same level of cultural
| traction as the other big *punks.
|
| Cyberpunk and steampunk both fetishize aesthetics from the past -
| 80's corporate Japan and the Victorian Britain, respectively, -
| there's a sort of nostalgic longing that keeps them culturally
| relevant. Solarpunk tries to fetishize sustainability in a
| similar way, but I'm not sure if there's enough foundation there
| to build onto.
| inlikealamb wrote:
| I would argue that cyberpunk is only nostalgic because not much
| has been done to modernize it or push the genre forward. It's
| simply nostalgic because it's aged... similar mid-century
| depictions of the future.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I guess the first step then is to build a wider foundation for
| sustainability! I feel like building closed loop systems well
| is extremely rewarding(think aquaponics) but it is also hard to
| scale...and in a world where everything seemingly gets pushed
| to be scaled, adoption is more in a hobby form.
| naravara wrote:
| Cyberpunk is an explicitly dystopian genre setting so I'm not
| sure "nostalgic longing" is how I would characterize it so much
| as searching for a kind of catharsis or fictionalized escape
| from the things about it people feel parallel their own lives.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Neither would I. If _Neuromancer_ wrote about 80 's Japan
| corporate culture it is because it was written in the 80's
| and tried to extrapolate that to the 21st Century.
|
| Cyberpunk has only become nostalgic lately.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Plowpunk anyone?
|
| I guess not.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| People already fetishize agriculture that eschews "best
| practices".
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Fetishize is a strong word, what's your objection?
| DerDangDerDang wrote:
| This article's main purpose seems to be to fill the gap you
| observe:
|
| " Perhaps you might have also picked up on one of the more
| discreet but omnipresent characteristics of Schuiten's work
| (and thus the Solarpunk aesthetic), which is his undeniable
| appreciation for Art Nouveau."
| tomc1985 wrote:
| They need to ditch the 'punk' word if it's not dystopic. Like
| have these people forgotten what it means to be a punk?
| goodpoint wrote:
| Given Wikipedia's definition Solarpunk fits squarely into the
| punk ethos:
|
| The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-
| conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-fascism, anti-
| corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-
| corporate greed, direct action and not "selling out".
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Which is weird because that is absolutely not the vibe that
| I am getting every time it comes up
| goodpoint wrote:
| Comes up on which media? Very often mainstream media like
| hollywood or video game industry love to coopt the
| aesthetic of a movement and water down its message.
|
| People often complain that the idea of cyberpunk is being
| turned from a protest against a dystopian future to a
| bland scifi style with fog and neon lights.
|
| Instead, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is an
| excellent example of solarpunk.
| prvc wrote:
| >There's currently a huge push online to make Solarpunk a thing
|
| Its proponents seem to be flogging the Green New Deal, or
| related policies, but is this spontaneous, done out of
| conviction, or is it more coordinated?
| VladimirGolovin wrote:
| I noticed the increased frequency of mentions, but who is
| pushing?
| q_andrew wrote:
| I find solarpunk really interesting. On one hand, it's the most
| "fresh" aesthetic of futurism we've seen since cyberpunk. On the
| other hand, most of this architecture isn't environmentally
| sustainable at all -- the massive amounts of water and energy it
| takes to keep trees alive on a rooftop is antithetical to an "eco
| city".
|
| The artists appear to be inspired by fad concept renderings for
| sky-garden towers that were never built:
|
| https://99percentinvisible.org/article/renderings-vs-reality...
| SquibblesRedux wrote:
| Replace trees with vines and place them mostly on the south
| side of the buildings and it may be viable. The trick would be
| engineering a renewable substrate for the vines to grow on.
| okareaman wrote:
| Solarpunk is a continuation and rediscovery of the Techno hippie
| movement that began in the Bay Area in the late 70's and early
| 80's. Apple Computer was part of it (while IBM was not.) This era
| is described fairly accurately in Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over
| By Machines of Loving Grace" (a reference to the Richard
| Brautigan poem) and John Markoff's excellent "What The Dormouse
| Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer
| Industry" Highly recommend them, even if Curtis does go a little
| off the deep end at times.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| "What the Dormouse Said" is very enlightening, I had never
| heard of psychedelics' influence on the professionals of the
| day, I think it's about time I read it again.
