Science fiction writers as early as the 30s of the last century dreamed of the life of a man of the future in unusual environments. Alexander Belyaev in his novel "Underwater Farmers" predicted with amazing accuracy the possibility of life at the bottom of the ocean - in the house he had invented, there were bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a transitional compartment for putting on diving suits for working on an underwater farm. And residential colonies on Mars and the Moon are so popular with science fiction writers that they are already perceived more as realities, and not fiction. And now fantasies begin to come true. No one is surprised by the incredible cities in Singapore, built on artificial islands, a city in a closed ecological environment of 100,000, built in the suburbs of Tokyo.
Helsinki was the first of its kind to implement the Open Ahjo project, which allows residents to have open access to the city's legislative system and thus monitor decision-making by the authorities in real time, as well as to participate and influence city processes, including through mobile application. Brazil has set standards for efficient and sustainable development of transport arteries and mass environmental awareness; and Korea, with its relentless concern for the environment, has built huge eco-parks on the site of reclaimed urban dumps, and today has already begun the construction of architectural structures that merge with the surrounding landscape into a single whole.
Undoubtedly, the imagination of modern architects and city planners is not limited by anything, and modern technologies provide an opportunity to embody the wildest fantasies. And why not, because the implementation of the most utopian dreams allows you to get new and very unusual methods of urban planning of the future already in the present.
Floating City Artisanopolis
For the fifth year now, the Sisteding Institute has been developing and is already very close to the implementation of the Artisanolopolis project - this is what the first independent floating city will be called. Energy - only from the sun and water, greenhouses for self-sufficiency with environmentally friendly vegetables and fruits, fresh water - from the actual desalination plant - in a word, complete independence in life support. Special structural protection against sea storms will ensure the resilience of the city on the water, and the lack of citizenship in the jurisdiction of any country means that Artisanolopolis is in fact a unique social, political and urban planning experiment.
According to a preliminary agreement between the government of French Polynesia and the Sisstading Institute, the construction of a floating island for millionaires will begin in 2019, and if everything goes according to plan, it will be poisoned on the maiden voyage with new settlers in 2020.
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Three colonies on Mars
The "Red Planet" has been attracting the eyes of earthlings for several centuries. For hundreds of years it has been examined and studied through telescopes. In the 20th century, several automatic devices landed on its surface and with their help the assumptions about huge reserves of minerals were confirmed. Mars has already begun to be seriously considered not only as a source of natural resources, but also as a "reserve" planet for the resettlement of earthlings in case of cataclysms on our planet. And since the Earth is threatened by overpopulation in the foreseeable future, the scientific, engineering and architectural searches in this direction are becoming more and more persistent every year.
The possibility of building habitable colonies on Mars has captivated many of the world's most talented enthusiasts that last year NASA received more than 165 projects through an announced competition.
The Lava Hive project, proposed by the team of the same name, suggests using the body of a spacecraft to create the skeleton of a dwelling for astronauts, and the use of additional inflatable modules and local soil (regolith) will provide an opportunity to live not only on the surface of Mars, but also under it.
Meanwhile, the Gamma team has created their own project of a modular dwelling, erected with the help of specially programmed semi-automatic robots that collect regolith, from which, in fact, it is supposed to create an outer, protective shell of the hull before the arrival of astronauts.
The designers themselves comment on their concept as follows: “The compact design of the living units with a total area of 93 square meters combines spatial efficiency with human physiology and the psychology of personal space. Common areas and living quarters with low-coercivity magnetic materials and recreated home furnishings will help mitigate the adverse effects of uniformity and monotony, creating a familiar living environment for astronauts."
The proposal from the winner of the Mars Ice House team is a large inflatable dome-shaped capsule, covered on the outside with several thick layers of ice using state-of-the-art 3D printing technology and a thin layer of regolith, a combination that will protect the pioneers from harmful solar and cosmic radiation.
The assimilation of the various environments and worlds around us that are now unsuitable for life today, when the best minds and modern technologies have been involved in creative and technical research, no longer seems at all an impossible fantasy.
Ocean Spiral underwater city
While NASA is working hard to figure out how we can ensure human survival on other planets, another group is eager to venture into the depths of the world's oceans.
Japanese architecture firm Shimizu is considering building a fully self-sustaining, environmentally friendly underwater city. They argue that we have yet to appreciate the benefits of life in the depths of the Earth, which hold great potential for ensuring a comfortable life and effective use of the wealth of the underwater biosphere.
The underwater city Ocean Spiral is a huge construction project that requires a gigantic investment - about $ 26 billion. This is how much the creation of a spherical structure with a diameter of five hundred meters, located below sea level, is estimated, inside which premises for business, residential and commercial areas will be located. This massive "house" will be anchored to the ocean floor with a giant spiral "anchor" fifteen kilometers long. The main task of this wonderful city will be the development and extraction of minerals from the seabed, combining industrial super-technologies and maximum comfort for residents.
OAS1S
But far from all the possibilities have been used for life on Earth. OAS1S offers its vision of a home of the future, where you can enjoy the lush greenery of the forest without leaving the city.
Eco-friendly green houses combine modern architecture and natural harmony. The peculiarity of such houses is not only that they look like trees, but also function like a living organism. Being energetically completely self-sufficient, they accumulate solar energy and water, saturate the air with oxygen, and also provide people with shelter and food. The buildings are made of recycled wood, the walls are equipped with high-quality insulation from organic materials, French windows with triple-glazed windows guarantee sound and thermal insulation, and the magnificent gardens that cover the facade of the building delight the eyes of tree dwellers.
Pilot projects of these "residential trees" are planned to be erected in eco-resort zones of Canadian Ontario, in order to confirm their effectiveness in practice and after that massively distribute them to other territories.
Nadezhda Prokopenko