| okareaman wrote:
| Ken Kesey was responsible for starting a lot of it after he
| took LSD and part of CIA experiments at the Menlo Park
| Veterans Hospital and started doing "acid tests" with music
| by what became the Grateful Dead. There's are some good
| documentaries on YouTube about this.
|
| _"Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most
| important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's
| another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it
| wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what
| was important--creating great things instead of making money,
| putting things back into the stream of history and of human
| consciousness as much as I could."_
|
| -- Steve Jobs
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I removed a comment of mine saying Schuiten was a famous belgian
| comics drawer ("dessinateur de bande dessinee") and his style was
| kinda unique (and I love that style)... I removed it because I
| was thinking of Francois Schuiten, not Luc Schuiten.
|
| After some research it turns out apparently these two are
| brothers!
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| I love the solarpunk aesthetic, but hasn't Roger Dean been doing
| this since the 1970s?
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Roger+Dean+art&iar=images
| Majestic121 wrote:
| He seems to be from the same generation as Luc Schuiten from
| the article (both born in 44)
|
| The main difference would be that Dean forcused more on the
| art, while Schuiten focused more on the architecture part, but
| both seem pretty close indeed, and I would not be surprised if
| they knew each other
| lubujackson wrote:
| Connecting solarpunk to art nouveau is pretty insightful. I think
| any new movement like this pulls from some historical reference
| to frame the idea.
|
| Having visited Barcelona and seeing Gaudi's influence on the
| architecture there, I understand how a few notable buildings
| could actually influence the peoples' mindsets.
|
| There has been a ton of advancement in ecological solutions and
| biomimicry, but tying those changes to design that mirrors nature
| in an art nouveau way could translate the underlying complexity
| to something our lizard brains will understand at a glance - it
| is a powerful abstraction that ties together our innate desire
| for a safe corner of nature and our social desire for something
| new and cool.
| culebron21 wrote:
| The images in the article can be divided in two groups:
|
| * ideas from new urbanism to greenify the urban core with its
| dense streets, to make them a nicer place, which is a good idea.
| * the old modernist ideas of detached houses, now in "ecological"
| form, which is a total utopia, exactly as it was stated in the
| Athens Charter.
|
| They also seem to look like Frank Lloyd-Wright's words that
| "sometime people will live in an entirely rural landscape with
| houses 100 meters apart from each other and greenery and trees
| between them" (he hated cities quite a lot) (here's one of his
| houses, sometimes posted with a motivator text below:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=frank+lloyd+wright+waterfall+house...)
|
| The first part of these, is generally a good thing, but has to be
| done moderately. I see some images have curves and round forms,
| which is not a necessity, but rather an attempt to make a nicely
| looking bird view, which causes various inconveniences -- like
| park paths that are never walked by, or cut corners.
|
| Curved grass strips are especially a problem: if people walk over
| them, they have to be protected by fences, or by elevating them
| -- in this case it 1) will require artificial watering, 2) will
| produce side pockets, unusable for walking (but hopefully used
| for benches).
|
| Andres Duany said a lot about this in his lectures, and I can
| only sum it up as greenery in the city is needed, but has to be
| done cautiously and reassessed critically.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO3CaJtSfjg
|
| The other half of the images are mostly reshaped detached houses
| or modernist apartment blocks. Same Duany criticizes the detached
| house concept a lot -- it costs much, it makes people have tons
| of stuff, drive cars, live in isolated way, unlike the urban
| dwellers (I followed these ideas when buying apartment, and never
| regret -- I felt a lot better near a small city center, than
| before that living on the fringe.)
|
| The modernist concept of apartment blocks and large green spaces
| between them appeared as an answer to extremely dense cities of
| 19th century, which were hardly livable without our modern tech
| (tap water, sewer, central heating, electric light and active
| ventilation). The most promiment responses were Garden City
| Movement (basically, make towns not more than 60K ppl, put them
| at some distance with forests and fields between, and connect
| with railways), and Athens Charter (build cities of large
| apartment blocks standing apart from each other, no closed
| perimeter like in traditional cities, have greenery betwee, and
| make city blocks large to let cars go without intersections).
|
| The latter was widely implemented in the Socialist block from
| East Germany to Vladivostok, and failed in many ways.
|
| Jan Gehl saw this development in socio-democratic Denmark and
| criticized for 1) places devoid of any street retail and other
| local business, because streets are too wide, which made people
| commute or drive a car to city center to get services, and 2) de-
| socialization. In a large apartment block it's hard to meet and
| get along with neighbors for many purely physical and
| psychological reasons.
|
| The Human Scale documentary sums up Gehl's points:
| https://vimeo.com/458139267
|
| ------
|
| I read their manifesto that appeared earlier, and that's fine.
|
| The problem is with these pictures: to me they seem simply a
| fashionable landscape design with lots of trees, or detached
| houses with strange shapes. The former is just arts, and I don't
| see it reflecting any new thinking. The latter is new attempt at
| century-old failed ideas.
|
| What would I offer instead? High-speed commute rail in Germany,
| Netherlands and maybe Scandinavia, made Garden City ideas
| actually happen. You can work in a large city, but live an a town
| in 30 km (20 mi), commute in 40 minutes, but near your home you
| have both, all the great things of a city (cafes, services,
| meeting friends in the main street) and of countryside (10
| minutes to the city edge and hike or bike). Or you can have a
| business that is entirely in a small town but has easy access to
| large markets in big cities -- just 1 hour in train.
| jppope wrote:
| This is a beautiful reimagining of a different way to do cities.
| We need more of this in the world right now.
| ryanjamurphy wrote:
| This looks sleek, but isn't that a _lot_ of glass? I had read
| something recently (e.g., https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stop-
| building-glass-skyscrap...) suggesting that too much glass was
| bad for the environment.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| In order to build a better future, it's necessary first to
| imagine it.
| msluyter wrote:
| Apparently "solarpunk" is now the zietgiest. Here's another
| interesting one:
|
| https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/drawing-pictures-of-cities
| _Microft wrote:
| I think why solarpunk seems to come into vogue is that it is
| often displaying so much more livable and humane cities than we
| have right now. The same goes for its ornamental design that
| contrasts so much with the clinically sterile look of products
| and designs nowadays - especially the ones that are coming out
| of the Silicon Valley at the moment (UIs with grey-on-white
| designs and no embellishments, the look of voice assistent
| devices, speakers, watches, SpaceX' flight suits/launch towers,
| Cybertruck,...).
|
| PS: The spelling is actually "Zeitgeist" if you ever need to
| search for that (even though I would assume that search engines
| would deal with the typos just fine).
| twoquestions wrote:
| Most of the things in this article are deliberately avoided in
| cities these days. Sufficient seating, public transport, and
| walkable streets make things easier for poor/homeless/other
| untouchables, and making their lives worse is prioritized above
| making the space better.
|
| If we can fix that, we'd be well on our way to realizing better
| living spaces like the artist (among many others, myself
| included) dreams of.
| [deleted]
| nynx wrote:
| In many contexts, solarpunk is related to anarcho-communism and
| gift-economies. It can be difficult to see how a solarpunk-like
| society could sustainably grow directly out of our current
| economic system.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I think the seed for it lives in the open/free/libre source
| dream. If we can make it easy enough to produce what we need
| with open source tools then we don't need global capitalism.
|
| In many regards we're far from that dream but having a
| concretisation of what the end result could look like (and/or
| depictions of how to get there) in the shape of Solarpunk
| should help.
| npteljes wrote:
| I agree. It would be wonderful to build a world where
| everyone is provided a sustainable baseline of existence and
| opportunity with open source and free culture stuff.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-19 23:02 UTC)